ABSTRACT
Through a series of vignettes, this Introduction documents my process of exploring the development landscape in Delhi, and ultimately finding my research site: a small media NGO working with slum children. As well as my literal movements towards this organisation, this Introduction also documents my growing recognition of the importance of narrative and performance-based activities to development programmes targeting children. Arguing for the need to conceptualise child-focussed development projects structured around activities such as acting, dance, sport, and art, this Introduction proposes the term extra-curricular development as a new way of theorising both the practical and affective dimensions of these kinds of development programmes. Additionally, this chapter explores ethical questions about working with and representing marginalised children, as well as advocating an attentiveness to fun, and the dynamic movement of doing ethnographic research with children.
