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The role of the imagination in transnational relating: The case of Nigerian children and their migrant parent in Ireland

Year: 2020

Type: article

Abstract: 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.

Source: Culture & Psychology

DOI: 10.1177/1354067x20922136

Authors: Angela Veale, Camilla Andres

Institution: University College Cork

Language: English

Topic: Diaspora, migration, transnational identity

Subfield: Demography

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green