Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Girls: Navigating Intersections

<p dir="ltr">This article considers how unaccompanied girls may navigate constructions of girlhood following global migration to the UK and the ways they may be seen within social work organisations. Drawing on intersectionality theory and notions of ‘black girlhood’, the article discusses how unaccompanied migrant girls can encounter racialised and gendered spaces which foreground notions of passivity and vulnerability in refugee girls. It argues that girls are agentic and strategic in the ways they navigate space but that both agency and vulnerability are situated within gendered and racialised power-dynamics. The article explores how the focus on age and immigration status in UK social work obscures the complexity of girls’ intersecting identities.. It considers the need for spaces where critical and challenging conversations can be held about racialisation and exclusion within social work organisations, and calls more collective and participatory approaches to hearing girls’ voices and engaging them in discussions about their social and political locations. An intersectional framework, a robust anti-racist lens and a black girlhood perspective are proposed as productive frameworks to critically examine social work practice with unaccompanied girls.</p>