Refugees are more associated with vulnerability than with aspirations. However, aspirations are crucial to understanding why refugees are ready to undertake dangerous journeys. Not only the aspiration to survive, but the dreams of having a new home, of joining a family member, or of being able to study drive refugees to risk it all to change their lives. These aspirations are without doubt shaped by an individual’s vulnerabilities. An individual with few resources, for example, can rarely afford passage out of the country. If they can, the journey will certainly be dangerous. Yet if they are experiencing poverty, violence, or degrading circumstances where they are, these vulnerabilities are likely to nourish their aspirations as well as the determination to realise them at any cost.
Those escaping war and crisis find themselves willing to face all kinds of risks in order to reach a safe destination where they can imagine building a life. But people have their limits. Trauma and poverty can negatively affect people’s capacity to aspire as well. Refugees who have lived in a camp for years or who have been tortured may become hopeless – unable to dream about the future let alone act to realise those dreams.
In this part of the roundtable, we invite our contributors to shed light on the interaction between vulnerability and aspirations through their research and work.
