Displacement-youth transition junctures among Ukrainians in Denmark

This article examines how young Ukrainian people displaced to Denmark after the Russian invasion in February 2022 narrate their transitions into adulthood while resettling under temporary protection. Drawing on qualitative longitudinal interviews (2022–2025) with 15 participants aged 15–28, we combine the concept of mobile transitions with a narrative approach to analyse how young people link past, present, and future when conventional transition pathways are disrupted, accelerated, or put on hold. We identify three narrative strategies that organise the displacement–transition juncture: (1) accelerating transitions by construing displacement as opportunity and intensifying agency; (2) disrupted and protracted transitions marked by oscillation between nostalgia and adaptation; and (3) stuckness between war and status transition, where gendered mobility restrictions and moral pressure sustain a suspended present. Across narratives, temporary protection functions as an opportunity structure that enables work and education while producing uncertainty through short-term renewals, with uneven implications across age, gender, and family situation. We argue that analysing displaced youth transitions through narrative strategies clarifies how the same legal regime generates divergent trajectories, stretching transitions across borders and reconfiguring adulthood under conditions of war and temporariness.