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Based on 16 consecutive months of fieldwork with children, their families and communities, this thesis explores the lives, experiences and perspectives of children, young people and their families who live in northwestern Rwanda and have experienced many hardships. In the context of war, genocide, migration and flight, it examines children and young people’s experiences of, as well as the social dynamics pertaining to, parental death or absence. The analysis addresses a key underlying question that remains little examined: how does a dominant global development category, such as that of orphan, become meaningful in the daily lives, subjectivities and identities of children and young people who become associated with such a category when it meets locally available identity and status constructions? What emerges is a messy, complex cultural reality that often seems contradictory in nature. Orphanhood appears simultaneously as a desirable status and a stigmatised and embodied identity; as a means to much-needed social and material resources, such as patrons or inclusion in NGO projects, or as an existential reality. The central argument is that children, young people and their families make diverse and sometimes contradictory claims to orphanhood for a variety of moral, political, social, economic and existential reasons, the primary aim of which is to achieve a more dignified life. Orphanhood is a condition of inherent existential insecurity that children want to overcome. In order to do so they sometimes first have to officially cast themselves as orphans. They have to become orphans to unbecome orphans. But whether they are successful in doing so depends on one key factor that is only sometimes visible to children themselves: post-genocide political-ethnic categories heavily influence children’s experiences of orphanhood by determining their access to charitable and communal support. These in turn are affected by the particular topography of remembering and forgetting that shapes post-genocide Rwanda.

This thesis focuses on Ghanaian young professionals and entrepreneurs whose lives unfold at the interstices of the capital Accra's private sector business scenes. By following professionals to the realm of family, friendship, workplace, religious community and the urban public culture, I show how professional status, and the quality of 'professionalism', emerge as objects of desire that transform into multiple types of value – economic, moral, ethical, and spiritual – within Ghanaian knowledge intensive capitalism. These value transformations are underpinned by Ghana's post 1980s neoliberal restructuring, expansion and privatisation of higher education, liberalisation of the media and the public sphere, increasing popularity of Charismatic Pentecostal Christianity, and the emergence of private sector companies as sought-after workplaces among Accra's middle-class youth. In line with the post-independence vision of Ghana as the promised land of black capital growth, diverse political, commercial and Christian stakeholders construct a public narrative of Ghana as a place where one can access professional status, become middle-class, and – on a broader scale – build 'professional', privately-owned infrastructure of value creation. With the national and historical public culture of professionalism as the backdrop, this thesis documents the uncertain, intimate trajectories of delivering on post-1990s liberal democratic promises of the value of professional qualifications and professional status. In the era of Accra's jobless growth and global imageries, and audit measures, of 'professional quality', professional life becomes a mode of existence characterised by the intensity of co-operative work, circulation of new ideas of productivity and ethical subjectivity, and discordant desires of moral belonging. By attending to how these interlocking processes shape co-operative work in diverse microcosms within Accra's media industry in particular, I show how the ‘desire for professionalism’ ultimately connects with longer genealogies of middle-class social reproduction, namely, the process of being and becoming particular type of citizens, families and communities. This proposition builds on the framework of 'work as mediation', which contributes to anthropology of capitalism by expanding the category of work to include flows of sociality that structure modes of value creation among Accra's professionals. These flows constitute what I propose to call an economy of flow and blockage, which is a particular form of social reproduction that manifests through distinct ethical action and ritual performance. This action includes, but is not limited to, tangible flows of cash and care, eating and feeding, the production of beauty, joking, prayer, and Christian fellowship. From this premise, considering work as a practice of mediation sheds new light on 'capitalisms from the south' by understanding work itself, and knowledgeintensive work performed as professionals in particular, as an object of popular desire. Hence, this thesis argues that new middle-class projects of social reproduction are central to the analysis of the content and form that new economic infrastructures take in a post-colonial African context.

