‘Like the virus just brings out the worst in people’: Positioning and identity in student narratives during the Covid-19 outbreak in Australia

This paper illustrates how superdiverse youth negotiate their identity in everyday interactions during Australia’s Covid-19 outbreak. The discussion is based on oral narratives collected from classroom conversations among international and local students living in Australia. The paper illustrates how participants position themselves and others in narratives, how these positionings reveal complex identity work among youth from diverse backgrounds and how identities are constructed and negotiated through stories about everyday encounters. Students’ experiences of racism and microaggressions point to interethnic interactions as sites of struggle where identities come into conflict. The paper contributes to current work on identity in narrative discourse and narratives of racism.