Erdmute Alber

Denying biological parenthood: fosterage in Northern Benin

Among the Baatombu in Northern Benin, child fosterage is not an exception in crisis situations, but the common upbringing pattern: until some years ago, most of the Baatombu children did not grow up with their biological parents, but were fostered by social parents. There is a strong attitude of shame related to biological parenthood and an attempt to deny it. Young children are given to paternal or maternal relatives in order to stay with them until their marriage. This involves the transfer of all parental duties and rights to the social parents. Every gesture and practice of demonstrating property rights over ones biological child is therefore a definite breach of norms. Schooling, urbanization, and modernization also trigger off a transformation process. Particularly in the urban context, new forms of social parenthood, such as tutorship and temporary arrangements, have been developed. However, they have clear links to the old frame of ideas and norms.

Child Fostering in West Africa

Child fostering in West Africa connects classical and new kinship theory and offers ethnographic studies on a mobile and creative kinship practice.

Motorization and colonial rule: Two scandals in Dahomey, 1916

Transport systems are not just technical solutions to bring people from one point to another: they are embedded in social structures, reflecting and producing relations of power. The introduction of a new mode of transport means more than just a new way of moving around. Since cars were introduced to African colonies in accordance with the hierarchy of the colonial system, car ownership became an effective means of consolidating not only economic, but - more importantly - social and symbolic boundaries between rulers and subordinates. The article describes how, in 1916, administrators in Dahomey twice used local chiefs and their resources in order to buy cars which were to remain in their own hands, diverting money which had originally been destined for the local population as compensation for the recruitment of soldiers during the First World War. In both cases the scandal was discovered, the cars had to be sold back and the costs were covered by the Government. Nevertheless it was the local population and its elite which was duped. While chiefs were first seduced by promises of car ownership and then excluded from it, the local population was reduced to an audience admiring the newly acquired cars of colonial officers. Although they did not profit from the introduction of cars or the establishment of a whole new infrastructure, colonized peoples were forced to construct roads. Considering the low number of cars in use at the time, the enormous expansion of the infrastructure is best interpreted as an expression of the colonial administrations need for control and planning.

Within the Thicket of Intergenerational Sibling Relations

Acting as a brother or a sister provides people with rights, but it also creates obligations and role expectations. Experiencing the powerful decisions of siblings (or parents’ siblings) can be a painful experience as well. But at the same time, siblings can maintain close and warm mutual relations, as often mentioned in the literature, as well as remain resources to be mobilized in difficult moments of the life course. Thus sibling relations have to be seen as integral and powerful parts of the web of kinship that were often overlooked in the classical anthropological literature. And, as I want to show, it is sometimes sibling relations that make the web of kinship, as it was named by Meyer Fortes, a real thicket.

Fans and states at work: a Ghanaian fan trip to the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa

The FIFA World Cup for men (hereafter referred to as the FIFA World Cup) is possibly the biggest global media event. Winning or losing often gives rise to expressions of collective degrees of national pride or disappointment. But, it is not only the performance of the teams that is of significance in this respect; the devotion of fans to the game and their loyalty to their own national team are also an important vehicle of identity and self-affirmation as a nation. Thus, no country can afford to dispense with the travelling model of the enthusiastic fan as a representative of national identity. Through an ethnographic study of Ghana’s state-financed fan trip to the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa, we will show how the actors involved (government, opposition, fans and media) negotiate national identity and representation.

Familie in Afrika

Der Beitrag thematisiert die sich wandelnden Konstellationen von Verwandtschaft und Familie in den Gesellschaft en Afrikas. Neben einem Uberblick uber zentrale Kategorien und die Entwicklung der wissenschaftlichen Debatten beschreibt er die Vielfalt verwandtschaftlicher und familiarer Lebensformen auf dem Kontinent und deren enorme Flexibilitat und Wandlungsfahigkeit. Anhand von zwei Themen, die Entwicklung von Heiratsbeziehungen im sudlichen Afrika und Veranderungen bei der Praxis der Kindspflegschaft im westafrikanischen Benin, werden familiare Transformationslinien auf der Grundlage von Ergebnissen ethnologischer, soziologischer und historischer Forschungen nachgezeichnet. Dabei wird deutlich, dass sich generalisierende Aussagen uber Familienstrukturen auf dem afrikanischen Kontinent und deren Wandel kaum treffen lassen.

The Anthropology of Sibling Relations

Since the 1990s, after a gap following David Schneider’s critique (1984), there has been a remarkable revival of kinship in anthropology. The new kinship studies shifted interest to practices, processes, and meanings in contrast to a previous focus on jural rights and obligations, kin terms, and structures. Within this efflorescence of the literature, certain issues have dominated, while others have been largely overlooked. Exciting issues entailing moral and legal dilemmas or contesting biological notions of kinship dominate the research agenda. These include reproductive technologies (Rapp 1999, Franklin and Ragone 1998), international adoption and the constructions and surrogates of parenthood (Howell 2006, Leinaweaver 2008, Marre and Briggs 2009, Stryker 2010, Yngvesson 2010), and “new” legally recognised forms of alliance (Smith 2001, Weston 1991). Their common ground is to highlight how kinship is produced through social practices rather than determined by the physical act of birth.