(Digital) Photography, Experience and Space in Transnational Families. A Case Study of Spanish-Irish Families living in Ireland

We take selfies, photograph our lunches, and use cameras as note‐taking devices. As our lives play out before us, we choose to give visual account to our intimate moments, anticipating the reaction of our family and friends. We share these snapshots immediately with them, some of whom live far away from us, thereby establishing ephemeral connections. The present paper entails an empiric investigation done with Spanish-Irish families in relation to the following research question: How do transnational families use photographs? The methods put in place, the position of the researcher (also a Spanish migrant living in Ireland) and the ethical implications derived, serve both to provide the necessary critical distance for the analysis as well as to introduce a second key question in this paper: how can we discuss personal photography without giving something of ourselves into the text? The narrative crafted below intends to offer a provisional answer.