Peer-Reviewed Journal Details
Mandatory Fields
Veale A.;Andres C.
2020
January
Culture and Psychology
The role of the imagination in transnational relating: The case of Nigerian children and their migrant parent in Ireland
Validated
()
Optional Fields
imagination immobility Ireland Migration mobility Nigeria transnational children transnational families
© The Author(s) 2020. This paper explores the role of imagination in the lives of Nigerian transnational children and their migrant parent in Ireland. Migration of a parent is a rupture in a child’s life that triggers imaginary processes that are real in their developmental consequences. Following Zittoun and Gillespie, imagination is a process that generates a disjunction from the person’s experience of the “real” world, and uncouples and loops out before it eventually comes back to the actual experience. For the left-behind child, this imaginative loop remains “open” as parents return becomes extended in time. The dilemmas for the migrant parent and child are explored.
1354-067X
10.1177/1354067X20922136
Grant Details