This doctoral dissertation examines the inter-subjective processes through which young children are shaped and shape others into persons (hün), as they learn to interact through the Mongolian mode of hierarchical relations. Based on twenty months of ethnographic fieldwork in the middle Gobi, the research focuses on the period when children (between two and eight years of age) lose their status as indulged and protected babies and learn to assume the role of older brother/sister (ah/egj) and younger sibling (düü). To investigate how children become competent at interacting through the Mongolian mode of hierarchical relations, the study considers three questions: how do children learn to enact etiquette (yos)? How do children develop relations within and outside of their family (ger bül) and family network (ah düü)? How do children learn to work and to become helpful? The research reveals that Mongolian social hierarchy is structurally produced by, and is the product of, an irreconcilable moral tension. On the one hand, children learn to form relations of interdependence and to actively take part in the production of asymmetrical but mutual obligations. On the other hand, children learn to use etiquette to establish relations at the safe distance of respect, and to develop social and emotional skills to protect themselves from the potential dangers of relatedness. By documenting the processes through which children learn to form relations as ah/egj and düü, this study uncovers the social mechanisms which sustain the re-production of Mongolian social hierarchy and the individual skills necessary to be a socially and morally competent Mongolian person. More generally, the dissertation contributes to the anthropological study of personhood by rethinking ‘the cultural construction of the person’ as an ongoing process of learning.

This thesis constitutes an ethnographic exploration of the ways in which conversion to Pentecostalism contributes to redefining some of the principles of kinship in a patrilineal society. It looks beyond notions of individualism often emphasised in studies on Pentecostalism, in order to focus on people’s relationships. In doing so, it explores how relational ruptures brought about by conversion are accommodated along cultural continuities. This study takes place in Pobe and Ikpinle, two semi-rural towns, in a pluri-ethnic and pluri-religious setting with a majority Yoruba population, close to the Beninese border with Nigeria. Studies of Pentecostalism in Africa have emphasised kinship and family relations as one of the areas where, upon conversion, the Pentecostal command to “break with the past” and with “tradition” is most strongly expressed. Ruptures in these areas have been explained as the result of the influence of Pentecostalism in shaping individualist modern subjectivities. However, the ethnographic material presented here reveals that, although discursively these ruptures are often articulated as radical, in practice they do not always appear as such. Converts still depend on and cultivate their social relationships with their kin. Through a process of breaking and re-making, Pentecostalism opens a space for redefining forms of relating, through a selective reappropriation of certain cultural norms and values. The thesis also looks at some of the dilemmas that Christian notions of kinship bring about in this context, and the specific ways in which Pentecostals - compared to members of other Christian denominations - deal with them. This thesis draws on anthropological studies and debates on funerals, time, descent, marriage, gender, ethics and moral dilemmas, in order to explore how the Pentecostal project of “breaking with the past” shapes different aspects of people’s kinship. It aims to contribute to the literature on the anthropology of Christianity by exploring the complexities of this form of religion, as it appears in one of its denominational variants in a pluri-religious setting.

This thesis is about young second-generation Somali women in London who, in recent years, have begun to practise Islam. Based on over 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork, it investigates their everyday experiences of piety in a range of contexts across London. I argue that an analysis of these young women’s pious pursuits needs to account for the connections between the broader socio-political and economic context, and the affective, embodied, discursive, and cognitive dimensions of ethical self-fashioning. First, I demonstrate how these young practising women are drawing on forms of knowledge derived from the Islamic discursive tradition, liberal discourses and Somali history. I explore how these women’s ethical changes are initiated by current shifts in policies and discussions around the failures of multiculturalism, which have brought into sharp focus the questions of what it means to be Somali, Muslim, and British. Second, by extending a Foucaultian understanding of ethical change, I approach their practise of Islam by analysing the forms and means through which these young women imagine novel relations to themselves and to others including kin, friends, potential husbands, and God. I contrast these women’s experiences with those of the first-generation in order to trace historical changes. An ethnographic investigation into their everyday lives in a range of contexts beyond Islamic places of learning, reveals the multi-constituted, relational, and constantly shifting nature of the practising self. Ultimately, through the concept of hope I investigate the forces that animate these young practising women’s quests and account for their continuous, albeit fragmentary and often incoherent, attempts to transform themselves. This analysis moves beyond the anthropological literature on Islam and piety, which prioritises coherent, discursive traditions and often bounded models of piety. It further offers a challenge to current public and political representations of Muslim women in the UK, which tend to problematize Islam. Young practising Somali women, this thesis reveals, are intervening within, and transforming these contemporary debates around the Muslim subject.

