Book review of Herz, Marcus and Lalander, Philip 2021. Social Work, Young Migrants and the Act of Listening: Becoming an Unaccompanied Child. London: Routledge. 177 pp

Abstract

Social work researchers Marcus Herz and Philip Lalander have written the most comprehensive and extensive work on the everyday life experiences of unaccompanied minors and youth in Sweden so far. Through focusing on the ordinary day-to-day experiences of their young participants, the authors challenge the dehumanization that the label of ‘unaccompanied minors’ produces and instead highlight this diversity in how young people caught in this categorization experience their life in Sweden. In their book, Social Work, Young Migrants and the Act of Listening: Becoming an Unaccompanied Child , they cover the time period shortly before, during, and a few years after ‘the long summer of migration’ when more than 35,000 (in 2015 only) unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in Sweden. As such, it is a major contribution to migration research in the way it captures this significant time period through the eyes of those who were at the center of attention at the time: unaccompanied minors themselves. Through listening closely and attentively to the 20 participating youth’s own narratives, Herz and Lalander manage to provide engaging and thoughtful insight into their experiences. The authors are thus firmly rooted in a tradition of critical social work that focuses on the lived experiences of subaltern groups and how society can be improved by listening to these groups’ experiences. In their book, Herz and Lalander bring together findings from their research about unaccompanied minors and youth in Sweden that have previously been published in several academic articles as well as in a Swedish monography called Rörelser, gränser och liv (Herz and Lalander 2019). Throughout the empirical chapters, Herz and Lalander cover an impressive range of experiences and themes that make the everyday lives of unaccompanied minors accessible to a broader audience. As they engage in dialogue with their participants, the authors explore their everyday experiences, worries, and dreams. The chapters initially follow a straightforward chronology, starting with young people’s first encounters with Sweden and how the Swedish ‘borderland’ unfolds before them over the coming years.