Paper short abstract:

High income does not imply that child migrants have agency, nor legal rights. Autobiographies of diplomat children show how being ascribed a “privileged” status obscures a challenging serial migrant experience. Ascribing child migrants an “under-privileged” status devalues their resourcefulness.

Paper long abstract:

Ascribed categories can assist comprehension, yet they risk obscuring the complexities of migrant lives. This paper discusses implications of applying the ascribed categories “privileged” and “under-privileged” when studying child migrants, based on 43 autobiographies of former Norwegian Foreign Service children. Results show that because level of income was high, it was assumed that serial migration was voluntary also for children; that they could always return home; and that their legal rights to child protection and parental care were met. This pull-migration narrative was not confirmed. During childhood, the participants did not have agency in choices of migration; they were socially excluded in Norway; and diplomatic immunity placed them in an international legal vacuum. Told they were “privileged children”, they did not have the social right to grief, anxiety and anger upon migrating. When having these emotions, they would feel shame and develop a negative self-image. Moreover, accounts from first- and second-generation youth migrants in Norway state that they do not wish to be named “under-privileged”, which they feel obscures their individual and cultural resourcefulness and strengths. The paper argues for the need to explore empirically the many sides to migrant life from a child perspective (rights, agency, relationships, education, health, belonging, cultural and individual resources). Moreover, it illustrates the need to question the assumptions that lie within our categorizations of others; to be aware of the consequences of the use of our terminology; and to nuance policy away from the classic pull- and push-migration narratives.