This paper explores the role of imagination in the lives of Nigerian transnational children and their migrant parent in Ireland. Migration of a parent is a rupture in a child’s life that triggers imaginary processes that are real in their developmental consequences. Following Zittoun and Gillespie, imagination is a process that generates a disjunction from the person’s experience of the “real” world, and uncouples and loops out before it eventually comes back to the actual experience. For the left-behind child, this imaginative loop remains “open” as parents return becomes extended in time. The dilemmas for the migrant parent and child are explored.

中文翻译：

---

想象力在跨国关系中的作用：尼日利亚儿童及其在爱尔兰的移民父母的案例

本文探讨了想象力在尼日利亚跨国儿童及其在爱尔兰的移民父母生活中的作用。父母的迁徙是孩子生活中的一个破裂，它触发了想象中的过程，这些过程在他们的发展后果中是真实的。继Zittoun 和Gillespie 之后，想象是一个过程，它与人对“真实”世界的体验产生脱节，并在最终回到实际体验之前分离和循环。对于留守儿童来说，随着父母归来的时间延长，这个想象循环仍然“开放”。探讨了移民父母和孩子的困境。