Becoming Through Relationships : An arts based study of young refugees´ lives across time

Abstract

This study examines how the identity and agency of former unaccompanied refugee minors develop over time through their relationships as they build their lives in Finland. Having arrived without their families, these young refugees navigate multiple transitions, growing from adolescence into adulthood while adapting to new cultural, linguistic, and social environments. Throughout these changes, relationships provide crucial support and continuity, yet the conditions for forming and sustaining them are often complex and shifting.

Drawing on the theory of relational constructionism, the study explores how young refugees’ memories of the past, experiences of the present, and imagined futures are woven into their ongoing processes of becoming. It investigates how their sense of self is sustained, reinterpreted, or transformed across relational contexts, how they contribute to their own and others’ wellbeing and agency and how they participate in and shape the interactions, routines, and practices of their new environments. The study addresses two main research questions: 1. How do young refugees negotiate their identities, and how do their agencies unfold through these processes over time in their narratives? 2. How can arts based methods illuminate the relational and temporal dimensions of young refugees’ experiences and convey what cannot be expressed verbally?

The research participants were 17 young refugees who had arrived in Finland as unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors and, after receiving residence permits, had begun to build independent adult lives. They took part in the Drawing Together project, an international study exploring relational wellbeing among young refugees in Finland, Norway, and Scotland. This research focuses on the Finnish data, which includes semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and participant-created artworks alongside their reflections on these works.

The results show that identity and agency among young refugees are profoundly relational and continuously negotiated within the web of everyday interactions. Young refugees position themselves between past and present relationships, reinterpreting belonging and self-understanding through dialogue with others. The study moreover highlights that young refugees’ agency emerges not as individual autonomy but as a shared and responsive capacity shaped through acts of care, reciprocity, and hospitality. Methodologically, the study demonstrates the value of creative processes in opening new spaces for expression, enabling participants to communicate experiences that are difficult to articulate in words and to make visible their hopes, losses, and ties materially and relationally.

This study concludes that young refugees’ identity and agency are not fixed individual attributes but relational and temporal accomplishments that emerge through everyday interactions and shared practices. In doing so, the analysis challenges reductionist integration frameworks and underscores the need for participatory research approaches and policies that recognize inclusion as a collective and evolving process rather than an individual accomplishment.