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Death in Botswana: Life Among the Ashes

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Death Across Cultures

Part of the book series: Science Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Science ((SACH,volume 9))

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Abstract

In Botswana, funerals are a primary forum in which people enact core values of caring and love for each other and build mutual connections. These values are significant where people’s identities and selfhood are shared across bodies and selves through sentiments and material acts. Love and care are asserted in funerals against suspicions of jealousy and resentment, and increasingly against ideas that modernity has brought new forms of death, alienation from core values, and new forms of self-development that focus on the self and direct offspring. In this context, funerals reassert an idea that has gained strength as a national value since the 1990s: botho, a recognition that personhood is recognized in and through others. In the ashes of the firepit left unswept in the space of death and mourning, social life is rebuilt.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice Studies, Longwood University, Farmville, VA, USA

    Deborah Durham

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  1. Deborah Durham
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Correspondence to Deborah Durham .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Hampshire College (Retired), Amherst, MA, USA

    Helaine Selin

  2. Emeritus Professor of Politics and Environmental Studies, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, USA

    Robert M. Rakoff

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Durham, D. (2019). Death in Botswana: Life Among the Ashes. In: Selin, H., Rakoff, R.M. (eds) Death Across Cultures. Science Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Science, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18826-9_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18826-9_9

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-18825-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-18826-9

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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