Abstract
This article explores the use of participatory methods in a research project with young people in return migrant families. In-depth children-centred participatory research was conducted with children and young people who had moved to Ireland with their Irish return migrant parents during the recent ‘Celtic Tiger’ era. I argue that the use of multimodal and participatory methods in research with young migrants enables participants to express multiple identities and complex narratives of self. People frequently perform different identities in different contexts, but young migrants in particular, because of the disruptions and incoherences associated with their migrancy and their complex social and cultural positionings, can express ambiguous and apparently contradictory narratives of self. Recognising that research is a process of coconstructing meaning, I highlight the importance of using multimodal methods in research with young migrants, showing how different modes of coconstructing meaning can allow different and ambiguous narratives of self to be articulated.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank the special issue editors and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The ‘Celtic Tiger’ era is commonly understood to refer to the period of economic boom and high immigration in the Republic of Ireland that lasted from approximately the mid-1990s to 2008.
2. The Migrant Children research project was a Marie Curie Excellence Team project based in University College Cork and funded through the EU Sixth Framework Programme.
3. Pseudonyms are used throughout.
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Notes on contributors
Caitríona Ní Laoire
CAITRÍONA NÍ LAOIRE is a lecturer in Applied Social Studies, and a research associate of the Institute for Social Sciences in the 21st Century, at University College Cork