In this thesis my object is to describe the process of interracial marriage between Pakehas and Maoris in Auckland and to relate this to aspects of the relations between the races in the community. In the first part I outline a typology of mixed marriage in terms of which I discuss the characteristics of the spouses in my sample. This is followed by a discussion of statistical material drawn from marriage records and brief account of some representative cases. Part two is concerned with the process of getting married, beginning with an analysis of the possibilities which exist for the development of interracial social relationships and tracing the processes of dating and courtship through to engagement and marriage. At each stage I am concerned with the factors which influence the decision-making of the individuals and in particular the reactions shown by other members of the community. In Part Three I discuss the special problems faced by the intermarried in terms of the relationship between spouses and that between the couple and members of the community, in particular their kinsfolk. The last part deals with the place of the offspring of mixed marriages and with intermarriage as a historical process. This latter is analysed in terms of genealogies containing the descendants of some early mixed marriages and shows the way in which the marriage choice and place in the community of individuals has been affected by their mixed ancestry. The study demonstrates that, while the members of neither race accept mixed marriages completely, the obstacles placed in the way of most young people who wish to marry a member of the other race are not usually great and their place in the community is not usually seriously affected by their choice of spouse. It also indicates that the rate of intermarriage is likely to increase and this will be one factor in a situation of improving race relations in New Zealand.

This thesis explores issues of subjectivity, collective identity, relatedness and class among young men on Cairo’s underground gay scenes. My thesis, based on 18 months of ethnographic research (November 2009-March 2011) among in Cairo, focuses on the diversity of ways in which ‘gay’ identities are embraced, questioned, and critiqued through the day to day activities of life in the city, and the construction of spaces in which the men move. The thesis analyzes various forms of instability and ambiguity relating to men’s sexuality both on the individual and scene levels. I argue that while a sense of precarity and ambiguity permeates the scene because of security concerns, the elusiveness of recognition both in relation to the state and the family, as well as internal fragmentation along class lines, it allows for a certain creativity as men cultivate and continually invest in the sociocultural maintenance of a ‘gay scene’. Through an examination of performance styles that are heavily influenced by a scene-specific form of camp aesthetics as well as scene-level narratives, I argue that such efforts are attempts at creating a sense of collective identity and permanence on a scene that is all too often experienced as unstable and ephemeral. While this project addresses the very real difficulties men face as homosexuals in Egypt (prosecution, social ostracism and harassment) it illustrates how men take hold of the liminal positions they occupy and experience, and in the process raise important questions about articulations of sexuality, class, and national positioning vis-à-vis a global imaginary.

This thesis is an ethnographic exploration of radical populist politics among working class residents of a Venezuelan barrio (shantytown). It draws on fieldwork conducted over 19 months and focuses on the political ideals and practices of pro-government chavista activists in the context of the “Bolivarian Revolution”. Specifically, it analyses the utopian desires that underpin activists’ engagement with a number of political organisations in their communities, uncovering how political activism is embedded in broader projects that seek personal transformation, material betterment and moral redemption. It also examines state-led efforts to establish participatory democracy at the local level, tracing the experiences of grassroots activists as they attempt to build new political institutions in their communities. My approach involves a close attention to the relationship between political discourse, state policy and everyday practice, exploring the complex interactions that unfold between state agencies and community actors. Overall, the aim of this thesis is to understand the appeal of a radical populist project by looking beyond claims that political efficacy rests solely on the redistribution of resources. I suggest that the particular appeal of chavismo lies in the fact that it also asks its adherents to usher in a new moral order by transforming themselves, their communities and their democracy in profound ways. I explore many of the complexities that are inherent to this process, analysing how activists seeking radical change encounter disjunctures between an idealised future and a compromised and contingent present.