The article discusses how Norwegian-Pakistani young people experience and reflect upon changes in their lives from childhood to adolescence, i.e. it presents their life courses with a special focus on their attitudes to religion, ethnicity, gender and social boundaries. The presentation is based on a longitudinal study (1994-2001) of 14 Norwegian-Pakistani children and young people. The move from childhood to adolescence and early grown-up status is characterized by negotiations at different levels and within different social contexts. The concept of negotiation is used to underline the dynamic linkages between traditions and individuality in the open-ended processes of constructing identities and life worlds. Who am I? What does it mean to be a Muslim woman and a Norwegian citizen? Which boundaries can be negotiated, and which are impossible to cross? Negotiations are going on between parents and adolescents, within peer groups and among siblings, between boys and girls. Negotiations occur at an institutional and political level between majority and minorities, between local attachments and global networks, between schooling and media. Negotiations are also going on within each individual, in the form of reflexivity, compromises, creativity, and the management of plural identities. Some of these negotiations and processes are found to be general and typical for the age group, and some may be specific to being Muslims in a non-Muslim society or belonging to an ethnic minority.
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