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Forever 17

Forever 17

$99.00

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$99.00

SKU: 9780226830063 Category:
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An exploration of how age affects the experience and life prospects of asylum-seekers in Germany.  
Heartbreaking images of children in distress have propelled some of the most urgent calls for action on immigration crises, and that compassion often affects how state asylum policies are structured. In Germany, for example, the immigration system is engineered to protect minors, which leads to unintended consequences for migrants.
 
In Forever 17, Ulrike Bialas follows young African and Central Asian migrants in Germany as they navigate that system. Without official paperwork or even, in many cases, knowledge of their exact age, migrants must decide how to present their complicated life stories to government officials. They quickly realize that their age can have an outsized effect on the outcome of their cases. A migrant under 18, for example, can’t be deported, but might instead be placed in a youth home, where they will be subject to strict curfew laws. An 18-year-old adult, on the other hand, can get permission to work, but not opportunities to go to school.
 
Regardless of their age—actual or assumed—migrants face great difficulties. Those classified as minors must live with the psychological burden of being treated like children, while those classified as adults must live without the practical support and legal protections reserved for minors. The significance of age stands in stark contrast to the ambiguities inherent in its determination. Though Germany’s infamous bureaucracy is designed to issue clear statements about refugees and migrants, the truth is often more complicated, and officials are forced to grapple with the difficult implications of their decisions. Ultimately, Bialas shows, policies surrounding asylum seekers fall dramatically short of their humanitarian ideals. Even those policies designed to help the most vulnerable can lead to outcomes that drastically limit the possibilities for migrants in real need of protection and keep them from leading fulfilling lives.
  Ulrike Bialas is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Socio-Cultural Diversity at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity.

"Forever 17 is outstanding, original, impeccably researched, and eminently engaging. With deep ethnographic engagement, humanity, and lucid prose, Bialas brings razor-sharp intellect to demystify the seemingly neutral category of age, debunking the taken-for-granted naturalness of social categories and revealing their complexity, ambiguity, and malleability. This brilliant contribution has enormous theoretical significance and will have a lasting impact on policy debates about the asylum system and beyond. I highly recommend it, especially to anyone open to having their assumptions challenged."
 
"This ethnography of young asylum seekers in Germany shows how a process that might seem obvious—defining a person’s age and its meaning—is a wobbly social construction erected by architects with competing visions. Bialas is a perceptive observer of the conflicts, mutual adjustments, and unintended consequences."
 

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Dimensions 1 × 6 × 9 in