Introduction

This book traces different claims made for ‘development’, ‘development’ in its multiple senses-connecting children, human and international development. In doing so it aims to contribute to a critical re-envisioning of theory and practice in increasingly postindustrial, postcolonial and multicultural contexts. It takes as its key focus why debates around children and childhood-their safety, their sexuality, their interests, entitlements and abilities, and also their labour and their violence-have so preoccupied the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and it identifies analytical and practical strategies for better practice. Drawing in particular on feminist and postdevelopment literatures to inform perspectives on individual and social development, the book illustrates how and why reconceptualising our notions of individual and human development, including those informing models of children’s rights and interests, will foster more just and equitable forms of professional practice with children and their families.