Abstract
This chapter examines processes of identification and categorization that non-migrant children adopt to understand ‘the other’. It does so by examining what children identify as being important to being a ‘good person’, that is their understanding of what constitutes the moral self. We examine these understandings to determine to what extent practices seen as necessary of citizens in ‘multicultural’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ societies – such as mediating difference, an openness to dialogue, of a reflexive attitude regarding one’s own values – are also evident in children’s discussions of being a good person. Three themes emerge from the analysis: the normality of difference and the importance of the personal as moral; defending those who are different as a practice of justice; and the categorization of children as strange where other children exhibit different life practices from themselves. By examining the identity work of children who are not of a migration background, we explore implications for how recognition claims by children from migrant backgrounds might be received.
I would like to thank Professor Jan Mason and Dr Elizabeth Watson who were co-researchers for this study.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
In total, 178 interviews were conducted, totalling approximately 150 hours of transcript.
- 2.
Study sites included six suburbs across the capital, Sydney, one rural centre, and two other major metropolitan centres in New South Wales.
- 3.
It is here we can usefully employ the work of Axel Honneth (1995, 2010). In brief, Honneth argues that a positive relation to self, including a sense of self-respect, self-trust and capacity to embark upon and successfully pursue life plans, is made possible only through patterns of social recognition. Recognition comprises love, rights and solidarity. Love, associated with friendship and parental care, is highly particular because it concerns itself with the emotional needs of individuals and cannot be extended to general categories of people; rights comprises recognition of the equal legal and moral accountability of individuals and is expressed in rights to autonomy; solidarity is the evaluation of particular traits against standards which are the basis of group membership. Each of these forms of recognition is coupled with a relation to self, and it’s denial associated with a corresponding form of disrespect. Love is associated with self-confidence resulting from the experience of love and concern, it’s denial is associated with abuse; rights provides a sense of being a bearer of equal rights and also a person capable of equal moral accountability, its denial is associated with not being worthy of claiming rights; and solidarity provides a sense of self-esteem through recognition by others of ones capacities and achievements, the denial of which is associated with a disparagement of ways of life. In the context of cultural identity, a denial of recognition of cultural practices may have repercussions for a healthy and intact sense of self. This can occur through a ‘politics of forced assimilation’. As well as having objective outcomes (such as an inability for cultural reproduction), these types of disrespect also interfere with how a person understands him or herself in relation to the world and in particular a decreasing ability to see one’s self as being part of a particular social and cultural world.
- 4.
Jenkins makes the point that there are certain strategically placed others whose work of categorization has special importance-friends, educators, public officials etc. However he also argues that different young people experience life differently because resources and penalties are differentially allocated on the basis of shared categorizations of different social groups.
- 5.
In different ways both Taylor (1992) and Honneth (1995) argue that recognition of one’s specificity, in this case, of one’s life practices, is essential for a feeling of self-respect and being able to be an equal partner in interaction, both at an individual (i.e. psychological) and group level (i.e. recognition of one’s status as being part of a legitimate group).
References
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Baumann, G. (1999). The multicultural riddle: Rethinking national, ethnic and religious identities. New York: Routledge.
Beck, U. (2006). Cosmopolitan vision. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Berger, P., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The social construction of reality. London: Allen Lane.
Bhabha, H. (1994). The location of culture. London: Routledge.
Butcher, M. (2009). Ties that bind: The strategic use of transnational relationships in demarcating identity and managing difference. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 35(8), 1353–1371.
Colombo, E. (2010). Crossing differences: How young children of immigrants keep everyday multiculturalism alive. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 31(5), 455–470.
Colombo, E., Leonini, L., & Rebughini, P. (2009). Different but not stranger: Everyday collective identifications among adolescent children of immigrants in Italy. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 35(1), 37–59.
Habermas, J. (1992). Autonomy and solidarity. London: Verso.
Hall, S. (1990). Cultural identity and diaspora. In J. Rutherford (Ed.), Identity: Community, culture, difference. London: Lawrence & Wishar.
Hall, S. (1993). Culture, community, nation. Cultural Studies, 7(3), 349–363.
Honneth, A. (1995). The struggle for recognition. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Honneth, A. (2010). The I in we: Studies in the theory of recognition. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Honneth, A. (2012). The I in We: Studies in the theory of recognition. Cambridge: Polity.
Jenkins, R. (2000). Categorization: Identity, social process and epistemology. Current Sociology, 48(3), 7–25.
Markus, M. R. (2002). Cultural pluralism and the subversion of the “Taken-for-Granted” world. In E. Philomena & D. T. Goldberg (Eds.), Race critical theories: Text and context. Oxford: Blackwell.
Noble, G., Poynting, S., & Tabar, P. (1999). Youth, ethnicity and the mapping of identities: Strategic essentialism and strategic hybridity among male Arabic-speaking youth in south-western Sydney. Communal/Plural, 7(1), 29–44.
Taylor, C. (1992). The politics of recognition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
van Leeuwen, B. (2007). A formal recognition of social attachments: Expanding Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition. Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 50(2), 180–205.
Vasta, E. (2010). The controllability of difference: Social cohesion and the new politics of solidarity. Ethnicities, 10(4), 503–521.
Wise, A., & Velayutham, S. (2009). Everyday multiculturalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fattore, T. (2016). Children’s Conceptions of Otherness: Constructions of the ‘Moral Self’ and Implications for Experiences of Migration. In: Hunner-Kreisel, C., Bohne, S. (eds) Childhood, Youth and Migration. Children’s Well-Being: Indicators and Research, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31111-1_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31111-1_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-31109-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31111-1
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)