The Shifting Sands of Responsibility in Botswana: Marriage, Prestige and Romantic Contradictions
10. Juli 2013
Vortrag im Rahmen des Konstanzer Kulturwissenschaftlichen Kolloquiums
Der Anthropologe Rijk van Dijk forscht am African Studies Center der Universität Leiden (Niederlande) über das Verhältnis von Religion, insbesondere der christlichen Pfingstbewegung, und Sexualität sowie HIV/AIDS in Botswana.
Er ist der erste Inhaber der neuen ethnologischen Gastprofessur an der Universität Konstanz.
This talk explores shifting patterns in the distribution of responsibilities in a situation where, especially because of the impact of HIV/AIDS, forceful ideologies of–if not obsessions with–the production of responsibilities have emerged. While being interested in pursuing an anthropology of responsibilisation in which (social, moral, institutional) notions of how people are expected to become responsible persons in their (sexual) relations, lifestyles and gender-roles are studied in terms of everyday meaning and praxis, this ethnography also produces questions concerning the contestations and intersections that occur in the process.
In Botswana, marriage has become a particular social site in which these shifts in the allocation, attribution and assumption of responsibilities have been occurring, largely resulting from romantic and consumerist interests of a younger generation, as well as from a health and rights induced discourse that emphasizes self-governance in relationships. While the moral and ideological underpinnings of the ritual construction of responsibility therefore stand to be unpacked, the talk will argue that responsibilisation should primarily be understood in the way in which it is informative of subjectivity and agency instead of structure in present day Africa.
Mi, 10. Juli 2013, 18 Uhr s.t.
Universität Konstanz, Raum Y 311
Kontakt
Judith Zwick judith.zwick[at]uni-konstanz.de