Researching transnational childhoods

This paper reflects on experiences of conducting research with transnational children. It brings together criticisms from within anthropology of the conceptualisation of stable and bounded fields, and discussion of conceptual and methodological approaches to researching children and childhoods. Taking research with British Bangladeshi transnational children as a case in point, the paper addresses the challenge of conducting research with transnational and fast-changing communities, arguing that it requires the use of multi-sited methods, an awareness of power relations at research sites, the building of a good rapport with the children and a range of methodological approaches set within long-term ethnographic engagement with research participants.