Full Description
Friendship, descent and alliance are basic forms of relatedness that have received unequal attention in social anthropology. Offering new insights into the ways in which friendship is conceptualized and realized in various sub-Saharan African settings, the contributions to this volume depart from the recent tendency to study friendship in isolation from kinship. In drawing attention to the complexity of the interactions between these two kinds of social relationships, the book suggests that analyses of friendship in Western societies would also benefit from research that explores more systematically friendship in conjunction with kinship.
Contents
Foreword
Günther Schlee
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Martine Guichard
Part I. Friendship, Kinship and Age
Chapter 1. Where Are Other People's Friends Hiding? Reflections on Anthropological Studies of Friendship
Martine Guichard
Chapter 2. Comradeship and the Transformation of Alliance Theory among the Maasai: Shifting the Focus from Descent to Peer-Group Loyalty
Paul Spencer
Part II. Friendship and Ethnicity
Chapter 3. Friendship Networks in Southwestern Ethiopia
Wolde Gossa Tadesse and Martine Guichard
Chapter 4. Friendship and Spiritual Parenthood among the Moose and the Fulbe in Burkina Faso
Mark Breusers
Chapter 5. Labour Migration and Moral Dimensions of Interethnic Friendships: The Case of Young Gold Miners in Benin (West Africa)
Tilo Grätz
Part III. Friendship, Politics and Urbanity
Chapter 6. Friendship and Kinship among Merchants and Veterans in Mali
Richard L. Warms
Chapter 7. 'Down-to-Earth': Friendship and a National Elite Circle in Botswana
Richard Werbner
Chapter 8. Negotiating Friendship and Kinship in a Context of Violence: The Case of the Tuareg during the Upheaval in Mali from 1990 to 1996
Georg Klute
Afterword: Friendship in a World of Force and Power
Stephen P. Reyna
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index
