Cover not available
Article published In:
Dialogue in institutional settings
Edited by Franca Orletti and Letizia Caronia
[Language and Dialogue 9:1] 2019
► pp. 172–190

‘Inevitable distinctions’

The discursive construction of unaccompanied minors’ agency in Italian residential care

| University of Bologna (Italy)

Professionals working in residential care for children everyday perform the institutional relevant activity of constructing their cases. This article analyzes the ways in which they construct the case of ‘unaccompanied minors’ (UAM) and how, in doing so, they talk into being their everyday practices of work. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with Italian residential care professionals, this study adopts a Discourse Analysis approach. Findings illustrate how the discursive assemblage of UAM relies on participants’ multiple distinctions and on a contrastive rhetoric that is widely used in social work. Differences in the case-construction of UAM mirror participants’ institutional settings and overall socio-cultural debate, paving the way for future investigation.

Keywords: discursive construction of clients, unaccompanied minors, agency, social work, residential care, ethnographic interviews, Discourse Analysis, othering process
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Constructing the cases: Performing an institutionally relevant activity in the field of social work
  • 3.Unaccompanied minors: A zombie category?
  • 4.Design and methodology of the study
  • 5.Unaccompanied minors’ agency: Making ‘inevitable’ distinctions
    • 5.1Asylum-seekers’ agency
    • 5.2Economic migrants’ agency
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 5 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00037.sag
References
Barberis, Eduardo and Paolo Boccagni
2014 “Blurred Rights, Local Practices: Social Work and Immigration in Italy.” British Journal of Social Work 44(1): 70–88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beck, Ulrich and Elizabeth Beck–Gernsheim
2002 Individualization: Institutionalized Individualism and Its Social and Political Consequences. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckman
1966 The Social Construction of Reality. A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Carlson, Bonnie E., Joanne Cacciatore and Barbara Klimek
2012 “A risk and Resilience Perspective on Unaccompanied Refugee Minors.” Social Work 57(3): 259–269. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Caronia, Letizia
1997 Costruire la conoscenza. Interazione e interpretazione nella ricerca in campo educativo. [Building knowledge. Interaction and interpretation in educational research]. Firenze: La Nuova Italia.Google Scholar
Caronia, Letizia, Arturo Chieregato and Marzia Saglietti
2017 “Assembling (non) Treatable Cases: The Communicative Constitution of Medical Object in Doctor–doctor Interaction.” Discourse Studies 19(1): 30–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davies, Bronwyn and Rom Harré
1990 “Positioning: The Discursive Production of Selves.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 20(1): 43–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de W. Pastoor, L.
(2017) “Reconceptualising refugee education: Exploring the diverse learning contexts of unaccompanied young refugees upon resettlement.” Intercultural Education 28(440):1–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Derluyn, Ilse
2018 “A Critical Analysis of the Creation of Separated Care Structures for Unaccompanied Refugee Minors.” Children and Youth Services Review 1–8.Google Scholar
Derluyn, Ilse and Eric Broekaert
2008 “Different Perspectives on Emotional and Behavioural Problems in Unaccompanied Refugee Children and Adolescents.” Ethnicity and Health 12(2): 141–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro
2004 A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Eisikovits, Zvi, Chaya Koren and Tova Band-Winterstein
2013 “The Social Construction of Social Problems: The Case of Elder Abuse and Neglect.” International Psychogeriatrics 25(8): 1291–98. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fairclough, Norman and Ruth Wodak
1997 “Critical Discourse Analysis: An Overview.” In Discourse and Interaction, ed. by Teun A. van Dijk, 67–97. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Forsberg, Hannele and Åse Vagli
2006 “The Social Construction of Emotions in Child Protection Case-talk.” Qualitative Social Work 5(1): 9–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold
1967 Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Giovannetti, Monia
2017 “Reception and Protection Policies for Unaccompanied Foreign Minors in Italy.” Social Work and Society 15(2): 1–22.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1981 Forms of Talk. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles
1994 “Professional Vision.” American Anthropologist 961: 606–633. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Charles and Marjorie Harness Goodwin
2004 “Participation.” In A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, 222–243. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hall, Christopher, Stefaan Slembrouck and Srikant Sarangi
