Social Memory and Migration

Studies on social memory have been limited to the national sphere (^{Lo, 2013}) in communities defined as part of a single nation-State and for whom belonging to it is not questioned. This excludes people who would not be part of what is national and of the citizen due to their position as migrants. The theoretical-methodological dialogues developed between collective memory processes and migration have expanded these understandings while still accounting for their complexities. In this way, the inclusion of migrant subjects in memory practices, as well as of collective memory in migration processes, has involved reconsidering the notions made use of in these fields of study,⁶ thus providing other perspectives for their analysis (^{Álvarez & Rojas Silva, 2021}).

From these perspectives, the works of ^{Creet and Kitzmann (2011}), ^{Palmberger and Tošić (2016}), and ^{Marshall (2018}) become relevant, as they argue that memory and migration are mutually constitutive social practices. In the book Memory and migration: Multidisciplinary approaches to memory studies, Julia Creet outlines a critique in relation to the ideas of the location and stability of memory proposed by Nora, Ricoeur, and Halbwachs: “Perhaps stability does continue to play a role in the creation of memory, or, at least, the illusion or pretense of stability, but how do we understand this fixity if movement or migration is a constant?” (Creet & Kitzmann, 2011, p. 6). The need for a place and a materiality of memory have been pointed out as crucial for its maintenance (Halbwachs, 1968), even when a place is lost to a community, which produces an artificial memory (^{Nora, 2008}). These assumptions have focused attention on certain groups. Consequently, there is a view of the continuity between belonging, identity and memory, which can exclude migrants from collective memory processes.

Another relevant conceptualization of these works is the approach to transnational memories, which are defined as those that go beyond national frameworks, configuring themselves as memories crossed by migration and globalization. Thus, transnational memory pays attention to cross-border movements, the different ways in which globalization interacts with memory, and the relocation processes of immigrant groups (^{Amine & Beschea-Fache, 2012}). From these conceptualizations, there is criticism that there are analyses that focus on family and individual memories linked mainly to the place of origin and migratory transit (^{Glynn & Kleist, 2012}). However, for this research, the reality of migration processes in both the country of origin and that of destination, and their practices in the society of residence are taken into account.

Collective memory in relation to mobility, from an understanding that acknowledges it as dynamic, changing, and mobile, thus questions its fixed and stable notion in time (^{Erll, 2011}). From this notion, the research presented here distances itself from the presentist views on migration, understood as homogeneous, fixed, and permanent in time. Instead, it adheres to the perspective of the Autonomy of Migration (^{Mezzadra, 2012})-which directs the gaze towards the actions, desires, and expectations of migrants-, which, in affinity with this approach, calls into question the impact of children on reality, on the routes of national and transnational configuration, and challenges the notions of absolute dependence on the adult and institutional world.

Therefore, the process of remembering the past varies depending on whether one is a child or not, and on the relationship of that past with mobility. The relationship between past, present, and future from the exercise of memory (^{Fernández, 2000}) allows one to understand that, in the articulation of the temporalities of children in connection with their migrations, they become subscribed through their recognition in the time and space in which they live.

The Collective Memory of the New Generations

In classic studies on childhood from biological and developmental psychological narratives, children are conceptualized as innocent, immature subjects with little capacity for action (^{Burman, 2021}). Migrant childhood has also been understood from the perspective of vulnerability and lack of agency (^{Pávez, 2011}), or as a social problem that requires intervention (^{Santamaría, 2002}), based on protectionist and romantic perspectives, which develop generic descriptions of both their living conditions and the actions that should be deployed to manage the phenomenon.

Generally, the approach to the memory of youngsters, boys and girls, has been from the perspective of intergenerational transmission (^{Jelin, 2002}) and generational memories (^{Misztal, 2003}). These approaches focus on the transmission of memories, knowledge, and behaviors from an older generation to a younger one through adults and institutions, where the generation is understood as a socio-historical constitution that shares certain ways of thinking and experiences (^{Mannheim, 1928}), and not as a mere biological status. They also emphasize generational change by designating the group that receives the memories as the successors or entrepreneurs of memory (Jelin, 2002), thus restraining the meanings of the past based on what the witness generation conveys to the new one.

On the other hand, Marianne ^{Hirsch (2008}) proposes the concept of post-memory to refer to the generation that comes after or to the second generation, that is, to people who were not direct witnesses of what is remembered, always being a mediated and vicarious experience. Some of the limitations of these approaches are considering memory as guarded by other generations, only reproduced by the new generation. At the same time, they are likely to marginalize those who did not directly experience the past and thus place the experiences of children in a secondary position.

