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- Title
The Impact of Time on Young Asylum Seekers Waiting for a Decision.
- Authors
Brekke, Jan-Paul
- Abstract
Asylum seekers coming to European countries often end up waiting for months and even years for a final decision. For the past 20 years there has been agreement among receiving states that shorter processing times should be a goal (cf. SOU 1988). However, complicated cases along with the wish to safeguard the applicants' rights to fair treatment continue to produce prolonged case handling. Under these conditions it is imperative to understand how the waiting process is experienced by the asylum seekers themselves. In this article I ask in what ways the waiting challenges the individual. The article is based on auto-photography and qualitative interviews with 14 asylum seekers aged 16 to 26 in Sweden. The empirical material points to a series of time-related factors challenging the waiting asylum seekers. Concepts are introduced that capture these: relative waiting, non-sequential processing, directionless time, holding on - letting go, as well as disintegrated time. In other words, the answers given by the asylum seekers commented on the structure of time in the waiting process. In the final section, mental health theory is used to discuss the challenges reported by the asylum seekers regarding sense of coherence and self.
- Subjects
SWEDEN; EUROPE; PROCESS (Law); CIVIL procedure; POLITICAL refugees; RIGHT of asylum
- Publication
Discourse: Journal of Childhood & Adolescense Research / Diskurs Kindheits- und Jugendforschung, 2010, Vol 5, Issue 2, p159
- ISSN
1862-5002
- Publication type
Article