But if we take into account migrant youth's mobility trajectories, we see much more complexity and diversity.
We see that young people have many different trajectories – they move back and forth between the countries of origin and residence in unique and interesting ways, and through these trajectories, they maintain relationships, gain resources, and have experiences that shape their lives.
'Mobility trajectories' are the back-and-forth moves that migrant-background youth make between the country that they or their parents were born in (origin country) and the country where they now live (residence country). These moves can include changes of residence, short visits, holidays, trips for internships or education, and many other things.
Usually in policy and public discourse, we tend to think of migrant youth as being 'first generation' (those who migrated themselves) or 'second generation' (the children of migrants), imagining their mobility to look something like this:
An important aspect of mobility trajectories is that they are not perfectly 'linear'. Life 'here' and 'there' is not neatly separated into distinct periods of time or separate spaces. Rather, the MO-TRAYL project research shows that young people's connections to and experiences in the countries of origin and residence influence each other over time and space. What happens in Germany shapes what happens in Ghana, and vice versa. Migrant youth's lives are lived transnationally – that is, across national borders – in ways that shape their identity and belonging, their social support networks, and their future aspirations.
