Digital Family Practices of Migration and Refugeeness: Reflections on the Co-Production of Knowledge and Ethical Challenges

Although digitality plays a major role in the lives of people on the move, both during processes of migration and flight and in the settlement of newcomers in receiving contexts, empirical research on these dynamics is still relatively scarce. This gap is even more pronounced when it comes to families with minor children, despite the fact that this group often constitutes a considerable share of mobile populations. Based on the theoretical concept of doing migration and refugeeness, this paper seeks to understand how digital practices become relevant for moving parents and children in facilitating their departure from the context of origin, their experiences along the route, and their everyday lives in the receiving context. In the sense of family resilience, digital practices may also play an important role in maintaining transnational family relations, emotional bonds, and networks of care across borders. At the same time, the paper discusses how these and other digital practices are increasingly employed by public institutions to monitor, regulate, and govern mobility. As little is known so far about this complex entanglement of digital empowerment and digital regulation in the everyday experiences of mobile families, the perspectives of these families, including those of children, are essential for the co-production of knowledge in this field. Engaging in such co-produced research, however, raises significant ethical challenges, particularly with regard to vulnerability, data protection, power relations, and informed consent. These ethical issues are therefore also a central focus of the paper.