Orphans’ Land Rights in Post‐War Rwanda: The Problem of Guardianship

In 1994, the Rwandan civil war and genocide produced thousands of orphans. Alongside the war, the growing HIV/AIDS crisis in Rwanda has produced a current population of about 300,000 orphans — many of whom are compelled to head households. These orphans urgently require land use rights, but many find that their rights to their deceased parents’ customary land holdings are denied or restricted by their guardians and others. Despite the legal protections for children that are guaranteed within Rwanda's laws, the reality is that many guardians do not respect orphans’ land rights and few orphans have sufficient access to administrative and legal forums to assert and defend these rights. In contrast to most accounts in the literature that discuss more generally the issue of African orphans’ land rights in the context of adults’ land rights, this article focuses on specific cases in which Rwandan orphans independently pursued their land rights. Ultimately, the article concludes that in Rwanda — and elsewhere in Africa — government officials should re‐examine their ideas about guardianship and grant orphans urgent attention as individuals and as a special interest group.     

Gendered orphan kits,authority, power and the role of rumor in the woodlands of Mozambique

Recipient communities often distribute humanitarian aid in unexpected ways that reveal critical power dynamics and relationships. This article examines a case involving ‘orphan kits’ distributed by the staff of an international non-governmental organization in Mozambican woodland communities. The kits contained food and school supplies allocated according to a strict gender distribution mandate, which was of secondary importance compared with local obligations tied to enduring matrilineal social relations. Families divided the kits among kin and allocated a portion of the kits to local leaders as tribute. The seemingly simple act of leaders placing orphans on a list can signify the future arrival of much-needed support while also sparking fears of disciplinary powers governing family structures, labor and culturally and politically oppositional lives. Rumors narrate the effects of particular list-making procedures, allowing families to observe, interpret and express ideas about coercive and productive power relations. Rumors took up kit contents such as sardine tins to catalyze debates about proper leadership and comportment of orphans and their families. The article illustrates how feminist geographers can treat rumor and liminal interventions seriously as constitutive of contested power relations rooted in eco-social spaces.     

宋代的孤幼檢校政策及其執行——兼論南宋的“女合得男之半”

孤幼不僅存在撫育的問題,還有財產遭侵奪的危機。漢唐政府沒有把照顧孤幼視爲政府的責任,直到宋代,纔有專門針對孤幼生活與財產的制度設計。孤幼檢校法有保障孤幼生活,與保全其財產的作用。兒女分產法是專爲分配孤幼家產而立的新法。前者只要有宗親族人願意撫育孤幼,國家就不强制執行該法。後者源自張詠的判例,是由男子承分中撥出部分作爲孤幼的生活費,而調整男、女的財產比例,遂出現"女合得男之半"的特別法。但《名公書判清明集》所引兒女分產法極爲簡略,實際運用上有模糊空間,又可能與父系成員的利益發生衝突,所以該法只見於南宋,往後便不再行用。     

‘Gender hates men’: untangling gender and development discourses in food security fieldwork in urban Malawi

This article examines the social construction and contestation of gender and gender roles in the city of Blantyre in Malawi. In fieldwork on gendered household roles related to food security, interviews with men and women revealed a distinct set of connotations with the word gender, which reflected Malawians’ historical and contemporary engagement with concepts of development, modernity, and human rights. We denote the Malawian concept of gender as gender in order to distinguish the word participants used in interviews from the more widely accepted conventional definition. We then use this distinction to highlight the ways in which ideas of gender equality have been introduced and received in the Malawian context. The urban setting of the research is key to drawing out the association of gender with Westernization, bringing into focus the power dynamics inherent in the project of translating global discourses of gender rights and gender equality into meaningful social change in developing countries. Gender in Malawi denotes a top-down (and outside-in) process of framing Malawi’s goals for gender equality. This creates political constraints both in the form of resistance to gender, because it resonates with a long history of social change imposed by outside forces, and in the form of superficial adherence to gender to appear more urban and modern, especially to a Western researcher. Local understandings of gender as gender undermine efforts to promote gender equality as a means to address Malawi’s intense urban poverty and household food insecurity.     