In this context, it makes sense to approach the memory of the new generations from a co-constructive and dialogical perspective, which understands childhood and migration as relational and intersubjective notions (^{Habashi, 2013}; ^{Reyes et al., 2015}). What is remembered or forgotten creates a relational space that depends on the subject positions, from which multiple meanings of the past emerge and are interpreted. Therefore, from these prisms, the construction of memory is developed from agency, where children are protagonists of the practices of memory and builders of their migratory experiences and memories.

At the same time, these elaborations pertain memories that outline the way in which migration processes are configured, and the positions occupied by migrant children. Therefore, the elaboration of memory affects identities, senses of belonging, and the affective processes that are played out in childhood migration. Paying attention to these complex relationships becomes fundamental to understanding the effects and the ways in which these processes intertwine and change.

Identity and Affectivity in Memory and Migration Processes

Migration processes affect the formation and consequent transformation of identities and memories, both individual and collective (^{Arfuch, 2013}). From the contributions of feminist epistemologies to the field of study of collective memory (^{Troncoso & Piper, 2015}), the notion of experience, identity, and the affective dimension are accounted for in this study, crucial as they are to understanding migration.

Experience, understood from these prisms, problematizes access to truth, since it is mediated by historical and political contingencies, embodied and dynamic as it is (^{Scott, 2001}). Identity is understood as a dynamic, changing, and even contradictory process, and not as a pre-established and essentialist category that would account for attributable qualities, like a kind of innate and proper nature (^{Anzaldúa, 1999}). As such, identity is a contingent and situated articulation. In the words of Avtar ^{Brah (2011}), identity is constituted by “(...) discourses, matrices of meaning, and historical memories that, once in circulation, can form the bases of a certain identification in a specific economic, cultural, and political context” (p. 153).

From these perspectives, identity is not a pre-existing matter, nor is experience something that is possessed. Therefore, particular experiences are invoked in the elaboration of memory, which configure identities crossed by multiple situations and positions. Identity processes are related to what makes sense to one, so it is crucial to pay attention to the emotional dimension. Therefore, this work adheres to the notion of collective affectivity proposed by Pablo ^{Fernández (2000}); for this author, it refers to feelings, emotions, and moods; it is produced, manifested, and felt collectively, so it transcends an individual-personal level. Likewise, in relation to memory, the author argues that collective affectivity cannot be conceived without addressing affectivity itself: all memory is affective and goes back to an affective situation; if not, it would be mere events.

Due to the relational and constructive nature of childhood and affections, memory is recreated from contingent and changing situations that depend on the places one occupy in society. The feelings that are produced in the recollections of children are not the same as those generated at another given time; they may be similar, but they are transformed each time memories linked to specific situations are evoked.

Workshops, Mappings, and Participatory Productions

The fieldwork was carried out between March and May 2021, through theoretical sampling (^{Valles, 1999}). In the first instance, the main researcher linked up with a public school that has a significant presence of migrant children, in order to invite them to participate in the research. The school is classified as a center of high socioeconomic complexity, located in the Vallés Occidental region in Catalonia, in the province of Barcelona. This area is characterized by a high percentage of migrant population, so the school has traditionally welcomed children of different nationalities.

In the 2017-18 academic year, the center was linked to a program called Hack the School, by the Bofill Foundation, whose objective was to include families in the community and thus design a playground for the school. The project coordinator said that discovering these types of programs, in which the community transformed the school, led them to enter into an alliance with the Magnet Program,⁷ which aimed at combating school segregation and promoting educational innovation. This has served to promote the heterogeneity of said center, by including Catalan children, since historically the school had a reputation of being welcoming to immigration.

Secondly, a call was issued to children who met specific inclusion criteria, such as (a) being between 6 and 13 years old; (b) having been born in another country and then emigrated to Barcelona, and (c) having resided in the country for at least eight uninterrupted months. This age range prior to adolescence was targeted because at this stage they experience other processes, which implies other particularities for the research (^{Sedletzki & Perrault, 2016}). Regarding the age criterion, a child was considered as such in accordance with the National Council for Children, that is, being under 18 years of age, this being consistent with the current Spanish legislation. Finally, the migratory status was chosen as an inclusion criterion, as well as the length of stay in the country of arrival, since these factors can contribute to the exploration of previous experience, and how it is remembered and constructed in the process of settling in the host country.

