Children in transnational families: Intersectional perspectives on serial migration and language brokering

The current global concern with migration has sharpened consciousness that families and children are centrally implicated in processes of migration. This has fuelled recognition that within and across countries, we are all... [ view full abstract ]

The current global concern with migration has sharpened consciousness that families and children are centrally implicated in processes of migration. This has fuelled recognition that within and across countries, we are all interlinked in what Avtar Brah has called ‘diaspora space’. Yet, while there is a general acknowledgement that most societies have become more diverse over time, there is generally little recognition of what this diversity looks like for migrant children and families or the implications for child and adolescent welfare.

This paper focuses on two areas where migration status and other forms of diversity intersect, but that are frequently overlooked; serial migration and language brokering. Serial migration, where family members migrate at different times frequently means that children spend years living away from their birth parents before rejoining them. In language brokering children, who may or may not have migrated themselves, interpret and translate for parents who do not speak the local language. The paper aims to throw light on what diversity means for children, constructions of childhood and parenting by exploring children’s experiences of these transnational family practices in intersectional and psychosocial perspective.