Storying un/belonging in early childhood

Children’s agency and capabilities are often overlooked in the research literature, in particular, when it comes to young children’s reflections on their transnational childhoods and migration experiences. Nestled within an intergenerational family migration story, this article reports on a study that investigated childhood identity, home and belonging. The catalyst for the study came from N.D.’s (then) 6-year-old daughter who asked ‘Mummy, am I Australian?’ and ‘Am I more Australian than you?’ Embedded in these seemingly simple questions are complex layers of hegemonic ideology located within broader intergenerational family migration stories. Thus, to gain insight into these questions posed by N.D.’s daughter, a small-scale study was developed taking a postcolonial perspective and using narrative analysis to make sense of the ‘ordinary’ within family narratives. The study found that common themes arose for the participants, these being, nationhood and all the contradictions and challenges that can occur when an ‘outsider’ is ‘othered’ and distinct discourses of un/belonging. The findings of the study add to the growing literature on transnational childhoods. It reiterates the complexities that the child as social actor in their environment mediates and the identity making that young children undertake as agentic citizens in their own right