Fate or Destiny in the context of psychological and social fragmentation in young unaccompanied African immigrants

Abstract

This paper discusses the psychodynamic and psychosocial vision in the life course of young vulnerable African immigrants placed in Maison d’enfants à Caractère Social. This settlement provides professional training or further education, training needed to stay in France, in order to have the proper papers. The issue of psychological and social fragmentation in these young people whose developmental process is marked by exile will be questioned in relation to concepts such as Fate and Destiny. The latter will also be questioned in light of the role and value of the work in these young evolving into a new socioeconomic and cultural context that tends to stigmatize. Through verbal and non-verbal data from psychological interviews, a group of speech and observation grids inspired by a questionnaire, we propose an analysis of personal trajectories in terms of process identification. This analysis can already go beyond the individual characteristics and highlight the crucial role embodied work to establish a social identity and out of the timeless state of exile.