Making Friends as Interactional Work: Young Refugees in Germany

Abstract

This article focuses on the friendships that young refugees make in Germany as their country of arrival. Although friends are highly relevant in children's lives, little attention has been paid to this subject regarding young refugees. We conducted ego-network interviews with 17 young refugees aged 9–15, with which we explored the opportunity structures in which young refugees choose their friends and their ways of establishing and deepening friendships, as well as the limitations thereof. Core dimensions of friendship, as proposed by Shmuel Eisenstadt, are used as sensitizing concepts: voluntariness, moral quality, unconditionality, trust, deep meaning/brittleness, and ambivalence. By reinterpreting them through an interactionist lens, the analysis reveals the complex work young refugees invest into making friends and establishing themselves in the social world of their school and peer groups.