Interrogating Childhood and Diaspora Through the Voices of Children in Sweden

Abstract

This article introduces the concepts of diaspora and transnational networks to research on children with migrant backgrounds. It is based on interviews with children who live in a Swedish multicultural area and the research questions focus on issues relating to diasporic consciousness and diasporic practices from a child's perspective. The results show how the children negotiate their identity and belongings to places, how they make their own distinctions between home and homeland and how in everyday life they actively contribute to sustaining transnational kin networks. Interrogating the competent childInspired by the new childhood sociology, the notion of the competent child has in the last two decades become prevalent in childhood research. 1 The competent child involves an understanding of the child as 'reflexive, autonomous

Home abroad: Eastern European children’s family and peer relationships after migration

“…Initially, 11 focus groups were carried out with 57 children of various nationalities, all first generation migrants who lived abroad for less than four years. Focus groups have been used in research with migrant children (Reynolds, 2004;Devine, 2009;Bak and Brömssen, 2010), as they can generate a greater rate of responses based on shared experiences, acknowledging children as experts (Hill, 2006). The second stage involved in-depth case studies with 23 Eastern European families, including 29 children.…”

“…Forms of resistance, such as arguing or complaining, are used to influence adults' decisions and to put pressure on parents to return.Studies on children who migrate with their families have shown how concerns about children's future and welfare are key influences in adults' decisions to migrate (Orellana et al, 2001). Recent calls to examine migrant children's agency are based on the 'competent child' approach (Bak and Brömssen, 2010), inspired by the new sociology of childhood (James et al, 1998). Migration causes significant changes in the power dynamics of the parent-child relationships.…”

‘The problem is that I don’t know’ – Agency and life projects of transnational migrant children and young people in England and Spain

“…Similar to other studies that have argued for an increased and more direct inclusion of children and young people's experiences of migration (Ní Laoire et al, 2010), the article emphasises the importance of exploring young migrants' ideas about the future and their active engagement in shaping their own lives. The accounts of the young migrants in the study show that transnational ties in the country of origin play a significant role in the perspectives of migrant young people (Bak and Von Brömsen, 2010) and that their life projects often include a transnational dimension. However, the data also show that the agency of young migrants may be limited by some very particular factors.…”

Challenging Barriers to Participation: Doing Research with Migrant Children and Young People

“…Others have also shown how migrant children 'infuse a place with identity' through their experienced social relationships, mainly through the presence of kin (Bak and Brömssen, 2010). Research with migrant children conducted in more public places has ranged from observing and interviewing children through diaspora organisations (Tereshchenko and Grau Cárdenas, 2013), engaging them in community-based media-making projects (De Block and Buckingham, 2010) or organizing neighbourhood-based activities guided by children, such as walking tours or photographic activities (Christensen and O'Brien, 2003).…”

“…These involve the interviewer asking children questions (standardised or for prompting) to gain children's views on the migration experience, from their involvement in family decisions to migrate (Bushin, 2009), to their journey and experiences post-migration (Knörr, 2005;White and Tyrrell, 2015), in relation to schools (Devine, 2009(Devine, , 2011Nestor and Regan, 2011), services (Sime and Fox, 2014 b), involvement in friendships and other networks (Haikkola, 2011; and sense of belonging (Bak and Brömssen, 2010). Researchers have also combined interviewing with other methods, such as task-based activities for children.…”