A wager for life: Queer children seeking asylum in Norway

Abstract

This article explores the experiences of queer children who have sought asylum alone in Norway, focussing on hope, fear and despair. The children who are denied asylum relate an experience of standing at the brink of death, while those who are granted asylum describe how the queer life they have hoped for is postponed by the settlement and integration system, where they live in isolation and in risk of violence and bullying. We analyse these experiences in light of decolonial theory in which the conditions of war and proximity to death are extended into the childrens’ lives under the custodianship of the Norwegian state. Drawing on queer theory, the wager is life as these children have known it. The potential is living beyond the coloniality of Being, in relationships and communities that provide the possibility of a meaningful life.