Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Youth Circulations: Tracing the Real and Imagined Circulations of Global Youth

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Children and Youth as Subjects, Objects, Agents

Abstract

This chapter discusses the development of Youth Circulations (www.youthcirculations.com), an online exhibit that traces real and imagined circulations of global youth. It does so via a curated media archive, art, and writing by im/migrant youth themselves, and also by international journalists, and multidisciplinary scholars. As editors and curators, Heidbrink and Statz seek to hold themselves and other adults who claim to speak for youth—even, or most often, as youths’ “advocates”—accountable to the agentive, diverse, transnational lives of global youth. The result is a fluid experiment in the politics of representation, one that spans artistic, legal, media, policy, and scholarly understandings. The authors discuss this experiment in the chapter and also reflect on its origins in their individual research. They consider the challenges of applied work, and the unanticipated discoveries they have made, including the committed and generous energy of diverse individuals and collectives.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1.

    The interactive art exhibit “Migration and Belonging: Narratives from a highland town/Migración y Pertenencia: Narrativas de un pueblo del altiplano” emerged from a National Science Foundation study on the migration and deportation of Indigenous youth from Guatemala (Heidbrink 2019, 2020).

  2. 2.

    Framing parents as traffickers or abusive, as is often the case in advocacy on behalf of Fujianese youth, typically excludes them from obtaining derivative nonimmigrant status. A person who becomes a Lawful Permanent Resident through Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) status is no longer considered the child of her or his parents for immigration purposes, even if parental rights were not terminated. As a result, the individual is not able to use lawful status attained through SIJ status as a means to obtain lawful status for her or his parents. This bar applies to both parents, even if SIJ status was obtained due to abuse, neglect, or abandonment by only one parent (State Justice Institute 2015, 8. http://www.sji.gov/wp/wp-content/uploads/15-167_NCSC_UICGuide_FULL-web1.pdf‎).

  3. 3.

    We are thankful to graduate students from National Louis University’s Public Policy and Administration who assisted in collecting and analyzing media images. We are likewise indebted to Kinzie Longley, who volunteered as Assistant to the Editor for Youth Circulations from 2017 to 2019.

  4. 4.

    DREAMers is the name attributed to undocumented youth who arrived in the U.S. at a tender age and who would benefit from the now-stalled Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. DACAmented youth refers to the beneficiaries of President Obama’s executive order, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

References

  • Abrams, Kerry. 2013. “What Makes the Family Special?” The University of Chicago Law Review 80 (1): 7–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Abrego, Leisy. 2011. “Legal Consciousness of Undocumented Latinos: Fear and Stigma as Barriers to Claims-Making for First- and 1.5-Generation Immigrants.” Law and Society Review 45 (2): 337–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Appell, Annette Ruth. 2009. “The Pre-Political Child of Child-Centered Jurisprudence.” Houston Law Review 46: 703–56.

    Google Scholar 

  • Asis, Maruja MB. 2006. “Living with Migration: Experiences of Left-Behind Children in the Philippines.” Asian Population Studies 2 (1): 45–67.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berger Cardoso, Jodi, Kalina Brabeck, Dennis Stinchcomb, Lauren Heidbrink, Olga Acosta Price, Óscar F. Gil-García, Thomas M. Crea, and Luis H. Zayas. 2019. “Integration of Unaccompanied Migrant Youth in the United States: A Call for Research.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45 (2): 273–92.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Jeffrey. 2001. “Transnational Migration in Rural Oaxaca, Mexico: Dependency, Development and the Household.” American Anthropologist 103 (4): 854–967.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Genova, Nicholas, and Nathalie Mae Peutz. 2010. The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dow, Mark. 2005. American Gulag: Inside US Immigration Prisons. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dreby, Joanna. 2010. Divided by Borders: Mexican Migrants and Their Children. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Duncan, Whitney, Lauren Heidbrink, and Kristin Yarris. 2018. “Im/migration in the Trump Era. Hot Spots. Cultural Anthropology.” Cultural Anthropology. Accessed on September 5, 2020. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/1300-im-migration-in-the-trump-era.

