Becoming someone: childhood and belonging as an ethnic minority boy in Hong Kong

This ethnographic case study examines how childism, decoloniality, and interculturality illuminate the experiences of Keane, a 14-year-old Pakistani-Hong Konger attending a Chinese-medium secondary school. Drawing on five interviews, go-along interviews, reflective drawings, participant observations, and field notes collected between February 2025 and May 2026, the study explores how he navigates racialised and adultist conditions of belonging across school, family, community, and volunteering contexts. Keane describes himself as ‘living an adult life’ through formal dress, time management, volunteering, public speaking, multilingual mediation, and future-oriented planning. I examine how adult-defined ideals of productivity and competence shape the recognition available to ethnic-minority children, and how Keane acts as an interpreter, organiser, and contributor to community life. His multilingual repertoire and civic engagement create relational spaces of interculturality, yet recurring questions about where he is ‘really from’ demonstrate that linguistic competence and participation do not secure unconditional belonging. I argue that childist, decolonial, and intercultural perspectives recognise ethnic-minority children as knowledgeable social actors whose multilingual practices, community knowledge, and institutional critiques can inform more equitable educational relationships and conditions of belonging in Hong Kong.