Everyday Utopias in Out-of-home Care: Multiply Marginalized Youth Imagining and Making Better Futures
What does everyday life in out-of-home care look like when it is examined from the perspective of youth belonging to multiple minorities? The SAUMA project envisions new kinds of futures and identity-affirming services within the daily life of out-of-home care. The diversity and identity of children in out-of-home care have received little attention in child welfare research. We examine two areas of out-of-home care: (1) family placements of unaccompanied refugee children as well as their life in group homes, (2) LGBTQIA+ youth living in child welfare institutions. The young people participating in our study act as co-researchers in imagining utopias of everyday out-of-home care. We aim to create hope and joy in the lives of multi-minority youth. We also develop the concept of hope, as it has often been overlooked or viewed negatively within critical social research. As a future-oriented positive affect, hope can be seen as a key factor motivating the actions of individuals and communities. In this way, hope becomes a resource that can generate, for example, emancipatory resistance against oppression. The SAUMA project examines practices of hope and minority joy that help people move forward and make life more bearable.