Collecting Stories of Identity and Culture with Young people: The Synallactic Collective Image Technique

Chapter 14 by Humera Iqbal and her co-researchers Sarah Crafter (Open University), and Evangelia Prokopiou (Northampton University) showcases TCRU’s work both with children and in the field of migration. By exploring how children communicate their experiences of interpreting for their parents, Iqbal, Crafter and Prokopiou open spaces for children to reflect (or refuse to reflect) on the pressures that this brings, and what it means for them to have a shared space with other child language brokers. Drawing on methods that have emerged from therapeutic settings, the authors show how the data generated can be ambiguous and intriguing but allow the participants to experience themselves as connected and supported by peers. The difficulty of communication is highlighted here both in terms of the topic approached (children who have English as an additional language that they use to translate for their parents living in the UK) and the difficulty of bridging linguistic and adult–child divides in communication between researchers and participants.