This paper discusses the encounter between refugee families and day-care institutions in Denmark. By taking a dual perspective that explores both the experiences of refugee children and parents on one hand, and the point of view of pedagogues on the other, our research seeks to generate new knowledge about an important challenge facing day-care institutions across Europe. Drawing on empirical material from an ongoing ethnographic fieldwork, the paper examines the ways in which children from refugee families in four different daycare institutions are perceived and treated depending on their legal status and their family situation. Theoretically we draw on a phenomenologically and existentially inspired approach to anthropology (Jackson 1998, 2005, 2011) as we seek to examine the morally complex practices of ‘care’ as a modality of inter-subjectivity embedded in relationships of power. Anthropological research on refugees in Denmark has brought attention to ‘the unstable and complex social space’ (Johansen 2013), which characterises the encounters between welfare state institutions and refugee families (see e.g. Johansen 2013, Brinkmann 2016, Larsen 2011). Jaffe-Walter has coined the term ‘coercive concern’ (2016) to highlight the ways in which Danish educators tend to cast Muslim children – girls in particular - as vulnerable subject in need of special forms of care and control, albeit this is cloaked in a rhetoric of emancipation. This notion highlights the uneven power relationships at stake in this encounter. Here, we propose an open-ended approach that seeks to focus on both the perspectives of refugee families and pedagogues. In other words, we also explore the conditions under which some pedagogues may express legitimate concern in cases where children or families appear to be vulnerable or in need of special forms of care. The paper critically investigates the role ideas about care, parenthood and family play in the pedagogical interventions undertaken. Which aspects determine who is considered worthy of/in need of certain forms of care? What signs are seen to constitute vulnerability and how are they acted upon? How are local ideas about being a good parent challenged in the encounter with different forms of parenting and other forms of relatedness, and when does it open up for instances of self-reflection among the Danish daycare personnel? How are notions of family, attachment and belonging challenged or renegotiated?

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