Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T09:48:53.920Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

SITTING AND STANDING: HOW FAMILIES ARE FIXING TRUST IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2012

Elizabeth Cooper
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There is widespread apprehension about the resilience of the ‘traditional African’ model of the extended family in maintaining norms and practices of inter-group cooperation and care in conditions of demographic, social and economic change. In Nyanza Province, Kenya, where one of every five children is currently orphaned, and HIV/AIDS and wide-scale poverty continue to render lives and livelihoods insecure, many people are not able to take their families' care for granted. Ideas and practices of kinship have been challenged profoundly by questions regarding who is responsible for the care of orphaned children. This article looks at two complementary practices among Luo families in western Kenya that address such dilemmas: the communal initiative of ‘sitting’ as a family to discuss and resolve issues in a cooperative and consensual manner; and the individualistic initiative of ‘standing’ to represent the interests of another individual. I suggest that while the immediate purposes of sitting and standing are pragmatic in assigning caring responsibilities for specific children, their eventfulness also actualizes something greater: trust, reciprocity and solidarity among extended families.

Il existe une opinion largement répandue concernant la résilience du modèle « africain traditionnel » de la famille élargie à maintenir des normes et des pratiques de soin et de coopération intergroupe dans un contexte démographique, social et économique en mutation. Dans la province de Nyanza au Kenya, où un enfant sur cinq est actuellement orphelin et où le VIH/SIDA et la pauvreté à grande échelle continuent de rendre la vie et les moyens de subsistance précaires, nombreux sont ceux pour qui il ne va pas de soi de s'occuper de sa famille. Les idées et les pratiques de parenté ont été profondément remises en cause par la question de savoir qui est responsable de la garde des enfants orphelins. Cet article s'intéresse à deux pratiques complémentaires, observées dans des familles luo dans l'Ouest du Kenya, qui traitent de ces dilemmes : l'initiative communale qui consiste à s'asseoir en famille pour débattre des problèmes et les résoudre de manière coopérative et consensuelle ; et l'initiative individualiste qui consiste à se tenir debout pour représenter les intérêts d'une autre personne. L'auteur suggère que si l'acte de s'asseoir et l'acte de se tenir debout ont certes une finalité immédiate pragmatique pour assigner la responsabilité de la garde d'enfants spécifiques, leur contenu dramatique traduit plus que cela : la confiance, la réciprocité et la solidarité au sein des familles élargies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 82 , Issue 3 , August 2012 , pp. 437 - 456
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abebe, T. and Aase, A. (2007) ‘Children, AIDS and the politics of orphan care in Ethiopia: the extended family revisited’, Social Science and Medicine 64 (5): 1058–2069.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Austin, J. (1962) How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bledsoe, C. (1990) ‘The politics of children: fosterage and social management of fertility among the Mende’ in Handwerker, W. P. (ed.), Births and Power: social change and the politics of reproduction. Boulder CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1996) ‘On the family as a realized category’, Theory, Culture and Society 13 (30): 19–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, D. and Atieno-Odhiambo, E. S. (1989) Siaya: the historical anthropology of an African landscape. London, Athens OH and Nairobi: James Currey, Ohio University Press and Heinemann Kenya.Google Scholar
Cohen, D. and Atieno-Odhiambo, E. S. (1992) Burying SM: the politics of knowledge and the sociology of power in Africa. Portsmouth NH and London: Heinemann and James Currey.Google Scholar
Cooper, E. (2011) ‘Who Cares for Orphans? Challenges to kinship and morality in a Luo village in western Kenya’. DPhil dissertation, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Das, V. (2007) Life and Words: violence and the descent into the ordinary. Berkeley and Los Angeles CA and London: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ferme, M. (2001) The Underneath of Things: violence, history and the everyday in Sierra Leone. Berkeley and Los Angeles CA and London: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foster, G., Levine, C. and Williamson, J. (2005) A Generation at Risk: the global impact of HIV/AIDS on orphans and vulnerable children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Francis, E. (1995) ‘Migration