  • Flanagan, Constance, and Peter Levine. 2010. “Civic Engagement and the Transition to Adulthood.” The Future of Children 20 (1): 159–79.

    Google Scholar 

  • Flores-González, Nilda, Elizabeth Aranda, and Elizabeth Vaquera. 2014. “‘Doing Race’: Latino Youth’s Identities and the Politics of Racial Exclusion.” American Behavioral Scientist 58 (14): 1834–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foner, Nancy. 2003. American Arrivals: Anthropology Engages the New Immigration. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foreman, Tom. 2014, July 17. Desperation, hope and children on the border. CNN. Accessed on September 5, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/17/us/immigration-overview/index.html.

  • Frändberg, Lotta. 2014. “Temporary Transnational Youth Migration and Its Mobility Links.” Mobilities 9 (1):146–64.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gleeson, Shannon and Roberto Gonzales. 2012. “When Do Papers Matter? An Institutional Analysis of Undocumented Life in the United States.” International Migration 50: 1–19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gomberg-Muñoz, Ruth. 2018. “The Complicit Anthropologist.” Journal for the Anthropology of North America 21 (1): 36–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gonzales, Roberto. 2015. Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Heidbrink, Lauren. 2013. “Humanitarian Refugee or Criminal Alien?: The Social Agency of Migrant Youth.” American Bar Association Children’s Legal Rights Journal 33 (1): 133–90.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidbrink, Lauren. 2014. Migrant Youth, Transnational Families, and the State: Care and Contested Interests. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Heidbrink, Lauren. 2017. “Assessing Parental Fitness and Care for Unaccompanied Children.” Journal of the Social Sciences 3 (4): 37–52.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidbrink, Lauren. 2018. “Circulation of Care Among Unaccompanied Migrant Youth from Guatemala.” Children and Youth Services Review 92: 30–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidbrink, Lauren. 2019. “The Coercive Power of Debt: Migration and Deportation of Guatemalan Indigenous Youth.” The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 24 (1): 263–81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidbrink, Lauren. 2020. Migranthood: Youth in a New Era of Deportation. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Heidbrink, Lauren and Michele Statz. 2017. “Parents of Global Youth: Contesting Debt and Belonging.” Children’s Geographies 15 (5): 545–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hennessey-Fisk, Molly. 2014, February 21. More Youths Crossing U.S.-Mexico Border Alone. LA Times. Accessed on September 5, 2020. https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2014-feb-21-la-na-texas-young-migrants-20140222-story.html.

  • Hull, Glynda A., Amy Stornaiuolo, and Urvashi Sahni. 2010. “Cultural Citizenship and Cosmopolitan Practice: Global Youth Communicate Online.” English Education 42 (4): 331–67.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacquez, Farrah, Lisa M. Vaughn, and Erin Wagner. 2013. “Youth as Partners, Participants or Passive Recipients: A Review of Children and Adolescents in Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR).” American Journal of Community Psychology 51 (1–2): 176–89.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jeffrey, Craig. 2012. “Geographies of Children and Youth II: Global Youth Agency.” Progress in Human Geography 36 (2): 245–53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jobs, Richard Ivan, and David M. Pomfret. 2015. “The Transnationality of Youth.” In Transnational Histories of Youth in the Twentieth Century, edited by Richards Ivan Jobs and David M. Pomfret, 1–19. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kanstroom, Daniel. 2007. Deportation Nation: Outsiders in American History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu, Shao-hua. 2011. Passage to Manhood: Youth Migration, Heroin, and AIDS in Southwest China. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Makley, Charlene. n.d. Makley Media Archive. Accessed on September 5, 2020. https://www.reed.edu/anthro/makley/media.html.

