Finding ‘belonging’ in the caring relationships of young people with migration experiences in South Africa

Abstract: Young people with migration experiences in South Africa are navigating the everyday realities of a socially divided context, within which xenophobia is often marked. Countering narratives of individualisation and criminalisation of young migrants, this article explores caring relationships as a response to precarity. Drawing from participatory arts and story-based research with young people with migration experiences aged 14–25, this article explores the landscapes of care they are establishing with peers and siblings. It argues that young people are expressing and enacting care, for, with and about, others to build belonging and drive social change. This is an underexplored area and provides important insight into the meaning of everyday care and caring relationships as driven by young people themselves.

Keywords: Young people, migration, belonging, care, participatory research.

Article posted to Journal of the British Academy, volume 10, supplementary issue 2 (Searching for the Everyday in African Childhoods).