Social Science Research Council

"Left Behind? The Socialization of Orphaned Children in Contemporary Botswana"

In the wake of widespread adult death, Botswana's HIV/AIDS pandemic has left behind 78,000 orphaned children for whom the extended family is increasingly unable to provide adequate care. This comparative ethnographic research will examine how orphans are socialized - namely, the process by which they acquire particular values, beliefs, behaviors and norms - in three institutions designed to support orphans' development. As international and local organizations attempt to provide new solutions for the needs of orphans, the very existence of their programs nonetheless counteracts the critical Tswana belief that childrearing is the privileged right of the family, reflecting and feeding into tensions across Botswana over how children should best be raised. This research will examine at a micro level how socialization practices at orphan care institutions impact the morals and attitudes of orphaned children. Through the use of emotionally laden childrearing practices, Tswana and western adults staffing and funding these institutions attempt to raise orphans according to their respective - and often divergent - models of childcare. My dissertation will enquire into the process of that socialization, and into its effects on the children and their participation in their broader communities. At a macro level, I will in turn examine the conflicting discourses about and meanings of orphanhood that are circulating in the public realm: orphans are simultaneously pitied as being innocent and vulnerable, yet criticized for being outside the moderating reach of the Tswana family. Initially disadvantaged, but now increasingly empowered, orphans have begun to occupy contradictory positions within their communities, with significant ramifications for their future and for that of their society. Are orphans actually being 'left behind' in the social structure of Botswana, or are they in fact at the vanguard of social change?