Reflections on researching transnational migrants and the fieldwork challenges of studying co-nationals abroad

This article offers reflections on the process of researching transnational migration, and particularly the fieldwork challenges and difficulties that can emerge when studying co-nationals abroad. Based on two distinct research projects on transnational migration (one on Brazilians in London and the other on Britons in Beijing), which used similar methodological tools and faced similar challenges, we argue thatcombining a mobile ethnographic methodological tool (documenting journeys) with in-depth biographical interviews and historical and contextual analyses, makes our data open to analyse migration as a translocal process at the same time that provides a connection between both macro and micro scales of analysis. Our methodological tools allowed us to understand how people speak of, engage with and negotiate mobile experiences in their everyday lives, in the macro political and social structures organising immigration and emigration. We conclude by reflecting on the challenges of researching co-nationals abroad, our own positionality in relation to our fieldwork and the multi-layered power relations involved in our respective research process.