This volume brings together ethnographers conducting research on children living in crisis situations in both developing and developed regions, taking a cross-cultural approach that spans different cities in the global North and South to provide insight and analyses into the lifeworlds of their young, at-risk inhabitants. Looking at the lived experiences of poverty, drastic inequality, displacement, ecological degradation and war in countries including Haiti, Argentina and Palestine, the book shows how children both respond to and are shaped by their circumstances. Going beyond conventional images of children subjected to starvation, hunger, and disease to build an integrated analysis of what it means to be a child in crisis in the 21st century, the book makes a significant contribution to the nascent field of study concerned with development and childhood. With children now at the forefront of debates on human rights and poverty reduction, there is no better time for scholars, policymakers and the general public to understand the complex social, economic and political dynamics that characterize their present predicaments and future life chances.

Introduction: Children in Crisis Manata Hashemi and Martín Sánchez-Jankowski 1. Street Children, AIDS Orphans, and Unprotected Minors: What You Read Is Not What You See Lewis Aptekarm 2. Longitudinal Repeated Ethnography: Theoretical Implications for a Cultural, Social Class and Gendered Understanding of Children on the Streets in Kenya Phillip Kilbride 3. Refugees in the Middle East: Identity Politics among Sahrawi, Palestinian, and Afghan Youth Dawn Chatty 4. No Balm in Gilead: Childhood, Suffering, and Survival in Haiti J. Christopher Kovats-Bernat 5. Children at Toxic Risk Javier Auyero 6. (Im)permeable Boundaries: Why Integration into Affluent White-Majority Schools for Low-Income Minority Students is Elusive Prudence L. Carter