In this special issue¹, we bring together research on transnational families that draws from the insights of this interdisciplinary and differentiated research field. Since the groundbreaking studies by, for example, Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila (1997) or Parreñas (2005), family sociological studies have provided valuable insights into parenthood (especially motherhood) and doing family at a distance. While these and subsequent studies have focused especially on the question of whether and how transnational doing family is practised, it now seems almost a given that families (can) continue to exist at a distance, utilising numerous creative and above all media-based methods (Madianou and Miller, 2012), and developing adaptive capital (König et al, 2021). At the same time, the many sociological, educational and psychological studies on transnational families worldwide provide ample evidence of the unequal positions and conditions under which transnational families operate to maintain family life (Cienfuegos-Illanes and Brandhorst, 2023). The contributions in this special issue start with this and explore new angles. An important strength of this special issue is that it centres children in transnational families, with several contributions paying particular attention to children’s subjectivities – a perspective that is increasingly being adopted in research (Ducu, 2018; König et al, 2024). Furthermore, another aim of this special issue is to bring together studies from different transnational spaces and various – precarious and privileged – social positions, thus differentiating our knowledge of the heterogeneity of transnational families.

This special issue is based on contributions presented at the conference Living Apart Together: Growing Up In Transnational Families, which took place in April 2023 in Essen, Germany.² Its focus was on the heterogeneity of transnational families and their discursive representations and societal evaluation, as well as on the shaping of transnational family life and the conditions it provides for children while growing up. The discussions among the authors and other experts at the conference stimulated an interdisciplinary scholarly discourse on living and growing up in transnational families, sparking ideas for new topics, objectives and perspectives. In the following, we briefly outline some of the central questions and perspectives addressed by the articles in this issue.

The special issue starts with three contributions on ‘left-behind’ (or ‘stayer’) children: children who remain in the country of origin while their parents migrate abroad for work. Katarzyna Jendrzey (2025) analyses the representation of such stayer children and their families’ lives in Polish children’s books. We know from analyses of media discourses in Poland and other countries (Urbańska, 2010) that the migration of mothers in particular is scandalised. The analysis of children’s books, which are aimed specifically at young readers and follow child protagonists, shows that here, too, the story of temporary migration is told as the story of the absent mother. It reveals that these books reproduce the norm of the present mother but also that different narratives about motherhood can be found.

The power of the normative discourse on migrating parents – as well as processes of a certain normalisation of growing up transnationally – is demonstrated by the two subsequent studies, which examine the perspectives of children whose parents have travelled abroad to Western Europe for temporary work. The contribution by Áron Telegdi-Csetri, Viorela Ducu and Mihaela Hărăguș (2025) reconstructs – based on interviews and group discussions with left-behind children in Moldova and Ukraine – children’s imaginaries of their migrant parents’ lives, of places ‘abroad’ and of their own future (mobility) perspectives. In explicit contrast to pathologising and scandalising discourses, the authors emphasise children’s agentic and resilient ways of dealing with their transnational experiences. These are not perceived solely as a constrictive imposition forced on them in the face of economic hardship but also as – sometimes more and sometimes less attractive – possibilities for their own futures.

Fränze Seidel’s (2025) contribution also looks at how the experience of growing up in transnational families shapes one’s vision of the future. Her work is based on interviews with former stayer children in Moldova. Although their parents migrated primarily so the families and children could lead better lives in Moldova, the former stayer children now reject this goal, instead looking for a ‘better life’ abroad. Both Seidel’s and Telegdi-Csetri et al’s contributions indicate that parental migration can open up transnational spaces of opportunity for the children. The interview partners of both studies pursue different strategies and motives for migration from that of their parents and see themselves afforded broader macrostructural spaces of opportunity to utilise. Nevertheless, when imagining their own future families, they do not picture them living at a distance.

Some contributions to this special issue also refer to an aspect that has so far been discussed only in the context of privileged groups of transmigrants and their families, namely the acquisition of mobility-related knowledge and skills. As the studies presented in this issue reveal, this also occurs for the various, more underprivileged groups examined: learning about life and work abroad, communicating over distance, visiting parents and learning new languages are the shared experiences of many of the respondents from the presented studies. Thus, the families not only gain financial resources to facilitate their intended social advancement but also generate ‘mobility capital’ – even for stayer children.

The following four contributions focus on ‘mobile children’ – children who migrate themselves with family members – and offer insights into other constellations of ‘living apart together’ and transnationality. Adrienne Atterberry’s (2025) study centres Indian-American parents who migrate to India with their children who have previously been raised in the US. Here, too, migration is understood as a strategy to increase the children’s scope of opportunity – in this case, not through the parents’ labour migration and subsequent repatriation but through the children’s educational migration. Their goal is for the children to maintain or improve their already privileged status by preparing themselves for the Indian and global (educational and labour) markets. Migration in this context is a parenting strategy of a global elite. The initial situation of the mobile children in the article by Anne Carolina Ramos and Andrea Riepl (2025) is completely different. The children who form the sample in this study are Ukrainian refugee children in Switzerland, most of whose fathers are at war. Based on interviews and group discussions, Ramos and Riepl explore what family means to the children and how this is interwoven with their wellbeing. In doing so, the authors expand the concept of family based on their empirical data. Alongside the meanings of close familial relationships for children (including those with animals), the authors present how children experience and create family through objects and homemaking practices.