(eds.) 2006 Language Practices in Social Work: Categorization and Accountability in Child Welfare. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Heidbrink, Lauren
2014 Migrant Youth, Transnational Families, and the State: Care and Contested Interests. Philadelphia, PE: University of Pennsylvania Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John
1984 Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. New York, NY: Polity Press.Google Scholar
2012 “Epistemics in Action: Action Formation and Territories of Knowledge.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 45(1): 1–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John and Steven Clayman
2010 Talk in Action. Interaction, Identities, and Institutions. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herz, Marcus
2018 “ ‘Becoming’ a Possible Threat: Masculinity, Culture and Questioning among Unaccompanied Young Men in Sweden.” Identities: 1–19. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herz, Marcus and Philip Lalander
2017 “Being Alone or Becoming Lonely? The Complexity of Portraying ‘Unaccompanied Children’ as Being Alone in Sweden.” Journal of Youth Studies 20(8): 1062–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018 “An Abstract and Nameless, but Powerful, Bystander – ‘Unaccompanied Children’ Talking about Their Social Workers in Sweden.” Nordic Social Work Research: 1–11.Google Scholar
Hester, Stephen and David Francis
1994 “Doing Data: The Local Organization of a Sociological Interview.” British Journal of Sociology 451: 675–695. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ignatow, Gabe and Alexander T. Williams
2011 “New Media and the ‘Anchor Baby’ Boom.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 171: 60–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, Gail
2004 “Glossary of Transcript Symbols with an Introduction.” In Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, ed. by Gene H. Lerner, 13–23. Amsterdam, NL: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Joyce, Patricia A.
2005 “The Case Conference as Social Ritual: Constructing a Mother of a Sexually Abused Child.” Qualitative Social Work: Research and Practice 4(2): 157–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kaukko, Mervi and Ulrika Wernesjö
2017 “Belonging and Participation in Liminality: Unaccompanied Children in Finland and Sweden.” Childhood 24(1): 7–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kohli, Ravi K. S.
2006 “The Comfort of Strangers: Social Work Practice with Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children and Young People in the UK.” Child and Family Social Work 11(1): 1–10. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
KhosraviNik, Majid
2010 “The Representation of Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Immigrants in British Newspapers. A Critical Discourse Analysis.” Journal of Language and Politics 9(1): 1–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lalander, Philip and Marcus Herz
2018 “ ‘I Am Going to Europe Tomorrow’. The Myth of the Anchor Children and the Decision to Flee in the Narratives of Unaccompanied Children.” Nordic Journal of Migration Research 55(3): 91–98. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lederer, Jenny
2013 “ ‘Anchor Baby’: A Conceptual Explanation for Pejoration.” Journal of Pragmatics 571: 248–266. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leudar, Ivan, Jacqueline Hayes, Jiří Nekvapil and Johanna Turner Baker
2008 “Hostility Themes in Media, Community and Refugee Narratives.” Discourse and Society 19(2): 187–221. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Margola, Davide, Michela De Micheli and Christian Orlandelli
2011 “Minori stranieri non accompagnati: una ricerca sugli operatori di giustizia e di comunità. [Unaccompanied minors: A research on judicial and community workers]” Psicologia di Comunità, 11: 37–55.Google Scholar
Menjívar, Cecilia and Krista M. Perreira
2017 “Undocumented and Unaccompanied: Children of Migration in the European Union and the United States.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 945(1): 1–21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Messmer, Heinz and Sarah Hitzler
2011 “Declientification: Undoing Client Identities in Care Planning Conferences on the Termination of Residential Care.” British Journal of Social Work 41(4): 778–798. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Närhi, Kati
2002 “Transferable and Negotiated Knowledge. Constructing Social Work Expertise for the Future.” Journal of Social Work 2(3): 317–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Orletti, Franca
2000 La conversazione diseguale. [The unequal conversation]. Rome: Carocci.Google Scholar
O’Toole, Thommessen, Sara Amalie, Paula Corcoran and Brenda K. Todd
2017 “Voices Rarely Heard: Personal Construct Assessments of Sub-Saharan Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking and Refugee Youth in England.” Children and Youth Services Review 811: 293–300. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pithouse, Andrew and Paul Atkinson
