Forced migrants as actors of care: understanding displaced men through their caring practices and relationships

Abstract

How do forced migrant men experience and practice care? Throughout scholarship, media portrayals and humanitarian programming, the lived realities of forcibly displaced people in general, and of forced migrant men in particular, are typically portrayed as either exclusively vulnerable and/or as naturally violent and dangerous, but certainly not as loving or caring. While the concept of care is increasingly used across the fields of refugee studies and activism, what has received only scant attention so far are forced migrant men’s diverse experiences of receiving and, importantly, practicing care outside formalised care regimes. Drawing on relational and participatory research with male forced migrants living in Germany, in this article we document these diverse ways in which forcibly displaced men experience, receive, practice and reciprocate various forms of care, often situated in their daily lives, both while on the move and upon arrival in their new host countries. This includes intersubjective and often life-sustaining forms of support and care for other refugees, as well as community care amongst groups of forcibly displaced people, offering solace, community and fostering a sense of belonging. These practices of care are generative and facilitate forced migrants’ survival, serving as a testament to their dignity and humanity.