Kristen E. Cheney
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226437408
- eISBN:
- 9780226437682
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226437682.003.0008
- Subject:
- Anthropology, African Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines the way AIDS orphanhood has influenced child circulation and kin construction in Uganda. While many studies have documented the effects of AIDS on orphans and vulnerable ...
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This chapter examines the way AIDS orphanhood has influenced child circulation and kin construction in Uganda. While many studies have documented the effects of AIDS on orphans and vulnerable children’s circulation in Africa, few studies have critically examined the effects of AIDS on constructions of kinship, and particularly its symbolic repertoire amidst its everyday significance as a bodily substance. While ‘blood’ in the African context has gained notoriety in the age of HIV/AIDS as a substance that carries pathogens such as HIV, it has also gained significance as a substance that immutably binds children orphaned by those pathogens to their extended kin, on whom they rely for care. This chapter therefore traces the sometimes-contradictory social, economic, and emotional effects of children’s circulation within and across family networks, highlighting orphaned children’s concerns with identity and intra-family mobility. Doing so demonstrates how orphan care in the age of HIV/AIDS is consequently transforming both fosterage practices and kin obligation, jeopardizing children’s well-being and their ability to identify with the ‘blood ties’ that still form powerful tropes of relatedness for orphaned children.Less
This chapter examines the way AIDS orphanhood has influenced child circulation and kin construction in Uganda. While many studies have documented the effects of AIDS on orphans and vulnerable children’s circulation in Africa, few studies have critically examined the effects of AIDS on constructions of kinship, and particularly its symbolic repertoire amidst its everyday significance as a bodily substance. While ‘blood’ in the African context has gained notoriety in the age of HIV/AIDS as a substance that carries pathogens such as HIV, it has also gained significance as a substance that immutably binds children orphaned by those pathogens to their extended kin, on whom they rely for care. This chapter therefore traces the sometimes-contradictory social, economic, and emotional effects of children’s circulation within and across family networks, highlighting orphaned children’s concerns with identity and intra-family mobility. Doing so demonstrates how orphan care in the age of HIV/AIDS is consequently transforming both fosterage practices and kin obligation, jeopardizing children’s well-being and their ability to identify with the ‘blood ties’ that still form powerful tropes of relatedness for orphaned children.
Susan Shepler
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814724965
- eISBN:
- 9780814760192
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814724965.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, African Cultural Anthropology
This chapter describes aspects of the practice of childhood in Sierra Leone—child labor, secret society initiations, child fosterage, and education and apprenticeship—that are continuous with the ...
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This chapter describes aspects of the practice of childhood in Sierra Leone—child labor, secret society initiations, child fosterage, and education and apprenticeship—that are continuous with the participation of children in armed forces. Sierra Leoneans have their own culturally specific reactions to child soldiering that are not reflected in global child rights discourse. What is disturbing to them is not a lost innocence but a separation from family and training and the idea that the nation loses a generation. However, the focus on social, cultural, and historical continuity does not change the fact that the war was an extraordinary event, and a horrible experience for almost everyone involved.Less
This chapter describes aspects of the practice of childhood in Sierra Leone—child labor, secret society initiations, child fosterage, and education and apprenticeship—that are continuous with the participation of children in armed forces. Sierra Leoneans have their own culturally specific reactions to child soldiering that are not reflected in global child rights discourse. What is disturbing to them is not a lost innocence but a separation from family and training and the idea that the nation loses a generation. However, the focus on social, cultural, and historical continuity does not change the fact that the war was an extraordinary event, and a horrible experience for almost everyone involved.
