Malawian orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) are becoming increasingly visible, both physically and ideologically, across different landscapes. Transnational responses earmark resources for OVCs, national government ministries have created OVC divisions, human rights groups have initiated OVC campaigns, and local communities have created community-based organizations (CBOs) around the presence and needs of orphans. These terrains intersect in a complex milieu within which definitions of orphans, resource allocation, and program implementation are contested by a variety of actors. Within this global response, an emerging population of humanitarians characterized as sympathetic individuals not necessarily trained in humanitarianism, development, or childcare is becoming evident. These individuals or non-expert humanitarians are motivated by a compassionate drive to make a difference in the lives of suffering children.This dissertation examines how a particular identity, orphanhood, is produced and imagined through compassionate humanitarian narratives and suffering iconography, ultimately driving exceptional amounts of funding and resources in one of the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa. As resources arrive and are tied to a particular demographic it becomes a site of contention. It is within the disjuncture between western imaginations and constructions of orphans and the actual experiences and circumstances of the lives of these children that contestations occur. This leads to unanticipated outcomes for orphan projects that are explored in this dissertation. Data is drawn from lay humanitarians, volunteer tourists, government officials, transnational organizations, and community and religious leaders. The voices of children institutionalized in the orphanages now ubiquitous in Malawi are included, as well as the voices of those orphans who remain in communities but have been drawn out by community members in an effort to secure transnational donor resources.
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