Abstract
The aim of this feminist ethnographic participatory study is to explore resilience processes of female asylum seekers in Italian emergency centers in the context of institutional power relations. On the one hand, the central dimensions of resilience processes of female asylum seekers were identified, and on the other hand, an epistemological question of how visual participatory methods can contribute to examine resilience was addressed. Data were collected in three different emergency centers and their local areas in southern Sardinia. The young women were mostly from West African countries, traveling alone, and arrived in Italy by sea. Through ethnographic observations and informal interviews, it was possible to explore the whole context of the refugee camps. The participatory part of the study focused on a co-construction ofknowledge with the female asylum seekers by carrying out a PhotoVoice project (photo interviews, walking interviews, group discussions). All material was evaluated using elements of constructivist grounded theory and discourse analysis. Through the narratives of the asylum seeking women, the concept of resilience could be critically reconsidered by allowing more account to be taken of the processual character and the influence of power and inequality relations. It was found that beyond dichotomous patterns of interpretation, resilience and vulnerability are subject to an ongoing process of negotiation, which is determined by institutional, political, social and individual conditions. It has also been shown that visual participatory methods can make an important scientific contribution by involving refugee women in the co-construction of knowledge in order to learn more about resilience processes and at the same time to increase the awareness of the co-researchers' own resilience.