The Vulnerability of Young Refugees Living in Reception Centres in Luxembourg: An Overview of Conditions and Experiences across Subjective Temporal Imaginaries

Amalia Gilodi (), Catherine Richard, Isabelle Albert and Birte Nienaber
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Amalia Gilodi: Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Luxembourg, L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
Catherine Richard: Department of Geography and Spatial Planning, University of Luxembourg, L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
Isabelle Albert: Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Luxembourg, L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
Birte Nienaber: Department of Geography and Spatial Planning, University of Luxembourg, L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

Social Sciences, 2023, vol. 12, issue 2, 1-22

Abstract: Vulnerability has become a key concept in discourses and policies on international protection and reception of refugees. In this context, the notion has been described as a tool to provide special provisions to groups at higher risk or one to perpetuate political agendas within increasingly hostile reception systems. However, vulnerability as an analytical concept has received less attention, with both policymakers and scholars often employing different conceptualisations of vulnerability or treating it as a self-explanatory condition. Building on a previous conceptual elaboration, this paper sets out to apply an understanding of vulnerability as multi-layered, dynamic and embedded in a study of the lived experiences of a group of potentially ‘vulnerable’ migrants, based on ‘fixed’ contextual criteria. Drawing from in-depth interviews with young adults who obtained refugee status in Luxembourg but still live in ‘temporary’ reception centres, this paper provides a wide analytical overview of the conditions of vulnerability encountered by this specific group of migrants, in the process of building their lives in a new country. Following the participants’ subjective temporal imaginaries of past, present and future, the analysis highlights and problematises conditions of structural, situational and experiential vulnerability emerging from their accounts and experiences, and discusses their possible implications.

Keywords: vulnerability; refugees; time; reception system; Luxembourg (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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