Global Childhoods

This astute book initiates a broad discussion from a variety of different disciplines about how we place children nationally, globally and within development discourses. Unlike other books of its kind, it does not seek to dwell solely on the abiding complexities of local comparisons. Rather, it elaborates larger concerns about the changing nature of childhood, young people’s experiences, their citizenship and the embodiment of their political identities as they are embedded in the processes of national development and globalization. In particular, this book concentrates on three main issues: nation building and developing children, child participation and activism in the context of development, and globalization and children’s live in the context of what has been called "the end of development." These are relatively broad research perspectives that find focus in what the authors term "reproducing and developing children" as a key issue of national and global concern. They further argue that understanding children and reproduction is key to understanding globalization.

Stuart Aitken is Professor of Geography at San Diego State University. His past books on children and families include Geographies of Young People: The Moral Contested Spaces of Identity (2001), Family Fantasies and Community Space (1998) and Putting Children in Their Place (1994). He is past editor of The Professional Geographer and is a current commissioning editor of Children's Geographies. He has also published a number of books and articles on films, philosophies and qualitative methods., Ragnhild Lund is Professor of Geography/Development Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim. Her past works include various articles on qualitative methodology, gender and development, development induced displacement, post-tsunami recovery and organisational learning of NGOs. Her past books on development include Gender and Place (1993), Renegotiating local values (1994). In the Maze of Displacement (2003). She has also published a recent article on orphanhood and HIV/AIDS. She is chief editor of Gender, Technology and Development (Sage) and she has been guest editor of FORUM of Development research and the Norwegian Journal of Geography., Anne Trine Kjørholt is Director and Associate Professor at Norwegian Centre for Child Research, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim. Her recent publications include: Children as New Citizens: In the best interest of the child? (2007) Childhood as a Social and Symbolic Space. Discourses on Children as social participants in society (2004), Imagined Communities. The Local Community as a Place for ‘Children's Culture’ and Social Participation in Norway (2004), Co-editor: Social actors or victims of exploitation? Working children in the cash economy of Ethiopia's South (2008), Flexible Places for Flexible Children? Discourses on new kindergarten architecture (2007), Beyond Listening. Children's Perspectives in Early Childhood Services (2005), Children, food consumption and culture in the