  • Menkel-Meadow, Carrie. 1998. “The Causes of Cause Lawyering: Toward an Understanding of the Motivation and Commitment of Social Justice Lawyers.” In Cause Lawyering: Political Commitments and Professional Responsibilities, edited by Austin Sarat and Stuart Scheingold, 31–68. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mora, G. Christina. 2013. “Religion and the Organizational Context of Immigrant Civic Engagement: Mexican Catholicism in the USA.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 36 (11): 1647–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mullings, Leith. 2015. “Anthropology Matters.” American Anthropologist 117 (1): 4–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mummert, Gail. 2009. “Siblings by Telephone: Experiences of Mexican Children in Long-Distance Childrearing Arrangements.” Journal of the Southwest, 503–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Negrón-Gonzales, Genevieve. 2014. “Undocumented, Unafraid and Unapologetic: Re-Articulatory Practices and Migrant Youth ‘Illegality.’” Latino Studies 12 (2): 259–78.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, Diane M. 2009. Reckoning: The Ends of War in Guatemala. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Nicholls, Walter J. 2013. The DREAMers: How the Undocumented Youth Movement Transformed the Immigrant Rights Debate. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Niewenhuys, Olga. 1995. “The Domestic Economy and the Exploitation of Children’s Work: The Case of Kerala.” The International Journal of Children’s Rights 3: 213–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Office of Refugee Resettlement. “Facts and Data.” Accessed on April 30, 2018. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/about/ucs/facts-and-data.

  • Olwig, Karen Fog. 1999. “Narratives of the Children Left Behind: Home and Identity in Globalised Caribbean Families.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 25 (2): 267–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ozer, Emily J., Sami Newlan, Laura Douglas, and Elizabeth Hubbard. 2013. “’Bounded’ Empowerment: Analyzing Tensions in the Practice of Youth-led Participatory Research in Urban Public Schools.” American Journal of Community Psychology 52 (1–2): 13–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Park, Haeuoun. 2014, July 15. Questions about the Border Kids. New York Times. Accessed on September 5, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/15/us/questions-about-the-border-kids.html.

  • Parrenas, Rhacel. 2002. “The Care and Crisis in the Philippines: Children and Transnational Families in the New Global Economy.” In Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy, edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, 39–54. New York: Metropolitan Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parreñas, Rhacel. 2005. Children of Global Migration: Transnational Families and Gendered Woes. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perez, William, Roberta Espinoza, Karina Ramos, Heidi M. Coronado, and Richard Cortes. 2009. “Academic Resilience Among Undocumented Latino Students.” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 31 (2): 149–81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perez, William, Roberta Espinoza, Karina Ramos, Heidi Coronado, and Richard Cortes. 2010. “Civic Engagement Patterns of Undocumented Mexican Students.” Journal of Hispanic Higher Education 9 (3): 245–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perez-Foster, Rose Marie. 2001. “When Immigration is Trauma: Guidelines for the Individual and Family Clinician.” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 71 (2): 153–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peters, Michael. 2001. “Education, Enterprise Culture and the Entrepreneurial Self: A Foucauldian Perspective.” Journal of Educational Enquiry 2 (2): 58–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pribilsky, Jason. 2001. “Nervios and Modern Childhood’ Migration and Shifting Contexts of Child Life in the Ecuadorian Andes.” Childhood 8 (2): 251–73.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sanford, Victoria. 2003. Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala. Berlin: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Scheingold, Stuart, and Austin Sarat. 2004. Something to Believe In: Politics, Professionalism, and Cause Lawyering. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seif, Hinda. 2011. “’Unapologetic and Unafraid’: Immigrant Youth Come Out From the Shadows.” New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 134: 59–75.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sime, Daniela, and Rachael Fox. 2014. “Home Abroad: Eastern European Children’s Family and Peer Relationships After Migration.” Childhood 22 (3): 377–93.

    Google Scholar 

  • State Justice Institute. 2015. Guide for State Courts in Cases Involving Unaccompanied Immigrant Children.” https://www.sji.gov/wp/wp-content/uploads/15-167_NCSC_UICGuide_FULL-web1.pdf. Accessed on September 6, 2020.

