Transfers of Belonging
Child Fostering in West Africa in the 20th Century
Published on 3. May 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
284 pages
978-90-04-35980-2 (ISBN)
Description
In Transfers of Belonging, Erdmute Alber traces the history of child fostering in northern Benin from the pre-colonial past to the present by pointing out the embeddedness of child foster practices and norms in a wider political process of change. Child fostering was, for a long time, not just one way of raising children, but seen as the appropriate way of doing so. This changed profoundly with the arrival of European ideas about birth parents being the 'right' parents, but also with the introduction of schooling and the differentiation of life chances. Besides providing deep historical and ethnographical insights, Transfers of Belonging offers a new theoretical frame for conceptualizing parenting.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Leiden
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
408 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-04-35980-2 (9789004359802)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Erdmute Alber (Ph.D. 1997) is chair of Social Anthropology at Bayreuth University (Germany). She has undertaken long-term field research in West Africa, especially in northern Benin. She has directed several research projects on kinship, generational relations and child fostering in West Africa and published widely in the field of political anthropology, childhood, kinship, intergenerational relations and care.
Content
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
List of Abbreviations
Glossary
Introduction
?Baatombu Peasants
?National and Regional Embeddedness
?Social Relations
?Kinship Terminology
?Fieldwork and Methods
?Field Research
?Thick Participation
?Childhood Studies
?Norm, Practice, Emotion
1 Theoretical Approaches and Concepts on Child Fostering
?A Structural-functionalist Perspective: Parenthood and Social Reproduction
?Bearing and Begetting: Birth Parenthood
?Status Entitlement: Legal Parenthood
?Nurturance, Training and Sponsorship: Social Parenthood
?Delegation of Parenthood: Types, Reasons and Functions
?Discussion
?A Structuralist Perspective: The Circulation of Children
?Discussion
?Other Perspectives
?The Turn to the Actor
?Transfers of Imagined Belonging
2 Parenthood in Rural Borgu
?Birth Parenthood
?An Open Secret
?Birth
?Giving Birth in the Health Centre
?Rites of Transition
?Everyday Practices
?Acquiring Knowledge
?Yearning
?Happy Foster Children
?Conceptions of Parenthood
?Motherhood
?Fatherhood
?Child Fostering
?Decisions
?Transferring a Child
?Possible Foster Parents
?Same Sex
?Kinship
?Hierarchy
?Order of Siblings
?Reasons for Child Fostering
?Kinship Cohesion
?Preventing Regressive Behaviour in Children
?Social Parenthood Supports the Hierarchies
?Children as Workers
?Childlessness
?Crisis Fostering
?Women's Interests
?Child Fostering, Gender and Marriage
?Exchanging Children and Women
?Conflicts
?Avoidance and Indirect Communication
?Open Conflicts
?Self-reliance
?Foster Parents
?Running Away
?Arguments against Child Fostering
?Kinship Conflicts
?Schooling
?A Bad Investment
3 Child Fostering in the Twentieth Century
?Precolonial Times
?Everyday Realities
?Violence and Gifts
?Oedipus in Africa?
?Colonial Changes
?End of the Raids
?New Conceptions
?Sero Toro Tuunku and his Foster Son
?New Life Courses
?Christian Missions
?The Introduction of Schools
?State Policy
?The Post-colonial Period
?Urban Baatombu Households
?Expansion of Educational Facilities
?Between Town and Village: A Conflict
?Child Fostering in Urban Areas: Cotonou and Parakou
?Urban Households
?Mobility and Education
?Household Composition
?Fostering and Education
?Belonging
?Well-being
?Exploitation?
?Generations
?Child Fostering in the Villages of T?b?, Kika and Yar?
?Frequency of Child Fostering
?Birth Rate and Child Mortality
?Gender
?Schooling and Fostering
?Family Relationship between Children and their Foster Parents
?On the threshold of the 21st Century: Two Conflicts
?Rafa
?Djamila
?Conclusion
Appendix
?Names and Interviews
?Interviews Cited
References
Index
List of Figures
List of Abbreviations
Glossary
Introduction
?Baatombu Peasants
?National and Regional Embeddedness
?Social Relations
?Kinship Terminology
?Fieldwork and Methods
?Field Research
?Thick Participation
?Childhood Studies
?Norm, Practice, Emotion
1 Theoretical Approaches and Concepts on Child Fostering
?A Structural-functionalist Perspective: Parenthood and Social Reproduction
?Bearing and Begetting: Birth Parenthood
?Status Entitlement: Legal Parenthood
?Nurturance, Training and Sponsorship: Social Parenthood
?Delegation of Parenthood: Types, Reasons and Functions
?Discussion
?A Structuralist Perspective: The Circulation of Children
?Discussion
?Other Perspectives
?The Turn to the Actor
?Transfers of Imagined Belonging
2 Parenthood in Rural Borgu
?Birth Parenthood
?An Open Secret
?Birth
?Giving Birth in the Health Centre
?Rites of Transition
?Everyday Practices
?Acquiring Knowledge
?Yearning
?Happy Foster Children
?Conceptions of Parenthood
?Motherhood
?Fatherhood
?Child Fostering
?Decisions
?Transferring a Child
?Possible Foster Parents
?Same Sex
?Kinship
?Hierarchy
?Order of Siblings
?Reasons for Child Fostering
?Kinship Cohesion
?Preventing Regressive Behaviour in Children
?Social Parenthood Supports the Hierarchies
?Children as Workers
?Childlessness
?Crisis Fostering
?Women's Interests
?Child Fostering, Gender and Marriage
?Exchanging Children and Women
?Conflicts
?Avoidance and Indirect Communication
?Open Conflicts
?Self-reliance
?Foster Parents
?Running Away
?Arguments against Child Fostering
?Kinship Conflicts
?Schooling
?A Bad Investment
3 Child Fostering in the Twentieth Century
?Precolonial Times
?Everyday Realities
?Violence and Gifts
?Oedipus in Africa?
?Colonial Changes
?End of the Raids
?New Conceptions
?Sero Toro Tuunku and his Foster Son
?New Life Courses
?Christian Missions
?The Introduction of Schools
?State Policy
?The Post-colonial Period
?Urban Baatombu Households
?Expansion of Educational Facilities
?Between Town and Village: A Conflict
?Child Fostering in Urban Areas: Cotonou and Parakou
?Urban Households
?Mobility and Education
?Household Composition
?Fostering and Education
?Belonging
?Well-being
?Exploitation?
?Generations
?Child Fostering in the Villages of T?b?, Kika and Yar?
?Frequency of Child Fostering
?Birth Rate and Child Mortality
?Gender
?Schooling and Fostering
?Family Relationship between Children and their Foster Parents
?On the threshold of the 21st Century: Two Conflicts
?Rafa
?Djamila
?Conclusion
Appendix
?Names and Interviews
?Interviews Cited
References
Index