The phenomenology of ‘vulnerable’ refugees: subjective experiences at the intersection between the individual and the structural

The notion of vulnerability permeates current public discourses, political debates and policy instruments around migration and international protection. In this context, vulnerability can be seen as another policy category part of the ‘migration apparatus’, which is often treated as a trait of an individual or group based on physical or innate characteristics (such as disability) or situations encountered in the country of origin or transit (such as experiences of violence) (Flegar, 2018). On one hand, some scholars have criticised such individualization of vulnerability, calling attention to the socio-political structures of inequality and exclusion which produce conditions of structural vulnerability (Brown et al., 2017). On the other hand, others criticised the reifying and normalizing effect of the vulnerability label, calling attention to the heterogeneous experiences and the agentic power of the individuals within the labelled group (Clark, 2007).
The current paper proposes to contribute to this debate by exploring how the individual and the structural meet in the subjective experiences of young migrants, who may be categorized as vulnerable. Drawing from 15 semi-structured interviews with young adults who received refugee status but still lived in temporary reception centres in Luxembourg, conducted in the framework of the H2020 project MIMY, this study aims to reflexively engage with the vulnerability category by capturing their subjective understandings and experiences. The results of the thematic analysis illustrate the different ways in which our participants interpret, emotionally process, and negotiate the tension and ambivalence between structural inequalities, contingent challenges, and personal goals in building their lives in Luxembourg.