Saving Which Children How? The Importance of Cultural Capital in Youth-Focused International Aid and Development

Abstract

This review discusses the book Saving the Children: Humanitarianism, Internationalism, and Empire by Emily Baughan. In the book, Baughan documents and discusses the first 100 years of the Save the Children Fund, which was established in the United Kingdom in 1919. In this article, I review the book in the context of the Community Capitals Framework, paying particular attention to the importance of cultural capital. I argue that one of the major shortcomings of Save the Children was the willful ignorance of and, at times, the purposeful destruction and elimination of the cultural capital of the communities, families, and children they were serving. I discuss the consequences of ignoring and damaging cultural capital and provide examples of how, rather than being only a historical problem of large and complex organizations such as Save the Children, some current scholars and practitioners continue to neglect and harm cultural capital in their own community development work.