A Photovoice Analysis of Ukrainian Adolescents' Coping Strategies and Future Orientation in the Context of Forced Migration
A Photovoice Analysis of Ukrainian Adolescents' Coping Strategies and Future Orientation in the Context of Forced Migration

Summary/Abstract: The forced internal and external displacement to which children and young people are exposed during and as a result of war stands in stark opposition to their developmental requirements and entitlement to grow up in an environment that is physically and emotionally secure and stable. Adolescents' perceptions of the future are linked to the maintenance and modification of social structures and their surroundings, which are affected by forced migration. The feeling of uncertainty characteristic of the transition period of children and young people affected by the Ukrainian armed conflict can influence the temporal orientation towards the past and future, both of which are important for understanding their present reality and specific needs. We use a Photovoice approach to illustrate the changes that appeared in their everyday lives after the outbreak of the war. This study aims to explore how Ukrainian adolescents assert agency throughout their experience of forced migration. Engaging adolescents in Photovoice participatory research allows them to capture and describe images of what is meaningful to them as co-constructors of knowledge and meaning. Having15 Ukrainian adolescents as co-researchers, we aimed to explore the present life circumstances, giving them voice and potential to illustrate their future priorities, orientations, aspirations, and expectations through photography. This participatory approach comes as a resource for the personal empowerment of adolescents, imagined futures implicitly builds on the assumption that the capacity to conceive and aspire to the future serves as a tool for individual self empowerment. With future aspirations determined by interlocking structural forces, which are constantly revised in the context of forced displacement, the future orientation of adolescents starts from the resource system currently available to respond to their basic needs.

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