It is one of the self-comprehensions of today's socio-scientific childhood research that children and childhoods cannot be considered as natural phenomena, but are shaped by the social conditions, social relations and cultural contexts they are part of. Moreover, no talk about children and childhood is ever perfectly matched to reality – it is always filtered through the visions and values of those who talk and write about children and childhood. In this book, children are seen as actors who are never unaffected and uninfluenced by predetermined social structures and cultural patterns, but who can nevertheless influence, shape and thus also modify these structures and patterns. This also applies to the development and appearance of what we call childhood. That is why it is important to emphasize that there is not only one childhood, but always different childhoods, be it with regard to the history, to each individual life course, or to different societies and cultures. In the context of the presentation of children and childhoods in this book, I aim to express children's perceptions and actions.

Why is this book devoted to childhoods in the postcolonial context, and what do I mean by that? The European colonialization of other continents, which has been going on since the 15th century, still has consequences for the power structures of today's world and people's ways of thinking in different parts of the world. These are postcolonial in the double sense that they follow the colonial epoch in time and challenge criticism of the aftermath of colonialization. The term postcolonial is thus used to criticize the existing unequal global power structures that are remainders of colonialism, and thus can also be described as neo-colonial. When I speak of childhoods in the postcolonial context or postcolonial childhoods, I want to express that even today's childhoods, and in reflections, talk and writings about them, the colonialization of ‘alien’ parts of the earth continues to affect them and therefore must be critically examined. In doing so, I will also show that the dominant understanding of childhood in Europe is closely interwoven with the process of colonialization.

One aspect of reflecting about postcolonial childhoods is that the people living in Europe (as involuntary descendants of the colonial powers) know little about children and childhoods outside Europe and North America.