Otherness ‘without ostracism or levelling’: towards fresh orientations to teacher foreigners in early childhood education

Abstract

This article attempts to conceptualise the notion of the foreigner in relation to immigrant early childhood teachers. Sparked by Kristeva’s challenge, to live with and as others without ostracism or levelling, it highlights tensions that arise in a juxtaposition of the Aotearoa/New Zealand early childhood curriculum document, Te Whāriki and other guidelines for cross-cultural practices, with perspectives on the foreigner and foreignness. Situated in the neoliberal sociopolitical and cultural landscape of Aotearoa/New Zealand, the analysis foregrounds and re-frames orientations towards immigrant teachers as they may play out in the early childhood realm. Kristeva’s insights into foreigners’ raw and intimate experiences provide a freeing lens to emphasise influences on and consequences of a foreigner’s otherness. While Kristeva’s challenge may be a never-ending story of a utopian future in education, its use in this analysis is intended to provoke an awareness of complex conceptualisations of foreignness and of tensions that could subvert the aim of working towards this, possibly elusive, ideal.