Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with intersectionality and difference in childhood, presenting empirical research and conceptual interventions from a variety of international perspectives. It explores the utility of a scholarly discourse concerning intersectionality and difference in childhood, and childhood as a contested and precarious space. The book demonstrates children as both passive and active agents of their lived experience, illustrating the way in which agency is underpinned by social and economic capital and relationships, which vary according to geo-social contexts. It discusses the experiences of children and childhoods that are ‘other’. The book examines intersectionality and difference in childhood. It presents a need for understanding of everyday precarity in children’s lives, including the broad assemblages of relationships, experiences, social capital and structural constraints, in order to gain meaningful insight.