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) gender minorities 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.