African Families and the Crisis of Social Change - Tapa dura

"In this book the family is at the center of the analysis--not just the household as it has been to most studies in sociology, economics and demography, nor just kinship, as it was to an earlier generation of anthropologists. The family in this approach is a flexible and adaptive organization of mutual ties with all the emotional involvement that relates parents to children, husbands to wives and siblings to one another. Each essay deals with a different aspect of family ties in one of the diverse tribes in Central and Western Kenya and Eastern Uganda. The book adds significantly to our understanding of the way families adapt to the changing circumstances brought on by colonialism and post-colonial conditions. [This book] can be of value to administrators and planners as well as to students of Africa and family change in general, by illuminating the key role the family plays in successful adaptation to change."-Walter Goldschmidt Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, UCLA Former President of the American Anthropological Assn.

African families face serious crises today. They are under economic, demographic and political pressures of all kinds; yet, families are not mere hapless victims of global change. They are proactive, resilient agents and creators of change. This volume studies global and national transformation from the point of view of families in local communities. Contributors are from Africa, North America, and Europe, and provide socially and historically based, culturally rich, multigenerational, and comparative perspectives on family life in Africa today. The essays explore contemporary change in African families, and consequences for children and parents, the elderly, gender roles, moral values, fertility, health (HIV and nutrition), and economic development. Ultimately, despite desperate economic, sociohistorical, demographic and political circumstances, African families remain vitally important for social and psychological support throughout an individual's life span.