Drawing on the use of children-centred visual research methods, primarily artwork and photography, in Irish primary schools, this article compares the use of artwork and photography as visual methods and outlines the theoretical frameworks within which the data produced can be made meaningful. The ways in which the social worlds of migrant children both converged with, and diverged from, those of children who were born in Ireland are also explored.

This paper identifies that much geographical research exploring family migration decision‐making has overlooked the issue of children's agency. Motivations for family migration are considered to be influenced by children's presence within families, but it is often assumed that children have no actual involvement in making family migration decisions. In this paper I argue that changes in socio‐cultural constructions of ‘the family’ and ‘childhood’, alongside changes in familial forms and contexts, suggest that population geographers should consider the possibility that some children may be involved in making family migration decisions. I suggest that in order to develop deeper and more nuanced theorisations of family migration decision‐making, which reflect the involvement and experiences of children, a children‐in‐families approach to researching family migration may be fruitful. This approach is outlined in the paper, drawing on the findings of a mixed‐methods family migration research project with 37 families who moved within the UK. A possible framework for exploring children's levels of involvement in family migration decision‐making is introduced, and two key factors that influence their involvement are considered – children's age and parental consideration of children's ‘best interests’. By adopting a children‐in‐families approach to family migration decision‐making, I argue that current understandings of these processes will be furthered and population geographers will be able to contribute to broader debates on children's involvement in decision‐making within family contexts. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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provide participants with exceptional resources for explaining their lives. ABSTRACTIn this paper we explore the ways in which the methodological and analytical complexities that are encountered when researching with children have stimulated particular approaches that are useful to consider in the context of research with both adults and children who are refugees or seeking asylum. We draw upon ideas related to performativity to argue that the methods and activities we employ in research encounters 'in-the-fi eld' play a key role in facilitating research participants' efforts to express their subjectivities and identities. Drawing on fi eldwork with children in an accommodation centre for asylum-seeking families in Ireland, we argue that using childcentred research methods can be understood as specifi c moments within which materials become available for research participants (children) to develop and enhance their social and cultural identities in many different ways. The use of multiple and participatory methods that children engaged with, adapted or ignored (as they chose), enabled and resulted in children representing themselves as individuals in families seeking asylum, rather than as 'asylum-seeker children'. This paper supports work that suggests that ways of approaching participatory research with children may be useful when researching other populations, but it goes beyond this point to assert that research encounters may

This paper focuses on the ways in which the politics of migration impacts upon the everyday geographies of immigrant young people living in Ireland. We contrast the ways in which young people's participation in socio-spatial practices, at varying scales, are shaped in different ways specifically because of the immigration procedures they are subjected to. We draw on material from a longitudinal, qualitative research project in which we have used a range of participatory methods with young people aged 13 to 18 who are living in Ireland.