ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author discusses his ethnographic fieldwork with the children of migrants and refugees in Sabah, East Malaysia. Despite his fretting that children must be particularly ‘difficult’ ethnographic subjects, and despite the urban, relatively structured circumstances under which he conducted fieldwork, the author actually found many children and youth quite straightforward to get to know. Most of them were interested in talking to him, and most were open about their lives. Younger children also surprised the author with their readiness to philosophize on their situation, or to reveal difficult circumstances. The author found the Crossroads children extremely hard to get to know. They were often suspicious, secretive, uncooperative and sometimes aggressive. They were loud and argumentative, and frequently refused to answer questions posed to them. In short, they were rather ‘difficult’, both as children and as informants.