Where dogs,ghosts and lions roam: learning from mobile ethnographies on the journey from school

This paper draws on mobility research conducted with children in three countries: Ghana, Malawi and South Africa. It has two interlinked aims: to highlight the potential that mobile interviews can offer in research with young people, especially in research contexts where the main focus is on mobility and its impacts, and to contribute empirical evidence regarding the significance of everyday mobility to young people's lives and future life chances in sub-Saharan Africa. During the pilot phase of our research project on children, transport and mobility, the authors undertook walks home from school with teenage children1 We use the terms children and ‘young people’ interchangeably in this paper. When we asked young people aged ca. 12–18 years from the three countries at our Malawi inception workshop about terminology, they expressed no concern about the use of the term ‘child’ for people in their teens. View all notes in four different research sites: three remote rural, one peri-urban. As the children walked (usually over a distance of around 5 km) their stories of home, of school and of the environment in-between, gradually unfolded. The lived experiences narrated during these journeys offer considerable insights into the daily lives, fears and hopes of the young people concerned, and present a range of issues for further research as our study extends into its main phase.     

The naming of orphans in France during World War One: A study of a nationwide cohort of pupilles de la Nation

The investigation of a simple behavior, child naming, can provide insights into the varying reactions of families confronted by the extraordinary war losses of the First World War. The current study analyses names given in a large cohort of French orphans born 1914–1916, constructed thanks to the linkage of civil registers with a nationwide database of soldiers who died during the War. It shows that a prenatal loss of father was associated with a strong increase in father's name transmission. The phenomenon was twice as intense in officers' offspring. Regression analysis suggests the precise timing of the father's death controlled this change in naming behavior: father's name transmission was at a maximum when the father died at the very beginning of pregnancy.     

Little waifs: estimating child body size from historic skeletal material

Child body weight formulae are developed from two radiographic studies that have measured the mid-diaphyses anteroposterior diameters of the humerus, femur and tibia. The results show that formulae that include a stature component are more reliable than those derived only from bone diameters and that formulae that use diameters of the femur or tibia to estimate body weight appear more to be reliable than those that use the diameter of the humerus. These formulae are applied to a historic nineteenth century child skeletal population excavated from a Sydney orphans cemetery. The results show that the orphans were shorter and lighter than comparable nineteenth century children. This difference is attributed to disrupted growth rates due to poor nutrition and health of children prior to their admission to the orphanage. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Patterns of Vulnerability to AIDS Impacts in Zambian Households

Using household data from Northern Zambia, this article looks at HIV/AIDS impacts on different aspects of people's access to food. The findings draw particular attention to the variances in vulnerability among households burdened by illness and orphans that are headed by men, women and the elderly. It is argued that vulnerability levels to HIV/AIDS impact differ substantially among households and implicitly expose the underlying causal conditions that enable or disable people in their responsiveness. Households affected by HIV/AIDS cannot be treated as a homogeneous group and understanding the differences in vulnerability can play an important policy role in designing targeted support.     

Gender,nationalism, exclusion: the reintegration process of female survivors of the Armenian genocide

ABSTRACT. This essay focuses on the process of ‘rebuilding’ the Armenian nation in the newly constituted states of the Middle East (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq) in the immediate aftermath of World War I. These efforts were centred on the two largest sectors of the population to have survived the Catastrophe, orphans and familyless (or widowed) women. The essay examines the ideology of ‘national reconstruction’ and some of its internal contradictions. It pays particular attention to both Armenian women who married Muslims during the deportations and the children born of these marriages, as well as to Armenians who turned to prostitution to survive in the complex conditions prevailing in this period. The author makes use of extensive, previously neglected archival material: for example, correspondence by some of the principal actors, reports written during the process of locating and rounding up Armenian orphans, and documents that shed light on life within the walls of orphanages and women's shelters. The author assembled this archival material in Paris, Beirut, Aleppo, and Cairo, after surveying the contents of various archives.     

Syncretism and subversion in AIDS governance: how locals cope with global demands

This article raises a set of theoretical questions about culture and governance in organizational responses to AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. It draws on material from two visits to sub-Saharan Africa (Botswana in July 2003 and Malawi in June and July of 2004): interviews with government officials, international organization representatives and staff from AIDS NGOs across a variety of settings in sub-Saharan governance. The article examines the relation of AIDS governance to existing patterns of African governance and argues that while 'institutional isomorphism' can be imposed by international funders, such efforts often produce paradoxical outcomes on the ground. It seeks to understand why the intersection between the organizational models proffered by AIDS NGOs and existing patterns of authority and cooperation produce either syncretism, subversion, or simply a standoff.     

