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This article addresses methodological issues related to the consequences of researchers' range of insider identities that emerge over the course of completing subsequent stages of qualitative migration research projects. Taking on a temporal approach to the insider status evolving over the course of field entry, data collection, data analysis, and dissemination, this article engages with nuanced insider positionalities. These range from apparent, to trespassing, to distanced, and to ambassadorial insiderness. Exploring a specific case of Polish mobility, this article assumes a methodological focus and argues that being "on the inside" of the migration research field may go beyond gender, ethnicity, and social status when it is linked to a project's life cycle.

In this article, we address data interrelations that social researchers face when working with qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews with longitudinal (QLR) and multiperspective (MPR) research designs. Revisiting data from four different research projects and building on the proposal by VOGL, ZARTLER, SCHMIDT and RIEDER (2018), we present the 4C model of complexities within data interrelations. Specifically, the broader pool of data allowed us to cross-investigate how interview data may contradict, correct, complement, or be confluent with what the researcher has gathered from another interview conducted at a different point in time (longitudinally) or with another study participant (multi-perspective approach). Using different forms of transitions (e.g., transitions to adulthood, migratory transitions, transitions to parenthood) as a common analytical thread, we argue that revealing inherent inconsistencies in the data reflects the complex and ever-changing nature of reality and that making sense of these inconsistencies often enriches interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnational family living refers to the situation of maintaining relationships across national borders. It is dependent on a certain degree of flexibility from the state. As part of the crisis response to the COVID-19 pandemic, this flexibility was revoked. As a result, existing mobility inequalities became more visible than ever: while travel restrictions came as a shock to many, they created an additional challenge to those who had been struggling in the past. All persons engaged in transnational family living had to find ways to navigate the new situation. Our project is based on policy review and online ethnography taking Norway as a case. We discuss how individuals tried to maintain cross-border and mixed-status family lives during the first year of the pandemic, reacted to the borders closing, and found solace and advice from others in similar situations. The COVID-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions that followed have exposed vulnerabilities associated with transnational living and revealed to those involved that their arrangements were conditioned by the non-interference of the state. Our article engages in the discussion on the complexity of transnational family living and uses the case of the pandemic and the sudden state intervention in mobility regulations to expose the hidden parts of the puzzle that sustain the contemporary attributes of transnationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we analyse the processes of migration from the perspective of agency-structure debate. In particular, we focus on the reflexive and emotional aspects of geographical movement and the complex relations between the settlement context, Belfast, Northern Ireland, and migrating people, with their biographies, gender positioning, resources and agency. The movement across space is biographically significant, as it is often meant to resolve economic, family or personal difficulties. However, the geographical movement in itself is not necessarily empowering. We bring the notion of migration as potentially transformative but only when it is accompanied by structural enablements and agential powers of reflexivity. The reflection on one’s life course and the relations between self and the changing context of action shapes the migration experiences profoundly, which may further lead to shifts in gender positioning. The dynamics of shaping and being shaped is constantly present between migrants and the new context: the place influences everyday practices and, at the same time, the place is influenced by everyday actions and their reflexive elaboration. This article sheds light on these reflexive processes through the lens of gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses transnationalism and integration as processes entangled in the everyday lives of Polish migrants. It acknowledges that the co-existence of transnationalism and integration can present an array of choices and enable migrants to lead a fulfilling life in the receiving country while they continue to maintain a foothold in their original homeland. Yet, it might also create a feeling of disjuncture, discontinuity of relations, and ceaseless negotiation between inclusion and exclusion. It is, thus, important to bear in mind that migration is a process involving individuals with all their unique life experiences, complexities and consequences of their choices, sacrifices, ambiguities and hopes associated with the move. All of these have a profound impact on changes in migrants’ perception of, and attitude to, their place of origin, the specificities of destination setting and interpersonal relations between the two milieux. The empirical grounds for this discussion originate in biographical narrative interviews with Polish migrants in Belfast, Northern Ireland. These narratives portray transnationalism and integration as multiple trajectories, emphasising the co-existence of non-linear relations between the time and the intensity/frequency of migrants’ connections to the two settings. These will be examined using the theoretical framework of interpretative sociology, viewing individuals as constantly engaged in the task of interpretation, which is intrinsically rooted in the processes of interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]