ABSTRACT

This book provides a fresh interdisciplinary analysis into the lives of migrant children and youth over the course of the twentieth century and up to the present day. Adopting biopolitics as a theoretical framework, the authors examine the complex interplay of structures, contexts and relations of power which influence the evolution of child migration across national borders. The volume also investigates children’s experiences, views, priorities and expectations and their roles as active agents in their own migration.

Using a great variety of methodologies (archival research, ethnographic observation, interviews) and sources (drawings, documents produced by governments and experts, films and press), the authors provide richly documented case studies which cover a wide geographical area within Europe, both West (Belgium, France, Germany) and East (Romania, Russia, Ukraine), South (Italy, Portugal, Turkey) and North (Sweden), enabling a deep understanding of the diversity of migrant childhoods in the European context.

part I|72 pages

Displacement

chapter 2|18 pages

The little people of the exodus

French children’s experiences of war mobility in spring 1940

chapter 3|13 pages

The (bio)politics of relief

UN food policy towards displaced children in post-war Germany (1945–49)

chapter 5|18 pages

“Unaccompanied children who disappear”

Precariously mobile children and the humanitarian regime of deportation in Sweden

part II|77 pages

Retention

chapter 6|19 pages

“To build and be built”

Jewish displaced children in post-war Italy, 1943–48 1

chapter 7|21 pages

The never forgotten Romanian children

Biopolitics, humanitarian aid and international adoption 1

chapter 9|16 pages

Imprisoned to ‘zoē’

Survival of unaccompanied and undocumented Afghan minors in Istanbul 1

part III|60 pages

Repatriation