Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction / Erdmute Alber , Jeannett Martin and Catrien Notermans -- 1. A Framework for the Analysis of Parent Roles / Esther Goody -- 2. Adoption, Fosterage, and Alliance / Suzanne Lallemand -- 3. The Transfer of Belonging: Theories on Child Fostering in West Africa Reviewed / Erdmute Alber -- 4. Experiencing Father’s Kin and Mother’s Kin: Kinship Norms and Practices from the Perspective of Foster Children in Northern Benin / Jeannett Martin -- 5. Relating Affiliation and Descent: Brothers’ Daughters as Co-wives among the Bulsa in Northern Ghana / Barbara Meier -- 6. Children Coming and Going: Fostering and Lifetime Mobility in East Cameroon / Catrien Notermans -- 7. The Promises of Shared Motherhood and the Perils of Detachment: A Comparison of Local and Transnational Child Fostering in Cape Verde / Heike Drotbohm -- 8. Disputes Over Transfers of Belonging in the Gold Coast in the 1870s: Fosterage or Debt Pawning? / Cati Coe -- 9. Child Adoption and Foster Care in the Context of Legal Pluralism: Case Studies from Ghana / Ulrike Wanitzek -- Index.

Available to subscribing member institutions only.

Child fostering is an age-old and also modern phenomenon whose importance stretches much further than the boundaries of so-called ‘traditional’ African societies. As a mobile and creative kinship practice, child fostering is of growing importance in the global world as it goes along with other forms of mobility such as migration and transnationalism. The book aims to revitalize the study of fostering by situating the issue in more recent theoretical approaches to kinship. It also examines what functionalist and structuralist theory may still contribute to the understanding of child fostering. Historical and recent child fostering practices in several West African countries are discussed from the angles of Anthropology, History and Law.