Parenting in exile: Refugee parents' constitution of own parenthood while resettled in Norway

Parental practices in resettled refugee families is often debated both in society and social work discourses in Europe. How do mothers and fathers in exile themselves constitute their own parenthood in resettlement?... [ view full abstract ]

Parental practices in resettled refugee families is often debated both in society and social work discourses in Europe.

How do mothers and fathers in exile themselves constitute their own parenthood in resettlement? Parenthood is continuously changing in all families, but due to migration, parents in exile is exposed to huge changes in the context of their parental practices. In addition, family members’ experiences of war, flight and temporary exiles do often influence family life in resettlement.

This ongoing study explores refugee parents’ self constitution expressed in narratives of their experience during approximately ten years in Norway. The data consists of interviews with the mothers and fathers, individually and in pairs. The respondents have fled from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.

The analytic perspective of the paper is discursive, and the following analytic questions will be explored: How do the respondents constitute themselves as parents in this new context? Is their own parenthood constructed in contrast to parental practices in the country of origin, or as a continuation? How do they narrate their parenthood equal or different from parental practices they consider as ethnic Norwegian? Who do they model as 'them' and 'us', and how are the boundaries drawn?