Women seeking asylum : coping with trajectories of structural violence

Migration, borders and their intersections with criminal justice have gained increasing interest in criminology, and there is a growing concern for forced migrants and those subject to punitive border processes. While border criminologists focus predominantly on border harms and their impacts, this thesis draws on the psychological concept of coping to show how women seeking asylum cope with these impacts. This qualitative research is based on interviews with women who sought asylum in the UK. These data were supplemented with text messaging and ethnographic observations of the cohort and one of the charities with whom I worked. This thesis includes several contributions. Firstly, it enhances our comprehension of the concept of structural violence, which was originally defined and shaped by Galtung (1969). Secondly, it reveals how structural violence operates over time and across various contexts in the trajectories of women seeking asylum. Thirdly, it provides an empirical understanding of the experiences of women seeking asylum in the UK and how they cope with structural violence. The thesis finds that gender plays a significant role in both trajectories of structural violence and the coping strategies employed to mitigate it. These insights are significant for policymakers, particularly in terms of advocating for access to education and employment opportunities for young asylum seekers who are often excluded from such opportunities. Fourthly, the thesis demonstrates that when the government creates barriers to coping with structural violence, the third sector can help fill these gaps. As a result, this research has practical implications for practitioners and NGOs who work with asylum seekers and refugees.