Power in the Paratext: Interrogating Author Identity, Expertise, and Purpose in Picture Books About Refugee Children

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Constructions of Literacy Across K–16 Settings

Abstract

While dominant narratives circulated by media, political, and humanitarian officials often represent refugees as traumatized, needy, and dependent (Kisiara, 2015), “refugees are not the crisis. It’s the narratives we tell about them” (UNHCR, 2018). Such narratives inexorably influence curricular texts and practices, and it’s crucial that educators critically evaluate representations of refugee children and families in their classroom literature. This paper examines how authors and illustrators signify their own cultural identity(ies) and positionality(ies) in 64 picturebooks about refugee children. Drawing from methods of critical multicultural analysis and critical content analysis, we investigate how issues of cultural authenticity and expertise are specifically addressed in the paratexts of these picturebooks, interrogating the assumed/implied audience and explicit/implicit purposes for telling these stories.

Authors

• Nora Peterman, University of Missouri - Kansas City

• Ekaterina Strekalova-Hughes, University of Missouri - Kansas City