Description
Book SynopsisIn her ethnography of the Gwembe Tonga people of rural Zambia, Lisa Cliggett explores what happens to kinship ties in times of famine. The Tonga, a matrilineal Bantu-speaking society, had long lived and farmed along the banks of the Zambezi River, but...
Trade Review"Grains from Grass is a rich and intimate exploration of what it means to be old and at the brink of survival in a poor rural community. Drawing on classic themes and methods of social anthropology, it provides a subtle account of sociocultural change." -- Alex de Waal, Fellow, Global Equity Initiative, Harvard University
"In a readable but sophisticated introduction to anthropological approaches to the lives of the African poor, Lisa Cliggett describes age- and gender-specific dilemmas and strategies for physical, social, and spiritual welfare." -- Jane I. Guyer, The Johns Hopkins University
"The themes of Grains from Grass transcend Africa and anthropology. Lisa Cliggett offers wonderful methodological lessons for transgenerational cooperation and provides a useful theoretical mechanism for making visible and for disentangling a complex set of relations that traditionally go unnoticed." -- James A. Pritchett, Boston University
Table of ContentsList of Maps
Preface
1. Aging in the Non-Western World
2. Getting Down in the Valley
3. The Space and Time of Vulnerability
4. Making a Village-Style Living
5. Mother's Keepers, Father's Wives, and Residential Arrangements of the Old
6. Ancestors, Rituals, and Manipulating the Spirit World
7. Migration and Family Ties over Distance and Time
8. Getting By "Just Like That"
Notes
References
Index
