Ambiguous Childhoods: Peer Socialisation, Schooling and Agency in a Zambian Village - Paperback

by Nana Clemensen (Author)

Growing up with social and economic upheaval in the peripheries of global neoliberalism, children in rural Zambia are presented with diverging social and moral protocols across homes, classrooms, church halls, and the streets. Mostly unmonitored by adults, they explore the ambiguities of adult life in playful interactions with their siblings and kin across gender and age. Drawing on rich linguistic-ethnographic details of such interactions combined with observations of school and household procedures, the author provides a rare insight into the lives, voices, and learning paths of children in a rural African setting.

Author Biography

Nana Clemensen is Associate Professor of Educational Anthropology at Aarhus University, Denmark. Her recent publications include Managing freedom: Children and parents negotiating safety and autonomy in a Copenhagen housing cooperative (Anthropology and Education Quarterly 2019).