Performing gender in song games among Nicaraguan Miskitu children

This article brings together theories of performance and language-in-interaction to interpret the socialization and negotiation of gender and sexuality in children’s peer groups. The object of this study are song games played by multilingual, indigenous Miskitu children living on Corn Island, off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. Ethnographic research and micro-analyses of transcribed song game performances demonstrate that mobile aesthetic forms are both a communicative resource and a framework for the formation and re-formation of subjectivity in social discourse. Through the social “work” accomplished by “play,” Miskitu children contribute to an ongoing reshaping of the forms and meanings of gender and sexuality.