Divergent Discourses, Children and Forced Migration

Experiences of refugee, internally displaced and migrant children in different contexts
(such as post-conflict and resettlement) are often considered separately, yet closer analysis
points to the existence of commonalities across transnational locations and a need to
articulate the ways in which global systems, state policies and migration processes impact
on the lives of these children. Current discourses, policies and practices towards forcedmigrant
children show that there are divergent and at times conflicting constructions of
childhood and migration, and implicitly reveal the positions that these children occupy in
relation to the nation-state system. In this article we focus on the existence of common
divergent discourses that emerge from contexts in the global North and South, including
Rwanda, Uganda, Ireland and the United Kingdom, where we have carried out research
with children forced to move. Our overall aim is to re-politicise the position of child and
youth forced migration through an analysis of three sets of divergent or ambivalent
discourses: a) forced-migrant children as product of and threat to the nation-state;
b) ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ children; and c) the ‘psychological’ and the ‘political’ child.