SPECIAL ISSUE PAPER Editorial introduction: Situated agency in the context of research on children, migration, and family in Asia Susanne Y.P. Choi 1 | Brenda S.A. Yeoh 2 | Theodora Lam 3 1 Department of Sociology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, Hong Kong 2 Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore 3 Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore Correspondence Susanne YP Choi, Department of Sociology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, Hong Kong. Email: choiyp@cuhk.edu.hk Funding information Faculty of Social Science, the Chinese Univer- sity of Hong Kong; Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore; Hong Kong Research Grant Council General Research Fund, Grant/Award Number: 2120461 Abstract Given far less attention than adult members in the burgeoning migration scholarship, children (and their parents) are brought to the foreground in this themed section as agentic subjects whose lives are linked to and impacted by migration processes operating across borders. In tandem with this focus, this special‐themed section situates the agency of children and their parents within broader socio‐economic structures of regional inequalities, local economic stagnation and cross‐border demand for low‐waged labour, state policy failures, ethnic group disparities, technological advances that facilitate cross‐border mobility, and the transnational performance of familyhood. By incorporating children's relationships with people and places nearby and afar and situating their agency within broader socio‐economic and political contexts, we hope that the analytical framework of “situated agency” developed in this themed section will encourage more studies linking macro structures with micro interpersonal dynamics and actions in growing Asia‐based research related to migration and mobility across space and place. KEYWORDS agency, Asia, children, family, migration 1 | INTRODUCTION With increased mobilities in a globalised age, scholarship on the mutually constitutive effects of migration and family has burgeoned in recent decades. Migration may be triggered by life course events such as marriage and divorce (Piper, 2003), while family change may also occur in the period following the move (Geist & McManus, 2008). On the one hand, migration as a life‐changing decision and process is deeply embedded and must be understood in the context of gender roles of family members; patterns of con- tact, emotional ties, and material support among family members; relationships between the nuclear and extended families; and the dynamics of interaction between migrants and their left‐behind family members (see, e.g., Boyle, Graham, & Yeoh, 2003; Mulder & Cooke, 2009; Toyota, Yeoh, & Nguyen, 2007). On the other hand, (trans) migratory moves often reconstitute the family in ways which are sometimes destabilising, sometimes affirming. For instance, although remittances sent by migrants may be used productively by left‐behind family members through investment in land purchase, house building, and setting up businesses, the emo- tional costs related to separation and care gaps may strain the rela- tionships between migrants and left‐behind family members (Choi & Peng, 2016; Gamburd, 2003). Cooke (2008, p. 255), in a special issue entitled Migration in a Family Way published in this journal, thus called for migration scholars to “embrace the family as a central component of migration.” In this broader context, this special themed section focuses on the place that children—as members of families and households— occupy under conditions where migration is a dynamic force of social change. Given far less attention than adult members in the burgeoning migration scholarship, children, and their parents, are brought to the foreground in this themed section as agentic subjects whose lives are linked to and impacted by migration processes operating across borders. Responding to Ansell's (2009, p. 190) call to liberate children's geographies from its “preoccupation with the microscale” of the playground, the shopping mall, and the Accepted: 27 February 2018 DOI: 10.1002/psp.2149 Popul Space Place. 2018;e2149. https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2149 Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/psp 1 of 6