Ways of Belonging: Undocumented Youth in the Shadow of Illegality

Francesca Meloni

Published by Rutgers University Press 2024

Ways of Belonging

Undocumented Youth in the Shadow of Illegality

Francesca Meloni

In the series Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies

https://doi.org/10.36019/9781978835528

Overview
Contents

About this book

Ways of Belonging examines the experiences of undocumented young people who are excluded from K–12 schools in Canada and are rendered invisible to the education system. Canadian law doesn’t mention the existence of undocumented children, and thus their access to education rests on discretionary practices and is often denied altogether. This book brings the stories of undocumented young people vividly alive, putting them into conversation with the perspectives of the different actors in schools and courts who fail to include these young people.

Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, Francesca Meloni shows how ambivalence shapes the lives of young people who are caught between the desire to belong and the impossibility of fully belonging. Meloni pays close attention to these young people’s struggles and hopes, showing us what it means to belong and to endure in contexts of social exclusion. Ways of Belonging reveals the opacities and failures of a system that excludes children from education and puts their lives in invisibility mode.

An interview with the author (https://www.qmul.ac.uk/clpn/news-views/book-interviews/items/interview-with-francesca-meloni-about-her-book-ways-of-belonging-undocumented-youth-in-the-shadow-of-illegality.html)

Author / Editor information

FRANCESCA MELONI is an assistant professor in social justice at King’s College London.

Reviews

"Ways of Belonging examines what it means when young people reside in a place while not being of that place and how they carve out spaces of their own in the face of uncertainty and invisibility. Based on an impressive study, this remarkable book shines an important light on the nuances of contemporary migration and the policies that have produced ambiguous belonging. Theoretically insightful, rigorously researched, and compellingly argued, this is a must-read for scholars and policymakers alike."
— Roberto G. Gonzales, author of Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America

"Meloni's book usefully contributes to a growing literature that probes the nuances involved in processes of migrant 'illegalization.' By avoiding simplistic accounts of state oppression and victimization, she proposes a multidimensional framework for understanding how people who are 'vanished' may, nevertheless, generate affective strategies that enable layered ways of surviving and even flourishing."— Jacqueline Bhabha, author of Child Migration and Human Rights in a Global Age

"Ways of Belonging provides sophisticated and empathic insights into how young people whose lives are shaped by legal liminality and an ambivalent national reception navigate these vulnerabilities while concurrently exerting agency. A must-read for developmentalists, educators, policymakers, human rights advocates, or, frankly, anyone with a social conscience."— Carola Suárez-Orozco, coeditor of Transitions: The Development of Children of Immigrants

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Removable Children Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	18
2. Hidden Traces Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
3. Failing to Be Called Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
4. Getting Used to Here Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
5. Double Binds Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	80
6. Hopes and Departures Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	96
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
Available titles in the Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 192
Keywords: immigration; emigration; daca; dreamers; undocumented; illegal; alien; illegal immigrant; asylum; Canada; children; child; child studies; sociology; policy; law; immigration policy

eBook

Published: October 13, 2023
ISBN: 9781978835528