AustLit

Mallan is concerned with what she sees as a key relationship between location and identity and the way 'subjectivity is shaped by movements in time' (p.7). The focus here is on children and young people who are displaced and/or exiled and find themselves removed from their 'homeland'. The notion of a solid identity is inextricably linked to ideas about place and for children this is usually the home and school which are inhabited and experienced on a physical, mental and emotional level. Furthermore, textual representations of spatiality and temporality are realized through the ways in which 'rules and codes of conduct are enforced and boundaries and bodies are materially inscribed' (p.14). Mallan's comprehensive analysis of Little Soldier (Ashley, 1999, English) and Idiot Pride (Zurbo, 1997, Australian) concludes that in both texts, '...[T]he spatial parameters of neighborhood, gang membership, ethnic and class allegiances and familial relationships are variously resisted, contested and confirmed within gendered and other discursive limitations' (p.14).