Thesis

"It's beautiful, that's why we call it abroad" : Ghanaian children's imaginings and experiences of migration

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Awarding institution
  • University of Strathclyde
Date of award
  • 2011
Thesis identifier
  • T13013
Qualification Level
Qualification Name
Department, School or Faculty
Abstract
  • This doctoral research explores young people’s specific imaginings, expectations and experiences in relation to migration. In line with the tenets of the sociology of childhood, this qualitative study aims to bring children’s voices into the debate on migration. In order to achieve this, the study investigates the imaginings of Italy (the country, the people, everyday life) among Ghanaian children left behind by migrant parents. It looks at migrant children’s own assessment of their previously held expectations in the light of the experience of moving. It also explores how children born in Italy of Ghanaian parents imagine Ghana and how they relate to it. The questions the research set out to investigate are: how do children imagine a country they do not know directly but to which, through significant others, they have emotional ties? What is the role of these imagined countries in the children’s expectations and ambitions for the future? How do young people assess their expectations in the light of the encounter with reality? The findings reveal how the children invest their own specific expectations for social advancement in the migratory project; trace the echo of colonial discourses in their characterisation of Ghana and Italy; illustrate the disappointment migrant children experience when faced with the social demotion migration almost inevitably entails. The study also explores the important role played by the children in maintaining social ties across borders and the way in which they appear to live within „transnational emotional spaces‟. It investigates how young migrants keep dreams and aspiration alive by repositioning them in space, to yet another country. Finally, the research shows how the children share, but also resist, dominant stereotypes, and how they play with and between different cultural expectations in order to defy and resist adults’ demands.
Advisor / supervisor
  • Clark, Colin
  • Smyth, Geri
Resource Type
DOI
Date Created
  • 2011
Former identifier
  • 940496

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