Åsa Wahlström

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

Bakgrund

Intresseområden

Om hur barn och unga människor anpassar sig till föränderliga och svåra förhållanden och hur välfärdssamhällets institutioner i Europa hanterar deras situationer. Min specialitet ligger i forskning kring hur barn tolkar sina egna livserfarenheter; begrepp så som agens, att tillhöra och kristen fundamentalism.

Fältarbete

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.

Undervisning och handledning

På Göteborgs universitet undervisar jag kursen Perspektiv på ägande, samt Mänskliga rättigheter, relativism och mångfald. Jag handleder även mastersuppsatser om flyktingbarn och barns rättigheter.

Konferenser

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