Migrant children and processes of identification in the school context: "not dare to tell". Some approaches to the analysis of shame

Abstract

In this paper, I present reflections about the ethnic and national identit tensions that Bolivian migrant children (or belonging to migrant families) in an elementary school in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I intend to analyze the uses and meanings of shame, a category used by teachers and students to talk about migrant children’s silence when they’re asked to tell the experiences related to their families, as migrants or Bolivians. I analyze how these experiences appear to be silenced in the context of children's interactions. I try to establish certain relations between the contradictory meanings that address to identity references, and the way they are linked to the position of children. I also analyze a set of theoretical conceptualizations of shame, from which I point the link with identity tensions experienced by the subjects.