and changing divisions of labour: gender relations and economic change in Koguta, western Kenya’, Africa 65 (3): 197–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geissler, P. W. and Prince, R. (2010) The Land is Dying: contingency, creativity and conflict in western Kenya. New York NY and Oxford: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1955) ‘On face-work: an analysis of ritual elements of social interaction’, Psychiatry: Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes 18 (3): 213–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hay, M. (1982) ‘Women as owners, occupants and managers of property in colonial western Kenya’ in Hay, M. and Wright, M. (eds), African Women and the Law: historical perspectives. Boston MA: African Studies Centre, Boston University.Google Scholar
JLICA (2008) ‘Qualitative accounts of family and household changes in response to the effects of HIV and AIDS: a review with pointers to action’. Johannesburg: Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS.Google Scholar
Juma, M., Askew, I. and Ferguson, A. (2007) ‘Situation analysis of the sexual and reproductive health and HIV risks and prevention needs of older orphaned and vulnerable children in Nyanza Province, Kenya’. Nairobi: Government of Kenya Department of Children's Services, Department for International Development, Population Council and Constella-Futures.Google Scholar
Kilbride, P. and Kilbride, J. (1990) Changing Family Life in East Africa: women and children at risk. University Park PA and London: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
KNBS (2007) Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2007. Nairobi: Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.Google Scholar
Mathambo, V. and Gibbs, A. (2008) ‘Qualitative accounts of family and household changes in response to the effects of HIV and AIDS: a review with pointers to action’. Johannesburg: Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS.Google Scholar
Mboya, P. (1983) [1938]. Luo Kitigi gi Timbegi. Kisumu: Anyange Press.Google Scholar
Morawczynski, O. (2009) ‘Exploring the usage and impact of “transformational” mobile financial services: the case of M-PESA in Kenya’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 3 (3): 509–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyambedha, E. and Aagaard-Hansen, J. (2007) ‘Practices of relatedness and the re-invention of duol as a network of care for orphans and widows in western Kenya’, Africa 77 (4): 517–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyambedha, E., Wadibba, S. and Aagaard-Hansen, J. (2003) ‘Changing patterns of orphan care due to the HIV epidemic in western Kenya’, Social Science and Medicine 57 (3): 301–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyamongo, I. (1999) ‘Burying the dead, culture and economics: an assessment of two Kenyan cases’, International Social Science Journal 51 (3): 255–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ocholla-Ayayo, A. B. C. (1976) Traditional Ideology and Ethics among the Southern Luo. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies.Google Scholar
Parkin, D. (1978) The Cultural Definition of Political Response: lineal destiny among the Luo. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Prince, R. (2007) ‘Salvation and tradition: configurations of faith in a time of death’, Journal of Religion in Africa 37 (1): 84–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sabates-Wheeler, R. and Pelham, L. (2006) ‘Social protection: how important are the national plans of action for orphans and vulnerable children?’ Brighton: Institute for Development Studies/UNICEF.Google Scholar
Shiino, W. (1997) ‘Death and rituals among the Luo in south Nyanza’, African Study Monographs 18 (3, 4): 213–22.Google Scholar
Shipton, P. (2007) The Nature of Entrustment: intimacy, exchange, and the sacred in Africa. New Haven CT and London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
UNAIDS, UNICEF and USAID (2004) Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic. Geneva, UNAIDS.Google Scholar
UN Habitat (2008) ‘UN Habitat and the Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme strategy document’. Nairobi: United Nations Human Settlements Programme.Google Scholar
UNICEF (2007) The State of the World's Children – Child Survival. New York NY: UNICEF.Google Scholar
Weisner, T., Bradley, C. and Kilbride, P. (eds) (1997) African Families and the Crisis of Social Change. Westport CT and London: Bergin and Garvey.Google Scholar
Whisson, M. (1964) Change and Challenge: a study of social and economic change among the Kenya Luo. Nairobi: Christian Council of Kenya.Google Scholar
Zigon, J. (2007) ‘Moral breakdown and the ethical demand: a theoretical framework for an anthropology of moralities’, Anthropological Theory 7 (3): 131–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar