Sammendrag
Recent studies indicate why global and legal notions of orphanhood have to be questioned, and how care interventions for orphans ought to be framed within local cultural norms and contexts. However, issues often ignored include how orphans’ livelihoods and changing inter- and intra-generational relationships shape the ways in which they are perceived by and define their position within their families and communities. Currently, there is also a growing dissonance between global, donor-driven efforts and policies for orphans on the one hand and, on the other, their fall out impacts and the children’s diverse experiences locally. What are the implications of global constructions of orphanhood to the lives of AIDS-affected children in local places? What are the interface between orphans’ contributions to families and care grounded on reciprocity and interdependence? By drawing on children’s perspectives as well as the literature on orphan care in the context of HIV/AIDS; this paper elucidates the conceptual complexity of contemporary orphanhood, the contexts of becoming and being orphan as well as the familial, geographical, economic and socio-cultural dynamics of care in contrasting research settings of Gedeo (rural) and Addis Ababa (urban), in Ethiopia. It argues that orphanhood is lived in multiple contexts and negotiated by the children and their families in an interdependent way, and that the view of orphans as simple burdens not only undermines their agency but also become linchpins to the making of vulnerable childhoods.
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