Generationing Development

"This exciting and timely collection, framed by an excellent introduction and concluding discussion, is a key resource not only for students of international development at all levels, but also for policy makers and practitioners alike, as they grapple with some key problems relating to children and youth facing the world today." (Virginia Morrow, University of Oxford, UK) "This sparkling new volume brings together established and emerging names in the study of children and youth globally to fundamentally reorient our thinking on age, development, and generation. A tour de force." (Craig Jeffrey, University of Melbourne, Australia) "This is a wonderfully rich and diverse collection of articles offering fascinating insights into the lives of young people across the world. Theoretically sophisticated but highly readable, it brings together cutting edge research from many disciplines and expands our knowledge and understanding of young people in exciting and thought-provoking ways." (Heather Montgomery, The Open University, UK) "Generationing Development provides critical and useful perspectives on the important role of children and youth in development as well as the embeddedness of development processes in experiences of childhood and youth. The book is a long overdue and necessary addition to the interdisciplinary fields of childhood studies and youth studies." (Tatek Abebe, Norwegian University of Sciences and Technology)

Part 3 zooms in on the generational dynamics of development by exploring how prominent development interventions (conditional cash transfers, schooling) problems (gender discrimination) and questions (the generational question of farming) shape the (gendered) experience of being young and growing up.

This ground-breaking book weaves together insights from the children and youth studies literature and critical development studies. Debunking the idea of childhood and youth as self-evident social categories, the author unravels how these generational constructs are (re)constituted and experienced in relational terms in development contexts spanning both the Global South and the Global North.

Running through these chapters is a fundamental concern with age, gender and generation as key principles of social differentiation.  This is developed in Part 1 at a theoretical level, and applied to everyday contexts, including school, work, migration and the street in Part 2. Part 3 zooms in on the generational dynamics of development by exploring how prominent development interventions (conditional cash transfers, schooling) problems (gender discrimination) and questions (the generational question of farming) shape the (gendered) experience of being young and growing up.