ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of the book. The book explores how the material and spatial dimensions of life are related to violence as it affects children and those around them. It expresses that it is impossible to fathom the problem or to protect endangered children without also considering how deeply embedded violence is within the production and control of their material environment. The book is an expanded paradigm for child protection, one anchored in the transformative potential of community-driven development, undertaken in negotiation and collaboration with the local state. It focuses on three scales of experience – home, neighbourhood and the loss of home and neighbourhood, the latter in the context of the many push-and-pull factors that provoke this loss, including eviction, migration, conflict, disaster and resettlement. The book describes the forms that violence can take in the context of the material and spatial practicalities there that frame children's experience.