‘Dead dads’: memory narratives of war-related fatherlessness in Germany

After the Second World War, there were estimated to be around 20 million half-orphans in Europe. In Germany alone, 5.3 million soldiers killed in action left behind approximately 1.2 million widows, nearly 2.5 million half-orphans and about 100,000 complete orphans. This article examines how men and women from various social strata in western and eastern Germany remember their fathers who died in the war and in what way he has been stored in the family's collective memory. The analysis focuses on 30 life-history interviews with men and women from eastern and western Germany with various social and religious backgrounds, all of whom were born between 1935 and 1945 and had little or no memory of their fathers. The following questions are relevant: what memories did children have of their fathers, and what images of them were related by mothers and relatives? What individual, political, social and memory-cultural factors characterise a child's memory of her or his father? The article also analyses trans-generational transmissions and conflicts of how the father's past is remembered.     

Disease, Social Identity, and Risk: Rethinking the Geography of AIDS

The emergence of new diseases and the re-emergence of 'old' diseases necessitates a relook at what shapes vulnerability to ill health. A framework is proposed that combines a realist approach to mapping vulnerability with feminist and post-structural approaches that focus more attention upon the role of social identities and cultural framings of disease. Too often investigations of disease focus either upon structural determinants of risk such as political policy and the economy, or on discursive definitions of disease that impact its experience. A combination of these approaches would result in a more effective framework for evaluating vulnerability, and subsequently for generating effective disease prevention strategies. The social, economic, political, and cultural context of HIV/AIDS in Malawi is given as an illustration of this framework.     

Democracy and environment: congruencies and contradictions in southern Africa

Using case studies from Malawi, South Africa, and Mozambique, this paper suggests that there is no necessary relationship between democracy and the environment. In Africa, democratization since the late 1980s has been the source of increased optimism about the environment, particularly as ideas of `participatory' resource management have replaced older top-down conservation models. However, this optimism may be premature. Commonly identified linkages between democracy and environment include increased accountability, development, and participation. In many African countries, however, `democracy' is an empty shell, lacking the political institutions, civil society, and economic and cultural conditions necessary to achieve real democratic competition and accountability. Moreover, the paper illustrates from the case studies that even where the goals of democracy are realized, these can have negative as well as positive environmental consequences. Hence, faith in `democracy'—wherever and in whatever form—to solve Africa's environmental problems may be misplaced. The question that needs to be asked is not whether democracy is good for the environment, but how and when it can be made to work to meet social and environmental objectives. There is room for hope: democratization in Africa has provided a more open arena for political discourse, in which questions can be asked about the specific kinds of political, social, and economic reforms and social institutions that will be needed to make `participatory' community-based resource management successful. The optimistic discourse about democracy and environment in Africa tends to obscure these difficult questions, putting at risk the true promise of democratization.     

Elizabeth Wiskemann and the Sudeten Question: A Woman at the ‘Essential Hinge’ of Europe

Abstract

The film Somewhere in Europe articulates a vision of the political future of post-World War II Europe. War orphans are depicted as the agents of the continent’s reconstruction. The Marxism embodied in the film challenges the Soviet-style Communism soon to be imposed in Eastern Europe, and stylistically Somewhere in Europe distances itself from Socialist Realism. It assumes the role of a foundational film for the recently rebuilt Hungarian film industry and aims to provide the emerging generation of Hungarian filmmakers with an inventory of the major cinematic styles of the first half of the century.     

The Missing Generation: Grandparents and Agency in Early Modern England

Grandparents have been largely overlooked in the otherwise rich historiography of the family in early modern England. This article shows how many were able to play significant roles in family life, in both emotional and practical terms. Some forged close bonds with their young grandchildren, or took them in for a period to relieve hard-pressed parents, while others were willing to raise and educate the orphaned. Some also provided moral or religious guidance, assuming responsibilities conventionally assigned to godparents, and in some cases even challenging parental decisions of which they disapproved. Grandchildren were almost always remembered in wills, with testators also careful to protect the interests of any potentially at risk. The article then turns to explore the role of grandparents acting as welfare providers, whether voluntarily or through a court order, for grandchildren left as orphans or born to unmarried mothers. It assesses the often contentious issue of grandparents’ moral and legal responsibilities under the parish relief system established by the Poor Law in 1601, and disputes between the paternal and maternal kin. Finally, the article touches briefly on grandparents as repositories of information, whose memories and experience could be of value to their community as well as to their own families.     

The role of gender norms in access to agricultural training in Chikwawa and Phalombe,Malawi

Based on qualitative research conducted in Chikwawa and Phalombe in Malawi, this article discusses how gender relations shape men and women’s access to and participation in agricultural training. It also examines how men and women justify or challenge gender inequalities in relation to access to agricultural information and knowledge. Data on gender and recruitment to and participation in training, barriers to training and access to information as well as farmer to farmer extension models were collected and analysed. A gender relations approach, focusing on power and inequality, was used to analyse the data. The data shows that the perception of men as household heads and women as carers or helpers who are also illiterate and ignorant often has implications on women’s ability to access training and information. Negative stereotypical perceptions about women by their husbands and extension workers militate against women’s access to training and information. Institutional biases within extension systems reproduce gender inequality by reinforcing stereotypical gender norms. Extension officers should be targeted with training on gender responsive adult learning methodologies and gender awareness to help them be more inclusive and sensitive to women’s needs.     

1949～1952年中国弱势群体研究

弱势群体一般是指那些在特定历史时期,由于某些障碍及缺乏经济、政治和社会机会而在社会上处在不利地位的、被国家和社会纳入救助范围的社会群体。1949～1952年,中国弱势群体主要包括灾民、失业者、妓女、乞丐和孤老病残等,其存在原因首要的是自然地理因素,其次是社会转型因素与历史遗留问题。弱势群体的情况一定程度上决定了新中国社会救助制度的初始选择。     

Minimum Wage Policy,Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation in Malawi

This article examines the pattern of minimum wage changes in Malawi and some of their effects, and considers more generally the appropriateness of a minimum wage policy in developing country situations similar to that of Malawi. After a progressive decline in the real value of the minimum wage during the 1970s there is evidence that the government is attempting, through periodic and rather erratic corrective action, to maintain something like a constant real wage. Data from a Ministry of Labour survey demonstrate that such changes in the minimum wage do have a direct effect on wages paid, but that this is concentrated in specific sectors: outside these, minimum wage policy is ineffectual, and the effective coverage achieved in terms of the national work-force is very narrow. Since the most significant influence on the wages of hired workers is the elastic supply of unskilled labour available at very low wages from the smallholder sector, efforts need to be concentrated on raising the supply price of labour through positive policies pursued in the rural sector. Some special features of the rural labour market are therefore examined. Various measures could be taken here: one which seems likely to be effective in producing immediate results is the progressive transfer of burley tobacco quotas to smallholders.     

Intensive El Niño and the Iron Age of South-eastern Africa

Burnt daga structures in Iron Age villages serve as proxies for severe drought on the plateau of southern Africa. The distribution of burnt daga remains in two other rainfall areas, KwaZulu-Natal and the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone over Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi, establishes a sequence of simultaneous burnings that parallels the severe droughts recorded for the interior plateau. These widespread correspondences suggest a common cause. Another correspondence with natural proxy data from South America indicates that intensive El Niño events most likely caused the droughts.     

European Trade in Malawi: The Glass Bead Evidence

In most African contexts, glass beads are evidence of direct and indirect exchanges between communities and are often useful chronological markers. Their analysis contributes to a better understanding of the social relationships between ancient societies. Over the last decade, the archaeometric analysis of glass beads has gained ground in Sub-Saharan Africa, but large regions across southeastern Africa have remained underexplored. Glass beads excavated from the Hora 1, Hora 5, and Mazinga 1 sites in the Kasitu Valley of the Mzimba District of northern Malawi were analyzed using laser ablation—inductively coupled plasma—mass spectrometry (LA-ICP- MS). These are granitic rock shelter sites located 40 km from Lake Malawi. They have predominantly Early Holocene and Pleistocene deposits but with a scattering of more recent material at the top. Analysis revealed that most of the beads were from European manufacture with one exception—a bead that has a composition typical of South Asia and that circulated from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century AD. Although Europeans were not present in the region before the second part of the nineteenth century, the presence of European beads testifies to trade directly or indirectly involving Europeans, most likely in association with increased trade in ivory and enslaved persons. The presence of the bead from South Asia and two cowrie beads from a fourth nearby site (Kadawonda 1) that dates to the seventh century AD show that European trade was the most recent manifestation of connections between the hinterland and the coast.