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Grains from grass : aging, gender, and famine in rural Africa / Lisa Cliggett.

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Penn Museum Library DT3058.T65 C55 2005
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Cliggett, Lisa, 1965-
Series:
Cornell paperbacks
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Tonga (Zambezi people)--Zambia--Gwembe District--Social conditions.
Tonga (Zambezi people).
Tonga (Zambezi people)--Social networks--Zambia--Gwembe District.
Rural older people--Zambia--Gwembe District.
Rural older people.
Sex role--Zambia--Gwembe District.
Sex role.
Food supply--Zambia--Gwembe District.
Food supply.
Ethnology--Zambia--Gwembe District.
Ethnology.
Social networks.
Social conditions.
Gwembe District (Zambia)--Rural conditions.
Gwembe District (Zambia).
Zambia--Gwembe District.
Zambia.
Physical Description:
xvii, 193 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.
Place of Publication:
Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 2005.
Summary:
In her ethnography of the Gwembe Tonga people of rural Zambia, Lisa Cliggett explores what happens to kinship ties in times of famine. The work of survival for the Gwembe Tonga includes difficult decisions about how to distribute inadequate resources among family members. Physically limited elderly Tonga who rely on their kin for food and assistance are particularly vulnerable. Cliggett examines Tonga household economies and support systems for the elderly. Old men and women, she finds, use deeply gendered approaches to encourage aid from their children and fend off starvation.
In extreme circumstances, often the only resources at people's disposal are social support networks. Cliggett's book tells a story about how people living in environmentally and economically dire circumstances manage their social and material worlds to the best of their ability.
Contents:
Aging in the non-western world
Getting down in the valley
The space and time of vulnerability
Making a village-style living
Mother's keepers, father's wives, and residential arrangements of the old
Ancestors, rituals, and manipulating the spirit world
Migration and family ties over distance and time
Getting by "just like that."
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages [175]-185) and index.
ISBN:
0801443660
0801472830
OCLC:
60603183
Publisher Number:
9780801443664
9780801472831

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