Toward a Critical Phenomenology of Vulnerability: Experiences of Young Refugees Building a Life in Luxembourg

Abstract

The concept of vulnerability has become central in debates and policies around migration and asylum, but its use has been criticised as ‘individualising’ vulnerability and neglecting the socio-legal structures that promote it. However, shifting the focus on the structural determinants of vulnerability risks ignoring the agentic power and subjective conditions of individuals within a group considered vulnerable. On this backdrop, the current study proposes to focus on the phenomenological level and sets out to provide an exploratory analysis of conditions of experiential vulnerability. The study draws from 15 interviews conducted with a group of young adults who continue to live in temporary reception centres in Luxembourg despite having obtained refugee status. Integrating a conceptual model of vulnerability as embedded, multi-layered, and dynamic with insights from a critical phenomenological approach, the comparative thematic analysis identified three main elements shaping young refugees’ experiences of vulnerability: positions, interpretations and (re)actions. The conclusion discusses some limitations of the study and potential implications, focusing on the potential short and long-term impact of experiential vulnerability on migrant individual’s well-being and on society as a whole.