Cancelled transitions, haunted futures

Resettlement of young refugees occurs while they transition intoadulthood biographically and socially. Youth life opportunitystructures and support mechanisms in late modern Westerncountries have become weaker, generally making youthtransitions less linear, predictable and secure. However, youngrefugees’ transition conditions are radically precarious,conditioned by frequently changing, increasingly restrictiveimmigration policies that aim for repatriation and createtemporariness and deportability. To sensitise our understandingof these transition conditions of possibility, drawing on‘hauntology’ to analyse the transition challenges of youngrefugees, I propose new metaphorical concepts of ‘cancelledtransitions’ and ‘haunted futures’. With the concept of‘navigational agency’, I discuss the potential for young refugeesto take some control of their lives and futures. New concepts mayenable attention to the social justice dimensions of transitionalopportunities that otherwise appear academically invisible andpolitically denied.