I have had a long association with Michael White's approach to narrative therapy and the ideas that shaped it, and I continue to be interested in what is happening with narrative practice in different parts of the world. In recent years that interest has been drawn to the ways in which the narrative approach has been taken forward in its application in local contexts, both in India and in Mexico and within Aboriginal communities in Australia. I am appreciating how my thinking about narrative practice is influenced through the contribution that is being made by practitioners who are making the practice relevant in the context that is local and particular and every day. There is something in this movement of ideas across cultures and communities that feels close to the spirit of jugaad, a resourceful and grounded making-do that shapes practice to what the moment and the place actually call for.

This follows on from my ongoing interest in the writers and thinkers whose ideas were originally drawn on as conceptual underpinnings to the narrative approach. I am especially interested in the schools of thought that have come after the French post-structuralists and that have taken things in directions more in line with broader contemporary concerns of social justice and equity across the planet. This has led me to questions of collective identity and shared subjectivity, and to how narrative practice might speak to belonging, responsibility and care that reach beyond the individual. The conference theme, "the children are always ours," names this widening of the circle of concern, and it is one I am glad to be thinking alongside colleagues in India as we gather in Puducherry.

I am delighted to contribute as a pre-conference workshop and mini workshop presenter, and I look forward to the shared celebration of narrative ideas and everyday stories of response and resistance.