The reasons that prompted the migration of those who participated in this research were diverse, such as improving their economic situation, seeking academic opportunities, or forced migration due to crises in their countries of origin. All of them migrated with their families or with someone related to them by blood. The identity of the participants was protected by means of pseudonyms, as detailed in Table 1, which provides brief information about them, such as age, nationality, and sessions in which they participated.

Five workshops were held with boys and girls in accordance with the research objective, focused on creating cartographies. From the perspective of popular education, each workshop was conceived as a group work device with a set duration, where knowledge and experiences were brought together to promote collective learning (^{Cano, 2012}). In this way, starting from an open question directed to the children, “how do you remember the experience of migrating to Barcelona and what were the emotions that accompanied this process?”, each one elaborated a personal cartography. During the workshops, a language adapted to their ages was used, with clear instructions and practical examples when necessary. Attention was paid to the working time of each participant; close and personalized back up was provided when requested. The duration of the sessions was approximately two hours.

Various materials were provided for the elaboration of the cartographies, such as maps, icons, magazines, and various supplies, as well as other materials brought by the children, such as colored pencils and photographs of their pets. With these elements they drew spaces, relationships and/or relevant people, objects and transits. The use of symbols was proposed to represent the affective dimension, for example: (a) a large dot to indicate the places where they carry out their activities; (b) an x-mark to indicate what they dislike; (c) a heart to indicate what they like or what makes them feel good, and, finally, (d) a square to indicate a situation, person, object, or place that evokes feelings such as fear, aversion, and/or rejection. Other symbols were also used according to the children's preferences, such as stars or flowers.

During the workshop, the way in which each participant created the cartographies was observed, by recording their narratives and actions. It is understood that the visual images created were part of a broader narrative, so their meaning is linked to the story of the children (^{Mannay, 2016}). These narratives were crucial in establishing a dialogue with the image, by understanding the experiences related through the data produced by them (Radley, 2012; as cited in Mannay, 2016), and privileging the children’s versions and interpretations of the past, as well as their experiences as related to the cartographies.

In this work, the feminist and Foucauldian perspective of Gillian ^{Rose (2012}) was chosen to analyze images in research, due to the importance of how they tell stories and reveal or make invisible social differences in a broader cultural context. Thus, the visual data produced in the research is considered as providing complementary information to verbal language about the migration, social memories, and identities of children, and can be analyzed contextually (^{Banks, 2010}). In line with this perspective, a content analysis was carried out by ^{Cáceres (2003}) through an inductive coding of the data from the cartographies, which followed specific stages (Rose, 2012):

Stage 1 (pre-analysis): Everything observed during the workshop was recorded in a field diary, including dialogues, the creation of cartographies, narratives, dynamics, and interactions, and reflections between participants and the researcher.

Stage 2: A content analysis of each cartography was carried out (^{Cáceres, 2003}), which allowed the identification of people, places, routes, colors, words, and assigned emotions through open coding. The relationship between these elements and their overall nature was then inductively categorized.

Stage 3: The individual analysis of each cartography was resumed by adopting a transversal-global perspective of the data (^{Rose, 2012}). Thus, the visual analysis of the cartographies was linked to the field notes, through the elaboration of categories discussed between the researchers based on the objectives, in order to triangulate the information, which ensured the rigor, quality, and transparency of the qualitative research (^{Sisto, 2008}).

Ethical Considerations

Research with children requires ethical procedures and regulations, as well as a reflective approach committed to the rights and well-being of children, which allows for the promotion of dynamic and respectful relationships between all the people who participate in the study. Taking into account that every research process implies power relations between researcher/expert and participants (^{Gandarias, 2014}), efforts were made in each session to level inequality and avoid falling into instrumental or adult-centric research practices, which would nullify the voices and creativity of children. This involved adopting an attitude of attentive listening that prioritized the needs and proposals of children, where the main researcher played a guiding role. This research is based on the idea that children should not be understood as objects to be intervened, but rather co-constructors of knowledge and agents capable of influencing their family and community environment (^{García-Quiroga & Vallejo-Correa, 2021}).

