Publisher's Synopsis
A special issue of Africa, the Journal of the International African Institute.The study of kinship in Africa is one of the treasures of the anthropological heritage. This collection, first published as a special issue of AFRICA, focuses on the intertwining of the lives of grandparents and grandchildren which raises fundamental issues of temporality and relationship. Grandparents and grandchildren may live together in shared time, but they have different pasts, different futures, and share a present that is radically affected by historical transformations such as urbanisation, impoverishment and the scourge of AIDS. This pathbreaking collection contains accounts of leading anthropologists based upon their long-term fieldwork in Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda; it will be essential reading for the contemporary revival of interest in gender and generation.
