Åsa Wahlström

Social Anthropology
PhD, MRes (Masters of Research), MSc, BSc Hon.
 

About

Areas of interest

My research interests include how children and young people adapt in changing and adverse circumstances and how welfare institutions in Europe respond to their situations. My expertise lies in child-focused inquiry on children's understandings of their own lives; notions of agency, belonging and Christian fundamentalism.

Current research

Fieldwork

During my PhD research (anthropology, Brunel University) I gained in-depth insights into the complexity of the real-life situations in which young people are provided temporary protection and local authority care. The thesis builds on 16-month ethnographic fieldwork in a London Borough, examining the social support networks of Congolese young people (16 years of age and older).

Central to the inquiry were the different activities young people undertook to create a sense of permanence and ‘belonging’ in their new environment. This included joining Pentecostal churches, to have (or desire to have) children and establish a family, and collecting cheap material items for a future household. The success of this research depended on building inter-subjective and trusting relationships with young people for whom the ‘truth’ about their circumstances was politically sensitive.

I have conducted ethnographic research with young people and their families in South Africa and Ethiopia. These studies concerned negotiations of risk and local cosmologies in relation to the AIDS pandemic (South Africa) and poverty, ethnicity and nationalism (Ethiopia). These inquiries focused on people who were on the margins of social policy, and who had little opportunity to voice their concerns. The practical knowledge and theoretical underpinnings of these studies were cross-transferable to my subsequent research in Europe.

Teaching and tutoring

I teach the course Perspectives on Ownership and Human Rights, relativism and pluralism. I also supervise master's theses on refugee children and children's rights.

Conferences

2009 ’Claiming the Common: Unaccompanied Asylum Seekers in the London Borough of Hillingdon’, What Is the Common? Conference, Göteborgs Universitet 10-11 october

2008 ‘‘Les histories et les sapeur’: Collecting material items and fashionable clothing among young Congolese asylum seekers in London’, Centre for Child-focused Anthropological Research (C-FAR), Brunel University, 11 april

2007 ‘Creating a surrogate family: Unaccompanied asylum seeker children from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Pentecostal churches in London’, Anthropology in/of London’ conference, University College London, 4-5 juni

2006 ‘Seeking asylum alone: A literature review and research proposal’, the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Florence, Italy, 12 may