Shifting Vulnerabilities: Exploring Experiences of Unaccompanied Migrant Children in Johannesburg, South Africa

This paper draws on research on independent child migrants from Zimbabwe conducted in the city of Johannesburg, South Africa, in challenging the dominant narratives that inform the vulnerability and agency dichotomy in childhood studies. Through in-depth interviews, observations and a life histories approach, the daily experiences of the young people selected for participation in this study (between the ages of 13 and 19 years) highlight the shortcomings of the vulnerability and agency lens in capturing the nuances of independent child migrants. I challenge the idea that children are passive, vulnerable and incapable of defining and shaping their migration trajectories without overemphasising their agency. The intention is to show that children are not only passive victims at the mercy of adults, but are also capable aggressors in determining their experiences of migration. To capture this complexity, I coin the concept of “shifting vulnerabilities” and suggest that the vulnerability of the independent child migrants is always shifting and being shifted. These children are involved in social relationships as they make their journey to Johannesburg, which shapes and shifts their vulnerabilities. They meet people who make them feel and react in certain ways, and what they are experiencing are not always feelings of gratitude, but sometimes fear and pain. Even with the odds stacked against them in some of these relationships, the young people are not just docile players in this interaction, but they direct the outcome of these associations in creative ways