The (unaccompanied) minor as mobility: the tactics of young African migrants in Italy to contest spatio-temporal control

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper critically explores how young migrants in Italy utilise their status as ‘minors’ to construct a ‘better future’ as they transition to adulthood. It draws upon data captured through ethnographic fieldwork with young African men who have made the perilous illegalised journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy. I use this data to evidence how these young men engage in unruly mobility within Italy to negotiate the migration regime and resist the immobility, temporal suspense and racialisation of their bodies. These findings contribute to debates in children’s geographies by theorising the multiple temporalities of youth and transnational mobility. More specifically, the paper reveals the inherent contradiction in how mobility represents and is narrated as a resource, and yet can become a trap for young migrants.