The inclusion of children in the research is based on the right to participate and be informed, as set forth in article 12 of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (^{Pávez, 2011}). To this end, Informed Consent agreements were drawn up that respected the will to participate and the freedom to withdraw, with prior authorization from parents or legal guardians. Consent was obtained to use photographs of the cartographies in the analysis, and pseudonyms were used to protect the identity of each child. In addition, the research received approval from the Ethics Committee of the institution corresponding to the affiliation of the first author, reference number CEEAH 5518.

This study is based on benefitting children by seeking to minimize risks (Consejo de Organizaciones Internacionales de las Ciencias Médicas [CIOMS] y ^{Organización Panamericana de la Salud [OPS], 2017}). However, due to the fact that it addresses sensitive aspects of migration, particular efforts were made to protect children from possible re-victimization when recalling these experiences. As such, the Informed Consent agreements made explicit the possible risks, providing mechanisms for addressing them in case they occurred, and the balance of the risks in relation to the benefit of the study.

In their reading, the children were enthusiastic about participating in the activity, both at the beginning and during the workshops; they asked questions about what cartographies were, and on the meanings of migration. Some even wanted to do more than one workshop session to go deeper into their cartographies, which showed their special interest.

A benefit of the research related to scientific and social value was reported by means of adapted language: that approaching children’s experiences contributes to the production of information for future interventions and public policies on the subject, by promoting inclusion and the exercise of their rights. Another benefit was the creation of a space in which children could talk about their experiences; share opinions, ideas, and feelings; be heard, and express themselves freely.

Taking into account the dimensions addressed in the study, some children expressed feelings of sadness and/or anguish based on memories of situations of abuse, subordination, and vulnerability, for which support and protection mechanisms were offered. During the workshops at school, children expressed discomfort due to experiences of violence in the past, so immediate and sensitive supportive responses were given to them, through emotional support and respect for their needs at all times. In order to reinforce the feeling of being protected (^{Graham et al., 2013}), the importance of having a close person aware of this situation was communicated, having been previously agreed with the child.

Due to the fact that the study takes into account the agency practices deployed by children, questions and instructions were included in the workshops that gave way to emotions linked to self-confidence, the construction of secure bonds, and involvement in situations that afflict them. This allowed to decenter the affective dimension linked to pain, and go beyond a position of victimization, which was also included in the analysis of the research results.

Senses of Belonging and Identities of Memory

In this axis, the practices of remembrance are based on the ways in which children identify with places of their past and appropriate new spaces provided by mobility. Thus, the meanings linked to territories and communities configure particular senses of belonging and identities from which children recognize themselves (^{Hedrera & Álvarez, 2018}).

The memories of migrations are made up of routes, locations, and aspects of daily life presented through drawings and icons. For the children, remembering migration involved locating a starting point on the cartography, that is, the place of origin from which the journey begins. In the first meetings, they imagined in which space of the cartography to place the geographical map, asking themselves: “Where is my country on the map? Where can I locate it?” (L. Hedrera-Manara, field diary, May 12, 2021), this being an initial form of appropriation in relation to the cartography and the migration journey.

At the same time, the construction of memories included, in some migrations, the record of cities in which they had settled, or towns through which they had passed prior to their destination, which were part of the migratory routes. In this way, the migratory past is related to these movements, as does their arrival and stay in the city of Barcelona, and so they are recorded as places of belonging.

As an example, for Ignacio (11),⁸ Chile and Catalonia are part of his life story (figure 1). At 9 years old he emigrated with his parents from Temuco, a town located in the south of Chile, to Barcelona. In his cartography, unique characteristics of the country of origin are visualized, such as the Andes Mountains, a natural mountainous boundary in South America that divides Argentina and Chile. It also features araucarias, native and ancient trees of Patagonia, his home, and a typical fruit that Ignacio calls “the best avocado”; recalling his journey through Paris, he draws the Eiffel Tower as an iconic symbol of the city, and, finally, his arrival point, Barcelona. He portrays the Agbar Tower, a modern building representative of the city; a cycling activity through the forum that he usually does on weekends with his family; the Plaza Tetuán field where he plays soccer with his friends from the neighborhood, his family, and the Catalan language.

Through the memory and the narratives that accompany what he describes, Ignacio expresses the development of emotional bonds and attachment through the meanings that he sees in the spaces that he inhabited in his past and present.

Source: Made by participant child.

