My island home : theorising childhood in the Cook Islands

Living on a fragile, isolated Pacific island presents a significant challenge for many children. Tensions emerge between their seemingly idyllic lifestyle, their desire to be connected to global child cultures and the demands of being the cultural custodians of their traditions. How they manage multiple identities is the focus of this paper. The data were collected through two projects: UNESCO Small Islands Voice and Growing Up in the Cook Islands, conducted over a two-year period between 2003 and 2004. The research approach included semi-structured interviews with children, surveys, and collecting children's drawings and daily time schedules. This paper seeks to build on theoretical work emanating from the new sociology of childhood to consider children’s' lives in new and more complex ways.