The following two articles take a closer look at mobile children against the background of serial migration. Charlotte Melander, Oksana Shmulyar Gréen and Ingrid Höjer (2025) use retrospective interviews with former stayer children from Poland and Romania to examine how they experienced the period of separation from their parents, in particular the (care) relationship between themselves and their new carers, and how these relationships changed after the families reunited (in Sweden). The young people’s multiple interpretations and reinterpretations over the course of serial family migration and the changing responsibilities they assume in the sense of a ‘generalised reciprocity’ become clear. The article by Manuela Westphal, Franziska Korn, Jiayin Li-Gottwald and Samia Aden (2025) looks at stagnant serial migration in the context of flight when migration regimes prevent family reunions or keep family members’ legal statuses in the country of arrival in limbo. Using figuration theory considerations, the authors shed light on the changing conditions and orientations under which families from the global Somali diaspora seek to establish themselves both locally (here: in Germany) and transnationally. Based on their ethnographic study, the authors trace the figuration of so-called arrival families, in and through which local and transnational establishment processes take place, which are nevertheless structured largely by global inequalities as well as by national migration regimes.

To conclude the special issue, Doris Bühler-Niederberger (2025), in her synthesising and theory-generating contribution, summarises the empirical findings of the studies collected in the special issue and discusses them in the context of the relationship between agency and vulnerability. She proposes the concept of ‘vulnerable agents’ and invites us to understand vulnerability and agency not separately or dichotomously, but as a complex interweaving, with which the specific social position of (transnational) children can be conceptualised and researched further.

By providing insights into the heterogeneous conditions under which transnational families live, their different motives for migration and on the various adaptive strategies and resources the families utilise, the studies encourage theoretical reflection on very different levels. Doris Bühler-Niederberger’s contribution discusses ‘what we can learn from a child-centred perspective on transnational families’ in childhood studies and beyond. In particular, the synopsis demonstrates that generational expectations and ‘cultural norms around the family are important to understanding transnational families’ choices, the forms they take, and the effects they experience’ (Mazzucato and Schans, 2011: 708). The example of transnational families can stimulate reflection on the family and its normative definition (for example, regarding the mother’s presence) as well as on the generational and gender-specific orders structuring them, in turn offering impulses for family sociology. In keeping with the spirit of the journal, the studies also prompt reflection on the societies and global social inequalities that shape transnational family life. Furthermore, this special issue elucidates the demands and challenges placed on families, particularly children, by demonstrating how they not only handle the impositions accompanying the transnational space but also use the generated resources. The various transnational family constellations and strategies, as they appear in this special issue, offer insights into the multifaceted experiences of growing up transnationally.

The special issue includes an Open Space section comprising three contributions that offer a broader view that goes beyond academic research and represents three actors with very different relationships to transnational family life. The first piece is a statement from a (former) child who grew up in a transnational family. Unlike the academic contributions, her biographical reflections stand for themselves, rather than being subjected to a research question or scientific analysis. The second aim was to involve other social fields that deal with transnational families and actively intervene in their living conditions, such as policy makers, practitioners and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). We therefore invited the vice-president of the Transnational Family Dynamics in Europe (TraFaDy) COST Action to explain the actions of these networks, which operate at the intersection of academic researchers, policy makers and practitioners. The third contribution turns to the perspective of NGOs as civil society actors who provide invaluable support to transnational families, for example in the context of flight.

The piece by Miroslava Hariuc is the autobiographical account of a young girl who grew up in Moldova with parents working abroad. Her contribution is invaluable at a time when children’s participation, really listening to their voices, is increasingly in demand in the social sciences. In her touching story, Hariuc shares her personal experiences with the reader, which fittingly complement the scholarly articles on left-behind children’s ‘vulnerability’ and ‘agency’.

Sven Iversen is managing director of the German Federation of Family Organisations and vice chair of Transnational Family Dynamics in Europe (TraFaDy) COST Action 21143. His contribution introduces the TraFaDy network, its development and activities at the important intersection of policy making and research. Iversen’s feature is simultaneously an invitation to all researchers or NGO representatives working in this field to join this network.

In his contribution, Radu Racareanu, migration programme manager of the NGO Terre des hommes Romania, introduces us to the manifold challenges faced in providing human and humanitarian support to Ukrainian refugee children. By adding the perspective of social workers working directly with the children, his contribution completes the picture of children in (refugee) transnational families presented in other articles of this special issue.

Ultimately, this special issue serves as a significant contribution to childhood and family sociology as well as migration studies and underscores the importance of adopting a child-centred perspective in research on transnational families and childhoods. The insights shared here not only deepen our understanding of growing up in transnational families but also call for continued attention to the broader societal structures and inequalities that shape their experiences – in academic research and beyond.

Funding

The authors would like to thank the Open Access Publication Fund of the University Library of Duisburg-Essen for generously co-financing the open access publication of this special issue.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.