Figure 1 Ignacio’s Cartography 

In the following cartography (Figure 2), Iana, aged 9, constructs her migration from Ukraine to Barcelona. She traveled with her parents for economic reasons and settled in Barcelona place in 2018. The cartography shows her home in her country of origin, the countryside, a farm on the outskirts of the city, and a square at winter, “because in Ukraine it snowed and was very cold” (L. Hedrera-Manara, field diary, May 13, 2021). She also related a song in Ukrainian, which she sang, shared, and taught to her classmates at the end of the session, which moved the children. In Barcelona, she portrayed the beach, a place she likes very much and enjoys, and a church she goes to with her family. Through the colorful symbolization of places, composed of animals, flowers, and own characteristics, together with the title in Ukrainian and Catalan, “Мій Mоxit,” “My journey,” respectively, her migratory journey is a process that calls belonging into question.

Source: Made by participant child.

Figure 2 Iana’s Cartography 

The connection between the two territories can be seen in both Ignacio’s and Iana’s cartography. He wrote the title “The journey from Chile to Catalonia” with the colors of the flags of Chile and Spain. On the other hand, Iana drew the flags of Spain and Ukraine, connecting them with a dotted line that includes the shape of a heart. Thus, it can be seen how migration and its memory are constructed beyond national boundaries (^{Mezzadra, 2012}) and configure transnational memories combined by experiences in different territories, from where attachment and affective relationships are erected (^{Vidal & Pol, 2005}).

Similarly, in this process, children also build memories specifically related to their homes, an important element regarding their link with Barcelona. One of the participant girls, Antonia (9), who migrated from Santiago de Chile to Barcelona with her mother and grandmother in 2019, remembers that:

Do you remember the afternoons in San Joaquín, there I had my own room, and I had a giant window that just had the sun shining in my face and there, one of the cats that I adopted, they gave him food anyway, but my grandmother, Lala, didn’t like him, I mean, she didn’t want him to be there, but she gave him food anyway, but I wanted to keep him and he would sunbathe (F. García & A. Mora, personal communication, May 5, 2021).

In this sense, home becomes an experience of a place related to smells, weather, colors, which are all mediated by an everyday life that is historical and specific to social ties, which makes this everyday life a relevant part of memory (^{Brah, 2011}).

Although these memories arise as personal experiences, which expose different migratory trajectories, at the same time they are articulated around common and shared elements among boys and girls. In the instances in which they showed the finished cartographies to their classmates, and collectively they discussed their experiences, they would contrast the environment where they lived before and where they live now. Thus, some children remembered their places of origin as spaces that they appreciated more, since the homes were located in rural areas or surrounded by nature and unpaved roads, and they expressed that there they “felt freer and wilder”, compared to the spaces they inhabit in Barcelona (L. Hedrera-Manara, field diary, May 12, 2021). The contrast with the apartment building-type home and the current urban area meant a change in their ways of being by inhabiting a space with another geographical location, territoriality, and sociocultural aspects.

Thus it can be observed that the memories about home and the environment, both their own and those of others, form a common and collective space where spaces, temporalities, thoughts, and sensations come together, from which the children recognize and identify themselves. This confirms that both the territory of origin and that of destination are configured as places of belonging, since they are aspects that make up their identity in the present. In this way, memories create sense of belonging, both in the past and in the present, having effects on the continuities and discontinuities of identity (^{May, 2017}).

At the same time, childhood identities in these contexts are shaped in such a way that what is local is articulated with what is global through different ties, this creating imaginary communities (^{Brah, 2011}). That is, children develop the first sense of community, for example, in the space-neighborhood in which they live, but then they learn to visualize themselves as part of several other imaginary communities with which, although having no physical encounter or contact, they still identify with, according to their groups, places, experiences, and struggles, as in the examples shown.

The Affectivity of Children in Remembrance Practices

The emotional dimension takes center stage when remembering migration, and is a main marker of which aspects are memorable (^{Vázquez, 2001}). In this sense, cartographies as a tool for producing information allow for sensorial expression, a materiality and connection that is not limited to verbalized language. Thus, the elaboration of cartographies challenged the children, which allowed for greater involvement in the construction of memory from affectivity. As such, the processes of affectivity, migration, and memory occurred, on the one hand, through the materialization of locations, actions, people, and objects that can be visualized in the cartographies and, on the other, through memory narratives, that is, from what children tell when sharing their stories collectively.

