Child Migration Experiences in Fiction, Film and Visual Art

Dear Colleagues,

In most socio-legal and anthropological studies, migration is considered a phenomenon concerning adults and requiring organization and control. Children in this context are mainly seen as appendages to adults. Children indeed are mostly migrating in the context of a family, but many also travel alone, or in the unplanned company of other young people. In 1997, the UHNCR put the spotlight on children as asylum seekers with specific life stories and reasons to be on the move. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, child welfare specialists and immigration experts started to work together more closely regarding the diverse and complex conditions of child migrants.

Considering this context, there are urgent questions that come up: What does it mean to be a minor migrant today; what do children experience in situations of displacement? How can we know about and understand children’s experiences and narratives? How do we regard the resilience of children: as a form of resistance or as self-protection in playfulness and creativity?

This Special Issue seeks answers to these questions through the (narrative) analyses of literary novels, films and visual art projects in which experiences of child migration and displacement are represented, explored and imagined. Literary novels such as Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli, What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad and Planet of Clay by Samar Yazbek evoke the perspectives of children in imaginary worlds that relate to the global context. The artifacts reveal affective and aesthetic components while responding to official social and political discourses and giving insight into children’s particular experiences and dreams. This cultural analysis project aims to offer a contribution to interdisciplinary migration studies, in which artistic projects are often ignored.

Prof. Dr. Odile Heynders
Guest Editor

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• child migration
• displacement
• experience
• resilience
• imagination
• fiction
• art
• film