Transfers of belonging: child fostering in West Africa in the 20th century

Intro -- Transfers of Belonging: Child Fostering in West Africa in the 20th Century -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- List of Figures -- Glossary -- Introduction -- Research Site: Baatombu Peasants -- Fieldwork and Methods -- 1 Theoretical Perspectives on Child Fostering -- A Structural-functionalist Perspective -- A Structuralist Perspective -- The Turn to the Actors -- Transfers of Imagined Belonging -- 2 Parenthood in Rural Borgu -- Birth Parenting -- Fostering a Child -- Reasons for Fostering children -- Fostering, Gender and Marriage -- Conflicts -- Arguments against Child Fostering -- 3 Child Fostering in the Twentieth Century -- Precolonial Times -- Colonial Changes -- The Post-colonial Period -- Between Town and Village: A Conflict -- Fostering in Urban Areas: Cotonou and Parakou -- Fostering in the Rural Areas: Tɛbɔ, Kika and Yarɔ -- On the Threshold of the 21st Century: Two Conflicts -- Conclusion -- Appendix -- Interviews Cited -- Sources -- References -- Index of persons -- Index

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.

Intro -- Transfers of Belonging: Child Fostering in West Africa in the 20th Century -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- List of Figures -- Glossary -- Introduction -- Research Site: Baatombu Peasants -- Fieldwork and Methods -- 1 Theoretical Perspectives on Child Fostering -- A Structural-functionalist Perspective -- A Structuralist Perspective -- The Turn to the Actors -- Transfers of Imagined Belonging -- 2 Parenthood in Rural Borgu -- Birth Parenting -- Fostering a Child -- Reasons for Fostering children -- Fostering, Gender and Marriage -- Conflicts -- Arguments against Child Fostering -- 3 Child Fostering in the Twentieth Century -- Precolonial Times -- Colonial Changes -- The Post-colonial Period -- Between Town and Village: A Conflict -- Fostering in Urban Areas: Cotonou and Parakou -- Fostering in the Rural Areas: Tɛbɔ, Kika and Yarɔ -- On the Threshold of the 21st Century: Two Conflicts -- Conclusion -- Appendix -- Interviews Cited -- Sources -- References -- Index of persons -- Index