Ce travail de recherche porte sur les jeunes étrangers arrivant en France sans responsable légal : les dits mineurs non-accompagnés. Il propose une investigation de leurs conditions d’accueil, comme de non-accueil, suivant une approche psychosociologique clinique. Si la Convention Internationale des Droits de l’Enfant établit la responsabilité des autorités publiques face à la vulnérabilité de leur situation, force est de constater aujourd’hui les avatars de la prise en charge de ce public. Cette recherche se concentre dans un premier temps sur l’accompagnement de ces jeunes par l'Aide Sociale à l’Enfance (ASE) ainsi que sur les tensions produites par la rencontre de deux discours opposés au sein des organisations d'accueil : celui de la protection de l'enfance et celui de régulation migratoire. De par le contexte migratoire actuel, nous sommes amenés à accorder une attention toute aussi soutenue à l’expérience des jeunes non-accueillis par l'ASE, relégués hors des murs de l’institution. Cette thèse analyse les modalités d’investissement autour de la figure du jeune migrant et s’intéresse aux effets du « désaccueil » et à l’épreuve du « rien ». Cette jeunesse, qui traverse des frontières en quête d’un lieu dans lequel elle puisse exister en tant que sujet social, se voit confrontée à des obstacles incessants qui l’empêchent d’envisager une existence pleine. Comment ces sujets vivent-ils cet environnement marqué par l’incertitude et la négation ? Quels supports mobilisent-ils pour trouver une manière d’investir leurs projets et construire leur avenir ? Nous approfondissons ces questions dans ce travail / This research focuses on young foreigners arriving in France without their legal guardians: the so-called unaccompanied minors. It proposes an investigation of their “welcoming” and “un-welcoming” conditions following a clinical psychosociological approach. If the International Convention on the Rights of the Child establishes the responsibility of public authorities regarding the vulnerability of their situation, it is for us today to observe the specificities of educational-protective work and the mishaps of the care provided to them.At first, this research focuses on the social care of these young people provided by the Aide Sociale à l’Enfance (ASE), a French institution of child protection, as well as the tensions produced by the encounter of two opposing institutional discourses within the care/host organizations: the child protection discourse and the regulation of migration discourse. Secondly, as a result of the current migratory situation, this research focuses, on the experience of young people who are not hosted by the ASE, those who are relegated outside the institution's walls. Therefore, this thesis analyzes the types of investments around this youth and focuses on the effects of a policy of “un-welcoming” referring subjects constantly to the condition of “not being". This youth who crosses borders in the search of a place to “be” an active social and political subject, found themselves confronted with the dimension of “not possible”, relegated to the margins of institutions. How do they live this environment marked by uncertainty and negation? How are they able to find the support necessary for each human being to build their professional and life projects? These are the main questions we investigate in this thesis.

As a result of the economic reforms that were introduced in Vietnam in 1986, the country has grown economically. However, due to a bias toward development policies which have been mainly concentrated in urban areas, the economic gap between rural and urban areas has rapidly widened over time. More job opportunities and better living conditions in the city, as well as low productivity in agriculture, have caused people to move to the major cities. Consequently, rural to urban migration has become one of the dominant flows of internal migration in the country in recent years. This migration stream not only has increased in scale but also in its complexity. Particularly, the age of the migrants has become younger as many young people, especially females, become involved in this flow. Moreover, this migration flow has become less selective in terms of education as both more and less educated people migrate. Also, not only the rich but the poor take part in this movement. This thesis considers the determinants of moving and the experiences of young migrants to Ho Chi Minh City in terms of their economic, social and cultural adjustment in order to provide deep insights into the lives of young people when they migrate. This thesis has used the migration model of Scharping (1997) as the theoretical framework to investigate the decision to move as well as their living experiences in the city. A multiple method approach has been used to the study as both quantitative and qualitative data were analysed. Quantitative data such as secondary data from censuses and data from large-scale surveys at the national and the city levels and primary data from the author’s survey with 300 young migrants were applied. Qualitative data from 25 in-depth interviews with young migrants, 5 with authorities and 5 with migrant returnees were used in this study, to provide detailed information on migrants’ lives. While the city has attracted a large number of youth from rural areas because of its development advantages, the city’s government has applied policies to limit this flow. Yet, this migration control policy has proved costly and ineffective in restricting the flows of people to the major cities. This policy has created many difficulties for migrants in the city. In addition, low levels of education and limited work skills force many young migrants to work in the informal sector where their human rights are heavily violated. Other young migrants work in cheap intensive-labour factories. Low pay and hard work, but without labour and medical insurance, lead these young migrants to live on the margins of urban society. These findings suggest that if the local people do not accept these migrants, and urban policies make no effort to assistance them, it is impossible for young migrants in the city to be successful in building new lives and careers. Instead of trying to limit rural to urban migration, the national government should put more effort into narrowing the rural-urban gap by improving development in rural areas. More jobs with better pay in rural areas may be the most effective and sustainable way of reducing rural to urban migration flows. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1331422 / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, 2008