Doctoral Dissertation Research: Relations of Care and Remembrance: A Study of Nyakyusa Children in the Time of AIDS

博士生埃莉诺·卡特在加州大学洛杉矶分校托马斯·s·韦斯纳博士的指导下，将在艾滋病毒/艾滋病高流行率和死亡率的背景下，对亲属关系、家庭和儿童与照顾者和不同世代的联系进行历史民族志研究。研究人员将调查社会文化过程，通过该过程，儿童因看护人疾病和死亡而改变的环境得到解决，以及看护人与儿童关系的转变如何影响儿童如何记住死者，与祖先，其他亲属和同龄人交往，并设想他们的生活计划。这项研究将在坦桑尼亚西南部一个农村社区的Nyakyusa人中进行，该地区受到艾滋病毒/艾滋病的严重影响。尼亚库萨人的文化和生活方式在20世纪30年代被研究人员记录下来，为当前的项目提供了良好的、艾滋病毒/艾滋病之前的基线数据。研究人员将采用定量和定性的社会科学研究方法，包括调查和密集的微观民族志，以收集以下数据：(1)儿童照顾和亲属网络的多样性；(2)儿童与其看护人的日常互动；（三）丧葬和其他纪念生、死的仪式、纪念活动。有针对性的观察、录像和对7至10岁儿童及其监护人的深入、开放式访谈将是关键的实地方法。这项研究意义重大，因为它将为非洲艾滋病流行时期的成年提供一个人种学上的基础写照。它还将为针对孤儿和其他受艾滋病影响的儿童以及受艾滋病高死亡率影响的家庭、家庭和社区的政策和规划提供信息。资助这项研究也支持了社会科学家的教育。

Doctoral student Eleanor Carter, advised by Dr. Thomas S. Weisner (University of California, Los Angeles), will undertake historical-ethnographic research on kinship, family, and children's connections to caretakers and different generations in a context of high HIV/AIDS prevalence and death. The researcher will investigate the socio-cultural processes through which children's changed circumstances due to caretaker illness and death are addressed and how transformations in caretaker-child connections shape how children remember the deceased, engage with ancestors, other kin, and peers, and envisage their life plans. The research will be carried out among the Nyakyusa, in a rural community in southwestern Tanzania, a region severely affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Nyakyusa culture and lifeways were documented by researchers in the 1930s, providing good, pre-HIV/AIDS baseline data for the current project. The researcher will employ both quantitative and qualitative social science research methods, including both survey and and intensive, micro-level ethnography, to gather data on: (1) the variety of children's caretaking and kinship networks; (2) the everyday interactions of children and their caretakers; and (3) funerals and other ritual and commemorative practices marking life and death. Targeted observations, video-recording, and in-depth, open-ended interviews with a focused sample of 7 to 10-year-old children and their caretakers will be key field methods. The research is significant because it will provide an ethnographically grounded portrayal of coming of age in the time of AIDS in Africa. It will also inform policy and programming aimed at orphans and other AIDS-affected children as well as families, households, and communities touched by high AIDS mortality. Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.