We are delighted to announce the publication of a special issue of Slovenský národopis / Slovak Ethnology (74, 2026, No. 2), entitled “New Challenges for Qualitative Research Methods on Transnational Families in a Changing World,” prepared collaboratively by TraFaDy Working Group 5.
The guest editors were E. Demirkol Colosio (Çankırı Karatekin University, Turkey), J. Predojević-Despić (Institute of Social Sciences, Serbia), and M. Wilsch (Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology, Slovak Academy of Sciences).
The special issue comprises six articles addressing diverse methodological challenges in qualitative and mixed-methods research on transnational families.
In the editorial “Contemporary Methodological Challenges to Research on Transnational Families,” M. Wilsch, E. Demirkol Colosio, and J. Predojević-Despić present the issue’s conceptual framework. The authors argue that methodologies are not neutral instruments, but actively co-produce what becomes visible, central, or marginal in transnational family life.
S. Kuti, I. Mačkinė, A. Sulaj and F. Çam, in their paper Qualitative Methods in Transnational Family Research: A Literature Review, present findings from a systematic review. This contribution draws on an analysis of 275 qualitative and mixed-methods studies published between 2018 and 2023, mapping the most commonly used methods as well as less conventional approaches.
E. Demirkol Colosio, J. Predojević-Despić and M. Wilsch, in their paper Navigating the Field: Reflexivity and Positionality in Researching Transnational Families across Serbia, Turkey, and Slovakia, present an analysis of three case studies (Serbian and international students, mixed-nationality couples in Turkey, Ukrainian refugee families in Slovakia), reflecting on how researchers’ positionality shifts across different contexts and based upon different methodologies employed in TNF research.
Y. Li, in her article Positionality as Method: Reflexive Engagement in Studying Transnational Filial Practices in Migration Research, presents an examination of the researcher’s dual position as a cultural “insider” and a social “outsider” as experienced in a study of Chinese migrants in Portugal.
J. Végh, in her paper The Dynamic Process of Reflexivity: Insider Qualitative Research When Researchers and Participants Experience a Shared Crisis, presents a methodological account of a longitudinal study of transnational families before, during, and after the pandemic, where she introduces the Dynamic Reflexivity Framework.
M. Dushi and E. Çaro, in their paper Between Data and Dialogue: A Biographical Approach to Researching Transnational Families, critically interrogate with a biographical and ethnographic approach to researching Albanian and Kosovar migrants and their families in Greece, Germany, Switzerland, and the USA.
And lastly, V. Baltadzhiev and R. Baltadzhieva in their paper Digital Technologies, Disrupted Parenthood, and Ethical Challenges: Methodological Reflections from Research with Ukrainian Refugee Mothers in Bulgaria present methodological reflections on their fieldwork on digitally mediated parenthood among Ukrainian mothers displaced after February 2022, with particular attention to the ethics of researching intimate digital interactions.
Together, all contributions within this Special Issue demonstrate that critical methodological reflection on the methods used in TNF research is timely, academically relevant, and important. The objective of the Special Issue is to critically reflect on one’s own methodological assumptions, epistemic stances, and experiences – a reflection that brings important critical perspectives and contributes to current academic and methodological discussions in TNF scholarship. This special issue argues that methodologies in transnational family research should not be treated as neutral instruments for capturing already existing family realities, but as epistemic practices that shape how transnational family life becomes visible and interpretable, and under what ethical conditions it can be researched at all.
The issue was produced within the methodological group of the COST Action CA21143 – Transnational Family Dynamics in Europe (TraFaDy) framework, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), and the APVV project VV-MVP-24-0203 RONARO – Family on the Edge: Current Contexts of Vulnerability and Transnational Family Transformations.
Full issue: Open Access
The issue is in Open Access and can be found here: https://www.sav.sk/?lang=en&doc=journal-list&part=list_articles&journal_issue_no=11118256