Caringscapes and belonging: an intersectional analysis of care relationships of unaccompanied minors in Belgium

Through testimonies of guardians and young adults looking back upon their lives as unaccompanied minors in Belgium, this paper aims to obtain better understanding of the multifaceted and simultaneous intersections that shape the unaccompanied minors’ care relationships. It claims that while age as a criterion for the entitlement to care might work as an enabling structural element in the care trajectories of unaccompanied minors, the young people’s intersectional positioning as both minor and immigrant translates into a minimalistic and bureaucratic apparatus of care that often fails to accommodate the young people’s actual needs. The paper aims to explore what a focus on care relationships can offer in light of the prevalent emphasis in policy on equal rights, rationality and equal opportunities and argues that an intersectional focus on affect and relationships might need us to reconsider assumptions of just care in greater depth.