The Jungle of rights: The legal consciousness of migrant children in transit in Calais

Abstract

This article aims to explore the legal consciousness of migrant children in transit at the France–UK border. Based on secondary analysis of legal measures to help ensure child protection, and on ethnographic fieldwork in Calais, this paper shows that the legal consciousness of migrant children is shaped by several factors such as their experience of migration, their previous interactions with public institutions in Europe, their living conditions in transit areas, the police's harassment strategy, the influence of migrant peers and by their own migration plans. We will show that these factors have a deep impact on the legal consciousness of unaccompanied minors and consequently on both their (non-)claim of protection and (non-)use of legal tools. By mobilizing biographical sets of data, we will also show that their legal consciousness results from the combination of these contextual factors with their individual experiences and sociological characteristics (education, origin, …). From a methodological point of view, this contribution provides evidence of the importance of adopting a child-centred approach in ethnographic research. This approach highlights discrepancies between policy aims and children's needs.