Postdivorce Dual Residency as Narrated Childhood Experiences

ABSTRACT

This article concentrates on young persons’ knowledge and ways to verbalize their childhood experiences of dual residency. Guided by social constructionist and narrative approaches of childhood, family, and space studies, the analysis focuses on the writings produced by young Finns on their multilocal experiences. As a result, 3 different story types—expressing success, ambivalence, or tragedy—are found to describe the young persons’ experiences. The results add to the previous cross-sectional studies with more nuanced knowledge and challenge the tradition of equating dual residency to a (static) family form, which is comparable to other family forms, such as single-parent families or nuclear families.

KEYWORDS:

• Dual residency
• multilocality
• narrative analysis
• sense of places
• young people