Brown Jill
Creighton University.
J South Afr Stud. 2011;37(1):155-76. doi: 10.1080/03057070.2011.555156.
Childcare across sub-Saharan Africa is often socially distributed among adults, with care by the biological mother being one of several options available for children. Children typically move within and outside of large extended kin networks. Based on an ethnographic study of four Ovambo families in Namibia, this article seeks to understand the cultural logic of fostering. Several themes that emerged from the study are discussed here, including the varied motivations of fostering, the cultural scripts of equality, and the rules of reciprocity in exchange, which are involved. Education shapes a mother's choices of care-giving and creates both a supply of children and a demand on households. The implications for HIV/AIDS orphans are discussed.
在撒哈拉以南非洲地区，儿童保育工作通常由成年人在社会层面进行分配，亲生母亲照顾只是可供儿童选择的几种方式之一。儿童通常在庞大的大家庭亲属网络内外活动。基于对纳米比亚四个奥万博家庭的人种志研究，本文旨在理解寄养的文化逻辑。这里讨论了该研究中出现的几个主题，包括寄养的不同动机、平等的文化模式以及交换中的互惠规则。教育影响母亲对照顾方式的选择，既创造了儿童的供应，也对家庭产生了需求。文中还讨论了对艾滋病毒/艾滋病孤儿的影响。
