Syncretising ways of doing, seeing and becoming in children's faith-inspired text-making and conversations around texts at home

ABSTRACT

This article examines the faith-inspired text-making of two siblings of Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu/Saiva heritage growing up in present-day London and the post-production conversations around the texts with one of the authors. Conceptually, we combine insights from syncretic literacy studies with an approach to faith as cultural practice. We argue that a syncretic lens can be enriched by an explicit focus on children's faith-inspired texts as material objects that open up possibilities for new meaning making. Our analysis points to the exploration of faith identities as a process of becoming that can be open-ended and potentially unpredictable.

Cet article examine la rédaction de textes inspirés par la foi de deux enfants d'héritage tamoul hindou/saiva sri-lankais et les conversations qui s'ensuivent autour de ces textes. Sur le plan conceptuel, nous combinons les connaissances tirées d'études sur les littératies syncrétiques avec une approche de la foi en tant que pratique culturelle. Cette approche syncrétique peut être enrichie par une focalisation explicite sur les textes en question en tant qu'objets matériels ouvrant des possibilités de créer de nouvelles significations. Notre analyse montre que l'exploration des identités religieuses est un processus de devenir parfois ouvert et potentiellement imprévisible.

KEYWORDS:

• Syncretic literacies
• faith as cultural practice
• faith identities
• team ethnography
• scrapbooks

Acknowledgements

We thank the children, parents, faith leaders and faith teachers for their warm welcome in the four faith settings. A special thanks to Sunthiru and his family who feature in this article. We also thank the other members of the BeLiFS team: Olga Barradas, Eve Gregory, John Jessel, Charmian Kenner, Amoafi Kwapong, Mahera Ruby, Ana Souza and Malgorzata Woodham. This paper emerges from a larger study on ‘Becoming literate through faith: Language and literacy learning in the lives of new Londoners’, supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, UK (ESRC, RES-062-23-1613). This support is duly acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Vally Lytra is Reader in Languages in Education in the Department of Educational Studies, at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research, practice and community engagement focuses on bilingualism and biliteracy in homes, schools and communities that have experienced diverse migration flows. She is the author of ‘Play Frames and Social Identities: Contact Encounters in a Greek Primary School’ and has edited ‘Multilingualism and Identities across Contexts: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives on Turkish-speaking Youth in Europe’ (with Jens Normann Jørgensen), ‘Sites of Multilingualism Complementary Schools in Britain Today’ (with Peter Martin) and ‘When Greeks and Turks Meet: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Relationship since 1923’. Her most recent edited book ‘Navigating Languages, Literacies and Identities: Religion in Young Lives’ (with Dinah Volk and Eve Gregory) was published in 2016. She is currently working on a new edited book project on ‘Decentering Language Education’ with colleagues Jim Anderson, Vicky Macleory and Cristina Ros i Solé (under contract with Multilingual Matters).

Arani Ilankuberan is a PhD student (from 2010) at the Department of Educational Studies in Goldsmiths, University of London. Her thesis explores the impact of Tamil Hindu religious film on the identity of second-generation British Tamil Hindu teenagers in London. She has also achieved her MA in Education: Culture, Language and Identity (2009) and BA English and American Literature (2007) at Goldsmiths, University of London. From 2009 to 2013 Arani was part of the BeLiFS project working with Dr. Vally Lytra alongside families from the Tamil Hindu community in London. Arani is currently the Curator for the South Indian Language Collections at the British Library.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number RES-062-23-1613].