Methodological innovations, reflections and dilemmas: the hidden sides of research with migrant young people classified as unaccompanied minors

ABSTRACT

This paper offers some behind-the-scenes insights drawn from the collective fieldwork experiences of the contributors to this Special Issue. These include reflections on: how decisions about modes of accessing research participants fundamentally shape the research process and outcomes; the pitfalls of only focusing on young people's migratory experiences while ignoring the multiple other dimensions to their lives; how we can best capture and represent young people's often paradoxical vulnerability and agency; the relative merits of methodological innovations increasingly integrated into work with marginalised and hard to reach communities; and, finally, our own positionality when conducting research with migrant young people and the importance of taking account of how our own subjective, political, philosophical and ethical standpoints influence our interactions throughout our research endeavours. These contributions seek to promote greater reflexivity and transparency among academics conducting ethnographically driven research with young people in the context of forced migration.

KEYWORDS:

• Young people
• forced migration
• research ethics
• ethnographic methods
• positionality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Ulrika Wernesjö http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3384-7518

Notes

1 In line with Critical Whiteness Studies, we understand White and Whiteness as socially constructed and not as biological facts.