The causes and consequences of vulnerability for young refugees building a life in Luxembourg: a critical phenomenological analysis

In the context of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’, the assessment of vulnerability has become a key tool to direct limited resources and assistance within a state of emergency. Its use in international aid and reception has been criticized as promoting the individualization of vulnerability rather than focusing on the socio-legal structures that create conditions of vulnerability. Yet, shifting the focus on the structural determinants of vulnerability risks ignoring the agentic power and subjective conditions of individuals within a ‘vulnerable’ group. Drawing from this debate, the current study proposes to focus on the phenomenological level as the space where the tension between structural constraints, contingent conditions, individual characteristics and subjective understandings plays out and where not only the causes but also the consequences of vulnerability may be more readily visible.
The study focuses on a group of refugees who is in a particularly vulnerable position in the context of Luxembourg: young adults, who have obtained refugee status but still live in temporary reception centres. Drawing from 15 semi-structured interviews, the analysis set out firstly to explore how this group of young people understands and experiences vulnerability in their everyday lives. Secondly, adopting a critical phenomenological lens, their experiences are examined in their relation to the systems of inequalities permeating discourses and structures on migration and integration, including frameworks of emergency and crisis, and to their subjective views, ambitions and previous experiences. Finally, our participants’ reactions to these challenging experiences and their potential consequences for their future in the country are discussed.