ABSTRACT
Why is statutory child protection such a fraught and conflicted organizational activity? This chapter aims to shed light on some key dimensions of twenty-first century organizational life that help provide an answer, and it takes child protection work as its main case study. Chapter 2 of this book engages with some of the same ideas in a more practical and immediate way, as part of a discussion about the key professional capacities required to survive and flourish as a modern child protection worker. Chapter 3 provides a backdrop to the specific thesis elaborated in this chapter about the distinctively contemporary character of lived working experience in human service organizations.
