How do young refugees in exile create a sense of who they possibly can be and the lives they possibly can live when their future is unpredictable in the most basic sense?

In this presentation, I will propose a methodological design and analytical approach to investigate how young Ukrainian refugees in Norway (in 2025, comprising the largest refugee group in Norway) negotiate their developmental projects together with their peers. They do so in a political climate that seems to welcome transnational practices, but still in a situation where the host country and home country take particular and conflicting interests in them: assimilating the host country’s norms and possible lives on the one hand and preparing for lives as future protectors of the war-torn home country on the other. How do young persons create situations that foster learning about the world and the world-to-be, and who they can be in it? How do they simultaneously shape particular social realities of the world and their place in it (“worlding practices” (Haraway)? I am particularly interested in how the development of their political subjecthood can be explored as connected to their worlding practices and developmental projects.

The specific situation of young Ukrainian refugees highlights general aspects of development for young people: that the future is uncertain and indefinite (Holzkamp), and that nation-states have interests in young people as citizens-to-be (Lee). I will conclude the presentation with a discussion of how personal development can be viewed as entangled with political projects of nations, for Ukrainian refugees as well as for other young people.