Navigating home in refugeedom and in adolescence, alone

Section A: This review aimed to evaluate and draw conclusions from the existing knowledge base about refugees’ meaning-making of home. The necessity stemmed from Papadopoulos’s (2021) observation that the loss of home is the only condition shared by all refugees in the world. Meta-ethnographic approach was employed to synthesise systematically searched empirical papers investigating personal meaning-making of home in refugeedom. The loss of home in refugeedom brought to the consciousness previously imperceptible elements of existence: ‘normal’ flow of life, belonging and self-identity. Reconstructing a sense of home in the context of exile is essential to reconstructing a sense of the self within oneself and amongst others in the world.

Section B: This study aimed to investigate what psychological understandings can be derived from the sense and meaning the six young adults made of their experiences as children
fleeing home alone and reaching the shores of safety in the UK. Imagery assisted emancipatory form of interpretative phenomenological analysis suggested conflicts between negotiating the ‘new life’ in the UK but staying loyal to the norms and values of own culture and religion, putting down roots but experiencing external hatred, having faith but experiencing emotional distress interpreted as a loss of faith. Practical help should include support building connections and achieving educational and career goals beyond learning English. Clinicians should adopt a culture-sensitive and gender-specific approach tailored to the survivors of experiences of being an unaccompanied child refugee, including higher risks of stigmatisation.