Marie Curie Actions: Inspiring Researchers - Imdea

Ireland possesses a category of migrant children that ispeculiar to emigrant countries: the children of returningémigrés. ‘A signifi cant number of the 1980s generation ofemigrants have been returning to Ireland in recent years,many of them with children who were born elsewhere,refl ecting a strong desire among return migrants to bringup their children in Ireland,’ describes Caitríona Ní Laoire ofUniversity College Cork, whose research interests lie in theareas of migration, childhood, identities, rural issues andgender. She has published widely in these areas, includingpapers in Social and Cultural Geography, Journal of RuralStudies and Translocations.‘For them, the notion of “coming home” raises many issues ofidentity and belonging. On the one hand, they are likely to sharesimilar experiences with other migrant children, associated withmoving from a familiar to an unfamiliar place, and with possibleexperiences of dislocation, loss and exclusion. On the otherhand, their familial ties and support structures in Ireland, andtheir pre-migration knowledge of Ireland, are likely to be strongeror more complex than for other immigrant children,’ she adds.Despite their large number, the children of returning Irish émigrésare an under-researched subject, explains Dr Ní Laoire. Withfunding from a Marie Curie Excellence Grant, she is investigatingthe subject with a view to improving understanding of theexperiences of these ‘returnee’ children and, in so doing, togive these kids voice.The research is part of a larger team project on children’sexperiences of migration to Ireland. The research has beenexploring the young migrants’ experiences, everyday lives andsocial worlds, their family, kin and intergenerational relations;and how they negotiate and form their identities upon moving toIreland. The project was due to publish its fi ndings in September2009 and a book drawing on the research is due out in 2010.Dr Ní Laoire values the leadership role that the Marie CurieFellowship afforded her: ‘Being team leader has been awonderful opportunity to establish my research career,to develop expertise in an exciting and newly emergingarea and to develop skills in research leadership andmanagement,’ she acknowledges.166