Children and Young People who Migrate – Representing and (Re)producing Vulnerabilities through Research

Abstract

Conducting research with young migrants offers an important opportunity to understand better their own perspectives on their migration experiences. Yet, engaging migrant youth in research can be fraught with ethical and methodological challenges. Institutional ethics processes have a tendency to prioritise standard principles – many of which depart from the ethical sensitivities that emerge during research practice. In this chapter, the authors explore some of the procedural and situated ethical issues involved in conducting research with child and youth migrants in Ghana. In particular, the authors highlight how the diversity of young migrants prompts definitional issues about what constitutes childhood and youth, and in different socio-cultural spatial settings. Differing categorisations of child and youth generate issues of representation and guide adult-led decisions about children’s assumed competencies and vulnerabilities to participate in research. The precarious living circumstances of many migrant children, including the absence of parental figures or legal guardians, coupled with language and cultural barriers, present particular difficulties for securing informed consent. Challenges of this kind can deny young migrants the opportunity to participate in research about their own lives and serve to reproduce dominant power asymmetries and assumptions about these children’s vulnerabilities. The authors conclude by offering some suggestions for how researchers might develop critical ethical reflexivity to support the meaningful and ethical engagement of young migrants in research.

Citation

Spencer, G., Dankyi, E., Kwankye, S.O. and Thompson, J. (2021), "Children and Young People who Migrate – Representing and (Re)producing Vulnerabilities through Research", Spencer, G. (Ed.) Ethics and Integrity in Research with Children and Young People (Advances in Research Ethics and Integrity, Vol. 7), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 183-197. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2398-601820210000007017