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Transfers of Belonging
Child Fostering in West Africa in the 20th Century
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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.
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.
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 Tɛbɔ, Kika and Yarɔ
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 Tɛbɔ, Kika and Yarɔ
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
Besides anthropologists working on West Africa, this book should be read by all interested in kinship, childhood, child development and the history of Africa.