The Navigating Stranger: Latino Children and Parents Negotiating Norwegianness and Latinoness in Norway

ABSTRACT Drawing upon the pre‐ and post‐migratory experiences as racialized subjects of a group of children and parents with Latino background in Norway, this article explores the subtle role of racial sense‐making and identity navigation processes in a child‐centred and participatory research project with six families. By comparing historical and socio‐cultural foundations and prevailing constructions of race embedded in notions of Latinoness and Norwegianness , the article explores how colour, race and identity intersect and differ along generational and ethnic lines, through lived experience and everyday encounters. Underpinned by decolonial and postcolonial theory, the analysis addresses the participants' racial identities in relation to colonialism and its denial in the Norwegian context. Using Sarah Ahmed's stranger as an analytical lens, we explore how embodied otherness comes to matter in the participants' strategic negotiation of whiteness and brownness in a cultural context where interlinkages between race and national identity are an unspoken, albeit significant identity frame.