Writing about children and ‘the politics of culture’ at the end of the twentieth century, Sharon Stephens (1995) characterises the modern world in terms of ‘transnational flows of commodities and people; by vast numbers of refugees, migrants, and stateless groups; by state projects to redefine the threatened boundaries of national cultures [...]’. Children are typically cast as unwitting and passive subjects of these shifting global forces, rather than active participants who experience, challenge and reshape the world around them.