Transnational migration from children’s perspective: being a stranger and taming space

Abstract

The study examines transnational migration from the perspective of children – a little-studied point of view. It is a widely shared belief that children are in a vulnerable position within the family regarding their participation in migration decisions as they can’t enforce their interest. A new wave of literature, however, considerably revises this image of the children as the passive bearers of harmful effects (such as the loss of place, distress, emotional crises, solitude etc.) and emphasizes the complexity of their experiences, their flexibility and their individual adopting strategies, that is, their agency.

The two case-studies in this paper analyze child-drawings and interviews made by and with pupils (aged 6–14 years) with transnational migration experiences (defined as being lived permanently in a transnational family, and having moved abroad with their whole, nuclear family or with one parent). Children’s drawings and interviews were recorded in the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund’s (OTKA) project “International Migration from Hungary and its Impacts on Rural Societies”. The analysis examines the children’s drawings, their associations (using Rory’s story cubes for stimulating narratives) and their experiences narrated during the interview in a dynamic way; that is, it tries to interpret the mutual relations between migration experiences revealed by the different methods.

The triangulation of methods – that is, using mixed interview methods (narrative and questionbased, “structured”) and projective techniques, such as children’s drawings and stimulating associations by Rory’s story cubes – was substantiated by the methodological challenge of recalling children’s perspectives, the complexity of migration experiences and the constraints of a single method.

This in-depth analysis explores specific problems and attitudes related to transnational migration, therefore, its results are not representative and may be generalized only moderately. The aim is to reveal different attitudes, individual coping (adapting) strategies, their cognitive, emotional and spatial aspects and to reflect upon its own methodological attempt.

Fragmented experiences revealed by diverse methods and techniques cast a different light on the ambiguities of transnational migration. The case studies show that projective techniques can enrich the methodological repertoire and highlight experiences otherwise resisting narration, especially in relation to children. This enriched methodology gives a more complex picture of children’s migration experiences than plain interview methods. The triangulation of methods grasps and transmits the multiple experiences of being a stranger and its spatial and social aspects: the challenges of social integration, the perception of cultural and social differences, the experience of the unknown and often menacing space and the control over this everyday space gained by perambulating and discovering it.