Race and Place: The Discursive Construction of Children’s Place-Based and Racial Identities in Mauritius

• In Event: Coyotes Will Howl: Narratives of Colonized Places, People, and Eco-Ethical Inquiries for Justice

Abstract

This paper explores the connections between children’s place- and race- based identities in classroom interactions in a fourth grade urban school in the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.

Ethnographic research and critical discourse analysis show how place-based meanings reinforce racism, and how racial identities are subtly disguised into place-based identities within the context of Creole minorities’ environmental justice struggles in Mauritius.

The study links theoretical insights from critical race theory, environmental justice and place-based education to study place and race discursively from a social constructionist perspective. In doing so, it responds to calls in critical place-based education to give specific attention to connections between race and place and transcends modernist binary categories between material and social worlds.

Author

• Elsa Wiehe, University of Massachusetts - Amherst