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Children's voices have been little heard in the Pacific research. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 asserts the child's right to have a say on matters that affect them and for their views to be considered. There has been massive growth in technologically assisted participative research; however, we argue the value of hand drawn maps should not be underestimated in the rush to engage with more advanced techniques. We present data from 267 neighbourhood maps drawn by children in Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa and New Zealand. To better understand the social construction of knowledge in children's everyday lives, we propose two models to conceptualise the complexity of their world, a social connection and a spatial connection model. These models reveal how Pacific Island children negotiate different levels of social connection from home, family, and community through to transnational kinship relations. People, specifically family, provide the geographic basis on which their spatial encounters are overlaid. Irrespective of country or rural/urban/atoll setting, it is social space that is the strongest connector for children as displayed in their maps. Application of our models can be used to reveal how knowledge is socially constructed in Pacific children's everyday lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the intersection between place, culture and identity as evidenced through photographic narratives of Pacific Island children, based in Samoa and a diasporic community in New Zealand. The study was undertaken with 71 children aged 6–14 in Samoa (35) and New Zealand (36). A Talanoa/fa'afaletui (conversation-based) Pacific research approach was used to analyse 1285 children's photos of 'things that matter to them'. Most photos showed multiple layers of meaning (e.g. sensory, love, pride, memory). Plants were most frequently featured in Samoan children's photos and family in New Zealand. Through the photos and conversations, children articulate dynamic and multi-layered connections to place, identity and belonging. For diasporic children, their Island of origin is central to their identity and articulated through cultural, family and community connections. An adapted place attachment model is proposed to help better understand children's place attachment, sense of belonging and their Pacific Island identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study with 71 children aged 6-14 living in New Zealand and Samoa, provides a new child-centred perspective on transnational diasporic families. We use the Pacific concept vā to frame the study, in which children's transnational-kinship connections reflect relational rather than physical approaches to space. Familial habitus surpasses spatial habitus as children's primary reference point. For diasporic children, family keeps alive their sense of Pacific Island belonging. Transnational kinship ties give Pacific children additional resilience in adapting to unknown futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]