Everything you thought you knew about orphans is probably wrong. Policy makers, development workers, orphanage voluntourists, missionaries, prospective adoptive parents: ignore this book at your peril.
Alma Gottlieb, author of A World of Babies: Imagined Childcare Guides for Eight Societies Crying for Our Elders: African Orphanhood in the Age of HIV and AIDS has big aims: to foreground collaborative ... Read moreparticipatory research by and with children as a methodology, to build on Kristen Cheney's previous field research and monograph as a longitudinal study, and to situate ethnographic contributions from the discipline of children's studies more firmly in humanitarian intervention and policymaking. Given their magnitude, these aims are somewhat difficult to seamlessly integrate in a single ethnography, but Cheney makes headway on all three fronts.
Current Anthropology A particular strength of Crying for Our Elders is that Cheney does achieve, with great precision, a concise history of the AIDS epidemic and the initial plethora of international and national responses that were employed to various effect in Uganda. Her prose is readable, and her positions are always clearly stated and deeply informed by the particulars of children's rights, with a specific perspective on how AIDS has constructed an orphan-industrial complex. This abundantly researched work is essential to the study of international development and of orphanhood, as well as an enriching contribution to the field of children's studies.
African Studies Review Cheney provides an essential and refreshing narrative about the resilience of family in Uganda. With Crying for Our Elders, she makes a compelling addition to the literature on suffering, childhood, and the status of HIV/AIDS
and the intricate connections between them.
Karen Wells, author of Childhood in a Global Perspective Through her cautious, insightful, and moving ethnography based on fieldwork in Uganda, Cheney provides a deep understanding of the complex and unexpected forms of life that emerge around orphans. An important contribution to the growing field of critical children's studies, Crying for our Elders is also a remarkable expression of ethically engaged anthropology.
Didier Fassin, author of When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa Crying for Our Elders is a scholarly book, and the research is impeccable. . . . Truly comes to life when Cheney writes about the Belindas and the Dianas. Their individual stories touch us on a visceral level and bring this particular war home to us.
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