Re-inventing everyday life in the asylum centre: Everyday tactics among women seeking asylum in Norway

Abstract

Seeking asylum is characterised by long waits and great uncertainty, often categorised as an exercise of power. Recently, most European countries have made their asylum systems stricter and, in this way, less attractive to potential asylum seekers. With this context as a starting point, this article explores the everyday life of women seeking asylum and living in asylum centres in Norway. It examines the agentic tactics they employ to deal with the challenges and the elements that empower and constrain the development of these tactics. It draws on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with asylum-seeking women and uses the narratives of two women for a more in-depth study of their experiences and practices. By drawing on de Certeau, it suggests that although asylum seekers find themselves in situations of serious repression, there are still sparks of agency in the form of everyday tactics with which they seek survival and possibly also resistance.