Refugee youth identity formation at Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Dowa district, Malawi

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study inquired into the nature of identity among refugee youth living at Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi. Aged between eighteen and twenty-four, the sample comprised of twenty-two female (m = 20.18, sd = 1.89) and thirty-eight male (m = 21.68, sd = 1.92) participants, from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Somalia. The study hypothesized that the organizing structure of education and its related experiences fostered identity formation for the youth. The questions asked were: 1. How do long-term refugee youth at the camp construct identity? 2. How does the process of identity formation facilitate the youth’s socialization within the camp? The study used the inductive analytical approach of interpretive description. The methods of data collection were in-depth qualitative interviews, participant observations and fieldnotes. Findings from the study demonstrated how the participants filtered their identity formation vis-à-vis concepts of education, resulting in two categories: liminal and aspirational identities.