Eric Broekaert’s research while affiliated with Ghent University and other places

Large numbers of migrants daily decide to undertake an often risky and protracted journey to leave their country, escaping from violence and poverty, in an effort to reach their ultimate goal: building a better life. Although extensive evidence shows how pre- and post-flight experiences can significantly threaten migrants’ wellbeing, little research investigates the impact of the flight itself and the way migrants cope with these flight experiences while ‘on the way’. The study took place in the waiting rooms of the police station near the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, where intercepted migrants stay for some time. Because of the constraints inherent in the study setting, we relied on the messages that migrants themselves chose to leave—in their mother tongues—on the police station’s walls and furniture. A discourse analysis of 179 inscriptions made by intercepted migrants revealed how these migrant communities show great solidarity, agency and resilience in dealing with their feelings and experiences in a political and social context that is marginalizing, depersonalizing or criminalizing them.

Unaccompanied refugee mothers—young mothers living in another country and separated from their parents—are, in research and migration policies, often defined in terms of four social categories: refugee, unaccompanied, adolescent and mother. In-depth interviews were conducted with twenty unaccompanied refugee mothers from different countries of origin and now living in Belgium to listen, first, to their feelings and experiences. These narratives revealed four central themes in the mothers' experiences (constrained and constraining daily living conditions, emotional challenges, connectedness and motherhood as a turning point), which appeared to be, in a second analysis, related to intersections between the four social categories. However, the intersectional analysis revealed large gaps between the mothers' and migration policies' interpretations of these categories: the mothers not only define the categories differently, but also set other priorities as they identify themselves first as mothers, while the policies prioritise their status as refugees. These findings, together with reflections on the value of adopting an intersectional perspective, lead to several recommendations for research, social work practices and migration policies.