The participants expressed feelings of nostalgia when remembering the past. This was because they missed their place of origin, their customs, daily life, and family ties, among other factors. Although these memories are crossed by a certain feeling of grief, when elaborated from these feelings, children mobilized the desire to return, expressing the desire to return permanently to the country of origin, or to just go for a visit. In this regard, most of the children pointed out the impossibility of such due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of borders, and/or for economic-work reasons, although there were some who had not had the opportunity to return ever since their emigration. The impossibility of returning intensified the feeling of longing, and so memory served as an important tool, not only because it allowed the emergence and recognition of these feelings, but because, in the elaboration of the memory children connected with their ties of origin, which made it possible to keep their transnational identities (^{Rosinska, 2011}).

These findings are related to the so-called migrant subjectivity, understood from nostalgia, whose Greek etymology means nostos -to return home- and algia -a feel of pain-. However, it is relevant to point out that the construction of these feelings is not constituted in a linear way, and is not reduced solely to returning to the past, since, taking into account that the desire to return can be sad and at the same time constitute their identities in the present, these are also projected towards the future (^{Rojas Silva, 2019}). According to Vanessa ^{May (2017}), nostalgia is a complex way of relating to and engaging with the past, a potential tool for producing a sense of belonging in the present by means memory.

On the other hand, children expressed feelings of sadness, discomfort, and/or fear due to experiences of violence in their country of origin, on the journey, and at the destination, that is, at different times in their migration journey (^{Hedrera-Manara & Íñiguez, 2023}). Fear, marked in some cartographies by a circle and verbalized by the children in their elaboration, was associated with memories of social protests and acts of repression by the police and/or other State agents, in a historical-social context of economic crises and political conflicts specific to each territory of origin (see Figures 3 and 4).

This can be seen in Figure 3 regarding the No to tax reform conflict in Colombia, and in Figure 4 in relation to the social and political crisis in Chile. In the destination country, in this case Catalonia, some children expressed sadness due to situations of racism and discrimination at school. Finally, in general they expressed a feeling of exclusion due to the lack of participation in the migration project within their care groups, in terms of the decision to migrate.

Source: Made by participant child.

Figure 3 María’s Cartography 

Source: Made by participant child.

Figure 4 Bruno’s Cartography 

This can be seen in Antonia's (9) cartography (see Figure 5), which marks with an x the demonstrations she witnessed upon her recent arrival in Barcelona. As an example, the protests she represents with a green bandana correspond to the feminist demonstrations of 8M. She also symbolizes with a flame of fire the riots that occurred in October 2021 in Catalonia due to the referendum. The memories of violence in the place of origin, although leaving an emotional mark and placing children in a position of vulnerability, are not only fixed in these dimensions. This is because migration implies a change in their trajectories, which configures new spaces of protection constituted by bonds, networks, and a different socio-political context, which enable resignification in the present based on past affections (^{Fernández, 2000}). In addition, the recollections of the past from these places make visible the power relations and violence exercised by different agents -adults and institutions- among adults and children.

Source: Made by participant child.

Figure 5 Antonia’s Cartography 

On the other hand, in the cartography of Lian, 10 years old, from China, she describes the journey with her father to join her family in Barcelona, and having experienced a process of family reunification (Figure 6). Her creation invites one to travel to Beijing, where she draws her house, a typical meal, a square that she likes, and a statue that made her feel uncomfortable and a kind of fear of religion. During the session, Lian told that she remembered a religious statue with a candle that she saw in different places and that her grandmother, who was the person she lived with, always worshiped.

In the lower part she traced a route of the schools she attended; she pointed out that she did not like the school in China, and showed with a heart that she does like the one in Barcelona, because it was one of the first places where she felt welcomed. In this way, the symbolism regarding emotions represented in the cartography allows for a transformation of migration, in which school is a new space of welcoming for her. In this sense, memories of migration through affectivity allow her to redefine her story of origin and transform her narrative based on her current experiences.

Source: Made by participant child.

Figure 6 Lian’s Cartography 

The children also remember their migration journey as an adventure, symbolized by hearts and happy/excited faces, placed on the images of airplanes or ships, or above the lines drawn between maps (see all figures). The experience of traveling by plane, transit through airports, and the desire to know a new place evoked excitement, nervousness, and curiosity. This is interesting, since the memories constructed from these affects put into tension the idea of uprooting and separation trauma, characteristics often used to describe the vulnerabilities of migrant children.

In this way, the findings evidence how children’s migration memories are constructed, updated, and configured based on new experiences and processes of change. This way, mobility between territories involves transformations in which experiences are traced that give way to new beginnings, where individual and collective memories are reconfigured (^{Brah, 2011}).