Playing with difference: The cultural politics of childhood belonging

Drawing upon ethnographic observational data from a longitudinal study in a culturally diverse Australian early childhood centre, this paper provides a micro-analysis of a young Indian-Australian boy's identity play over a two year period. It focuses upon the ways in which this boy strategically and incrementally navigated a complex set of non-hegemonic ethnic and gender identity positions, in order to gradually gain peer acceptance and belonging within the centre. The identity positions that he performed were increasingly risky and transformative and involved multiple identity border crossings. He played these differences deliberately and skillfully. This study illustrates that young children are far from innocent about gender and ethnic/racialised power relations and can be cognizant players within the political field of identity, difference and belonging. It also serves to demonstrate the ways in which identity is intersubjective rather than autonomous and as least as much a performance for others than it is for ourselves (Butler 2004). Furthermore, through overtly playing with difference, the child in this study highlights the pedagogical possibilities of blurring the boundaries between self and other and embracing a relational ethics of difference