The Borders of Everyday Artistic Expression: Young Migrants’ Life Courses and Agentic Capabilities

Despite the expectation that young people will exercise their agency as they transition into adulthood, young forced migrants encounter administrative, legal and normative borders that impede their ability to shape their life courses. The present article aims to explore these borders, their consequences, and the ways in which young migrants can surmount these obstacles. Based on interviews and observations conducted in Rennes (France), we outline the disruption of young migrants’ life courses. The findings highlight a porous border of adulthood that seems specific to young migrants’ experiences. Whether they arrived in France feeling as adults or not, they either feel that they were brought back to a state akin to that of a child or that their transition to adulthood was accelerated and their childhood robbed. Notably, this paper shows that some markers of adulthood may not be as irreversible as previously considered: having a child, for example, is a step can be reversed for some young migrants – leaving them feeling stripped of their adulthood. Nevertheless, an exploration through artistic practices revealed different individual strategies that can be leveraged to regain a sense of control over their life trajectories. Thus, the present study offers an interesting approach in youth and migration studies by intersecting the two fields of research, and by providing novel insights to explore agency through arts.