  • Statz, Michele. 2016a. “Between Children and Transnational Economic Actors: The Discounted ‘Belongings’ of Young Chinese Migrants.” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 39 (s1): 4–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Statz, Michele. 2016b. “Chinese Difference and Deservingness: The Paper Lives of Young Migrants.” American Behavioral Scientist 60 (13): 1629–48.

    Google Scholar 

  • Statz, Michele. 2018a. Lawyering an Uncertain Cause: Immigration Advocacy and Chinese Youth in the U.S. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Statz, Michele. 2018b. “Transnational Migration and the Construction of Vulnerability.” In Routledge Handbook on Ethics and International Relations, edited by Brent Steele and Eric Heinze, 366–76. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Statz, Michele and Lauren Heidbrink. 2019. “A Better ‘Best Interests’: Immigration Policy in a Comparative Context.” Law & Policy 41: 365–86.

    Google Scholar 

  • Suárez-Orozco, Carola, Sukhmani Singh, Mona M. Abo-Zena, Dan Du, and Robert W. Roeser. 2012. “The Role of Religion and Worship Communities in the Positive Development of Immigrant Youth.” In Thriving and Spirituality Among Youth: Research Perspectives and Future Possibilities, edited by Amy Eva Alberts Warren, Richard M. Lerner, & Erin Phelps, 255–88. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Suárez-Orozco, Marcelo, and Carola Suárez-Orozco. 2007. “Moving Stories.” Du Bois Review: Social Science and Research on Race 4 (1): 251–59.

    Google Scholar 

  • Suárez-Orozco, Carola, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, and Vivian Tseng. 2015. Intersecting Inequalities: Research to Reduce Inequality for Immigrant-Origin Children and Youth. New York: William T. Grant Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vieira, Kate. 2016. American by Paper: How Documents Matter in Immigrant Literacy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • White, Allen, Caitríona Ní Laoire, Naomi Tyrrell, and Fina Carpena-Méndez. 2011. “Children’s Roles in Transnational Migration.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 37 (8): 1159–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yarris, Kristin. 2017. Care Across Generations: Solidarity and Sacrifice in Transnational Families. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Yuval-Davis, Nira. 2006. “Belonging and the Politics of Belonging.” Patterns of Prejudice 40 (3): 197–214.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zayas, Luis H., and Mollie H. Bradlee. 2014. “Exiling Children, Creating Orphans: When Immigration Policies Hurt Citizens.” Social Work 59 (2): 167–75.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zayas, Luis H., Kalina M. Brabeck, Laurie Cook Heffron, Joanna Dreby, Esther J. Calzada, J. Rubén Parra-Cardona, Alan J. Dettlaff, Lauren Heidbrink, Krista M. Perreira, and Hirokazu Yoshikawa. 2017. “Charting Directions for Research on Undocumented and Unaccompanied Immigrant Children and Citizen Children.” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 39 (4): 412–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zezima, Katie. 2014, June 2. “Obama Calls Wave of Children Across U.S.-Mexican Border ‘Urgent Humanitarian Situation’.” Washington Post. Accessed on September 5, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-calls-wave-of-children-across-us-mexican-border-urgent-humanitarian-situation/2014/06/02/4d29df5e-ea8f-11e3-93d2-edd4be1f5d9e_story.html.

  • Zimmerman, Arely M. 2012. Documenting Dreams: New Media, Undocumented Youth and the Immigrant Rights Movement. Annenberg School For Communication and Journalism: University of Southern California.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. California State University, Long Beach, CA, USA

    Lauren Heidbrink

  2. University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN, USA

    Michele Statz

Authors
  1. Lauren Heidbrink
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Michele Statz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lauren Heidbrink .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Deborah Levison

  2. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Mary Jo Maynes

  3. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Frances Vavrus

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Heidbrink, L., Statz, M. (2021). Youth Circulations: Tracing the Real and Imagined Circulations of Global Youth. In: Levison, D., Maynes, M.J., Vavrus, F. (eds) Children and Youth as Subjects, Objects, Agents . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63632-6_15

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63632-6_15

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-63631-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-63632-6

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation