The findings presented in this paper are drawn from an EU funded research project that explores the transition to adulthood from the perspectives of former unaccompanied minor asylum-seeking youth in Finland. Working with 22 youth participants and using a participatory voice-centred relational methodology (VCRM), the project has two research objectives. Research Objective 1 is to better understand the transition to adulthood of former unaccompanied minor youth in Finland. Research Objective 2 has been to innovate new ways of co-constructing knowledge and art with participants. Over the last decade, rates of forced migration to Finland have significantly increased (Finnish Immigration Service, 2025). Unlike some settlement contexts, the Finnish and other Nordic contexts have been argued as being relatively culturally and ethnically homogenous (Haswell et al., 2023). Furthermore, broader global research has demonstrated that a smooth transition to adulthood has been linked to social and economic success as well as wellbeing in the adult years (UNESCO, 2015). As such, better understanding the transition to adulthood of these youth is pertinent.

     In my previous research in Australia I have shown the importance of familial networks for refugee youth throughout the transition to adulthood (Macaulay, 2020). While previous research has demonstrated that refugee youth may settle fast (Deng, 2016), the absence of family can influence how these young people build their overall identity and their wellbeing as young adults. Calls have been made to better address the wellbeing of unaccompanied refugees at Finnish (de Arruda Camara et al., 2018), Nordic (Rehn-Mendoza, 2020) and broader European (Vervliet et al., 2014) levels, all repeating similar concerns: The starting point of much youth policy is that young people can rely on their families far into adulthood (Malm, 2018). Furthermore, previous research has shown that supports designed to support refugee youth throughout the transition to adulthood can be culturally incongruous with the young peoples’ own cultural understandings of adulthood (Macaulay, 2020).

     The present paper offers findings addressing participants’ conceptualisations of the transition to adulthood and how (or how not) these conceptualisations align with cultural norms that underpin youth policy and practice in Finland. Findings show that youth participants found the rigidity of the concepts of ‘minor’ and ‘adult’, and the rights and privileges these afford, to not necessarily be a reflection of how they see themselves. As participants indicated, arbitrary distinctions of ‘legal’ adulthood based on age can create tension in their lived experiences and performance of identity. These findings will be critically discussed through the lens of the theory of bordering (Yuval-Davis et al., 2019). This theory will be used to better understand the individual, collective, social, and political intersections of everyday lived experience that influence participants’ transition to adulthood in Finland. Broadly speaking, bordering can be thought of as the concrete and abstract borders that are created and maintained within societies, which can curate – at times unevenly – the everyday lived experiences of belonging and a sense of safety. For participants in this study, these borders may be physical borders – such as those that demarcate their physicality relative to geography and concepts of home. Additionally, these borders may also be the abstract borders of everyday experience – such as the social conditions that generate marginalisation, or conversely, social conditions and agency that promote a sense of inclusion and belonging. Of interest is how young people experience these borders – including reinforcing and eradicating them throughout the transition to adulthood.

This study utilised a single-site case design, with Finland being the case site. A total of 22 participants were recruited into the study. Of these, 12 were young men and 10 were young women. The inclusion criteria for participation were that the young people were aged between 15-29 and had sought asylum in Finland under the age of 18 without a parent or guardian. All participants took part in a semi-structured one-on-one interview lasting between 30-60 minutes. All interview transcripts were analysed using a voice-centred relational methodology (VCRM) approach. As a methodological approach, VCRM is an approach that investigates the relationality of voice and how the voice is in relation with itself, with others, and with broader social and cultural systems and structures (Gilligan et al. 2003). Notably, a key component of the analysis of data in this project was through the construction of VCRM pronoun poems. Building on previous VCRM scholarship, I developed the pronoun poem method in my previous research as a way of engaging with the ontological collective voices of research participants (Macaulay, 2020). These poems are developed by exploring the different uses of pronouns in interview transcripts and presenting these in isolation with surrounding verbs and/or other important words to create stanzas. For a detailed account of the method see Macaulay and Kaukko (2025). Central to the present study has been to continue the development of this method to be participatory. As such, with the exception of three participants, participants took part in a series of poetry workshops where they were taught the method and developed their own pronoun poems using the transcripts of their research interviews. Key findings presented in this paper are articulated through the presentation of illustrative pronoun poem examples.

While participants in this study arrived in Finland seeking asylum as unaccompanied ‘minors’, many participants refuted the label and identity of being a ‘minor’. As highlighted by Winkens et al. (2023), while there are multiple definitions of adulthood, from a legislative perspective adulthood is usually defined by age – usually 18 years of age. Although participants in this study were under 18 when arriving in Finland, many participants already considered themselves to be adults. In some instances, these conceptualisations were cultural and held before leaving their home country, and in other instances it was the refugee experience itself that informed their view of being adults. Instead, when arriving in Finland they were legally labelled as minors and treated accordingly. Consequences of this included a practical loss of independence as well as experiencing emotional resentment towards caregivers and educators who they found treated them younger than their emotional years. Importantly, several participants highlighted a loss of childhood. Yet, also noted that while they would like for this loss to be acknowledged, this does not translate into a desire to be treated as a minor. Additionally, many participants pointed to the arbitrary nature of legislative definitions of adulthood based on age and found it difficult to move from being assigned as a ‘minor’ when under 18 and then being assigned as an 'adult' on the morning of their 18th birthday. These difficulties were often linked to notions of individual independence in Finland, and their conceptualisations of independence as being a collective endeavour linked to responsibilities and reciprocal care and contributions within their familial communities. These findings have implications for policy and practice. In reference to the latter, for practitioners, such as educators, getting the relational balance of youth/minor right is difficult – yet crucial to their positive relationships with these youth.

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