Skills, training and development: an introduction to the social life of skills in the global South

‘Skills’ and ‘skill development’ feature evermore prominently in international development discourse and in the policies of governments across the global South. Yet, these discourses and policies often proceed with a weak conception of the social circumstances and everyday processes by which skills are acquired, disseminated, and used. This tends to result in approaches to skill development that are simultaneously unrealistic, in the sense that they overlook the multiple social and institutional impediments to remunerative or empowering forms of skill utilisation, and overly restrictive in the sense that they fail to consider the multiple ways in which skills are valued and deployed by individuals and communities. By drawing attention to what Carswell and De Neve term ‘the social life of skills,’ contributions to this collection expand conceptions of skills and skill development, particularly in relation to four key themes: (1) the social and political construction of certain forms of work as ‘skilled’ or ‘unskilled’; (2) the social processes of skilling in formal, informal and non-formal settings; (3) the political economy of skills and skill development, including their imbrication in forms of exploitation and intersecting inequalities; and (4) the role of skills in the expression of aspirations, identity and agency.