Political strategies of self-representation: The case of young Afghan migrants in Sweden

In this chapter I explore how children and youth make use of particular strategies of self-representation to seek political representation. I do so by taking my point of departure in a group of young Afghan migrants in Sweden and their political mobilization for their right to residency permits. In dialogue with debates in political theory around democracy and representation, I examine how young political actors contest and recast dominant regimes of political representation to claim political space and a voice of their own. Focus is put on the ways in which various actors struggle over the authority to represent and give meaning to the interests, rights and well-being of young migrants and how these processes of representing children and youth become politically productive. Four different strategies are identified and suggested to constitute a politics of self-representation: Rejecting previous forms of representation; establishing, shaping, and controlling political identity; creating political space; making opponents and allies. Based on these empirical observations, I argue that the mobilizations of young non-citizens against deportation reveal a critical dimension to the politics of childhood, namely, how the strategies of self-representation used by children and youth disrupt current legal and political orders and open up new avenues for political representation.