TRANSNATIONALE BARNDOMME: Refleksioner over bømemigranter og identitet

Resumé

Michael Anderson: Transnational

Childhood: Reflections on Child

Migrants and Identity

The article seeks to elucidate some themes

pertinent to childhood migrancy from the

perspective of children’s reported

experiences, in an attempt to challenge

“static” conceptualizations of the child in a

moving world. Through interpretive analysis

of four vignettes about Iraqi refugee

children, the author hints at the limitations of

contemporary theorising which either

homogenises children as the same all over

the world, or particularises them as culturally

specific in definitively bounded locations.

The migrant child, whose identity is

transnational and transcultural, challenges

both of these conceptualizations. Furthermore,

given the opportunity, children prove

articulate “expositors” of the dynamic

processes inherent in this complexity in their

narrative (verbal and behavioural) mappings

of themselves. By availing ourselves of their

words, actions and imaginations, we can

participate in their making sense of a world in

movement and their own childhoods as they

unfold.