Unaccompanied migrant girls: navigating religious girlhood in the UK

Abstract

This paper focusses on unaccompanied migrant young women from Sub-Saharan Africa and the social workers who encounter them in the UK. Taking an intersectional approach, and drawing on notions of black girlhood, it explores how unaccompanied girls may attempt to re-centre their religious identities within diversely religious-spiritual-secular spaces. Drawing on data from research carried out by the first author, the article considers how girls continually adapt their religious practices in new gendered/racialised spaces, and explores the meanings attached to religious practice by social workers and by girls themselves. The paper argues social workers may benefit from resources to develop their religious literacy, and that organisations may benefit from drawing on post-colonial frameworks to critically examine social work responses to black, unaccompanied girls.