Plans for isolated foreign minors are located at the crossroads where the migratory imagination, the person’s or family’s dreams of the future and the personalized plan constructed with the help of educators come together. Very often, these are opposed to a practice wherein adaptation to reality is supposed to be accomplished by giving up dreams viewed as « utopian ». Using an anthropological study involving twenty young isolated foreign minors (MIE) cared for in Socially Oriented Children’s Centers (MECS) in the Aquitaine region, and D. W. Winnicott’s concept of potential space, this article suggests a different way of thinking about the construction of projects for these youngsters, one which considers their dreams for the future as tools in caring for them.

Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 633-649.