Making space for ambiguity: the value of multiple and participatory methods in researching diasporic youth identities

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.

KEYWORDS:

• participatory methods
• multimodal research
• youth
• return migrants
• narratives
• identities

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.

Additional information

Funding

The author would like to acknowledge the support of an EU FP6 Marie Curie Excellence Grant for this research. This work was supported by the European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation [Grant Number MEXT-014204].

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