1988 “Telling the Case: Occupational Narrative in a Social Work Office.” In Styles of Discourse, ed. by Nikolas Coupland, 183–200. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Potter, Jonathan
1996 Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction. London: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rania, Nadia, Laura Migliorini and Lucia Fagnini
2018, in press. “Unaccompanied Migrant Minors: A Comparison of New Italian Interventions Models.” Children and Youth Services Review. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rosenthal, Patrice and Riccardo Peccei
2006 “The Social Construction of Clients by Service Agents in Reformed Welfare Administration.” Human Relations 59(12): 1633–1658. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saglietti, Marzia
2012 “Il problema è contenerli”: minori stranieri non accompagnati e operatori delle comunità per minori [“Containing them: This is the problem”: Unaccompanied minors and residential care social workers].” Rassegna di Psicologia 29(1): 49–62.Google Scholar
Saglietti, Marzia and Cristina Zucchermaglio
2010 “Minori stranieri non accompagnati, famiglie d’origine e operatori delle comunità: Quale rapporto? [Unaccompanied minors, birth families and social workers: Which relationship?].” Rivista di Studi Familiari 11: 40–58.Google Scholar
Sandermann, Philipp and Maren Zeller
2017 “Young People Called “Unaccompanied Minors” and European Welfare States: A Brief Introduction to This Special Issue.” Social Work and Society 15(1): 1–4.Google Scholar
Sarangi, Srikant
1998 “Interprofessional Case Construction in Social Work: The Evidential Status of Information and Its Reportability.” Text 18(2): 241–270. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Serranò, Francesco and Alessandra Fasulo
2011 L’intervista come conversazione. Preparazione, conduzione e analisi del colloquio di ricerca. [Interview as conversation. Preparing, conducting and analyzing research interviews]. Roma: Carocci.Google Scholar
Söderqvist, Åsa, Pia H. Bülow and Yvonne Sjöblom
2015 “In Sweden Work is More Important Than the Culture, Actually!” Transnational Social Review 5(3): 241–257. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Söderqvist, Åsa, Yvonne Sjöblom and Pia Bülow
2016 “Home Sweet Home? Professionals’ Understanding of ‘Home’ Within Residential Care for Unaccompanied Youths in Sweden.” Child and Family Social Work 21(4): 591–599. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stanley, Tony W.
2005 Making Decisions: Social Work Processes and the Construction of Risk(s) in Child Protection Work. Doctoral dissertation, University of Canterbury.Google Scholar
Stretmo, Live
2014 Governing the Unaccompanied Child – Media, Policy and Practice. Doctoral dissertation, University of Gothenburg.Google Scholar
ten Have, Paul
2004 Understanding Qualitative Research and Ethnomethodology. London: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Urek, Mojca
2005 “Making a Case in Social Work: The Construction of an Unsuitable Mother.” Qualitative Social Work 4(4): 451–467. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Dijk, Teun A.
1985 Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Volume 1. Disciplines of Discourse. London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Wernesjö, Ulrika
2011 “Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children: Whose Perspective?”. Childhood, 19(4): 495–507. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Woodcock, Johanna
2003 “The Social Work Assessment of Parenting: An Exploration.” British Journal of Social Work 331: 87–106. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wroe, Lauren Elizabeth
2018 “’It Really is About Telling People Who Asylum Seekers Really Are, Because We Are Human Like Anybody Else’: Negotiating Victimhood in Refugee Advocacy Work.” Discourse and Society 29(3): 324–343. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 5 other publications

Caronia, Letizia, Vittoria Colla & Federica Ranzani
2022. Practices of Inclusion in Primary Care Visits of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors: Allocating Agency as an Interprofessionally Distributed Intercultural Competence. In Interculturality in Institutions [Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, ], ► pp. 209 ff. DOI logo
Caronia, Letizia, Federica Ranzani & Vittoria Colla
2022. Shifting addressivity. Language and Dialogue 12:2 ► pp. 284 ff. DOI logo
Saglietti, Marzia
2022. Interculturality in the Making: Out-of-Home Children Familiarizing with Ethnographic Research in Italian Residential Care. In Interculturality in Institutions [Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, ], ► pp. 265 ff. DOI logo
Saglietti, Marzia & Filomena Marino
2022. Accomplishing Intergroup Relations in Group Homes: A Discursive Analysis of Professionals Talking About External and Internal Stakeholders. Frontiers in Psychology 13 DOI logo
Saglietti, Marzia & Cristina Zucchermaglio
2022. Children’s participation and agency in Italian residential care for children: Adult-child interactions at dinnertime. European Journal of Psychology of Education 37:1 ► pp. 55 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 3 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.