RAISING MALAWI’S CHILDREN:
A I DS O RPH A NS A N D A PO L I T I CS O F C O M PASSI O N
By
Andrea Lee Freidus

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirement
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Anthropology
2011

A BST R A C T

RAISING MALAWI’S CHILDREN:
A I DS O RPH A NS A N D A PO L I T I CS O F C O M PASSI O N
By
Andrea Lee Freidus
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 subSaharan 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.

 
 

This dissertation is dedicated in loving memory to my mother Arlene Freidus. She inspired this
path, and it was her voice that I carried with me along the way. It was a privilege to be her
daughter.

iv 

A C K N O W L E D G M E N TS

Dr. Anne Ferguson, my chair, mentor, friend, and kin, guided not only this project, but
also my evolution as an anthropologist and educator from the very beginning. She spent
innumerable Sundays reading and rereading project proposals, dissertation chapters, and
applications—even on beautiful days when the garden was undoubtedly calling. Thank you,
Anne, for being so much more than my adviser. I am blessed to call you friend. You have made
my life fuller.
I am grateful to Dr. Bill Derman, who was also a guide and mentor from the beginning of
my doctoral program. He always encouraged me to think outside the box, and he knew just what
to say to make me laugh when things seemed to get heavy. He was also willing to feed me more
reading, more reading, more reading, and then more reading. I am also thankful for Dr. Daimon
Kambewa who guided and supported my research in Malawi. He taught me about the unspoken
dimensions of fieldwork and connected me to people and communities that made this research
possible. His constant smile and joyfulness made the tough dimensions of my research
manageable. I look forward to a long and fruitful partnership with Daimon as we continue to
work on a variety of projects in Malawi.
I am grateful to Dr. James Pritchett and Dr. John Metzler, who served as committee
members and provided invaluable feedback and advice on the dissertation. Dr. Pritchett
encouraged me to acknowledge and incorporate the roots of anthropological theory and history
as they relate to work on the African continent. Dr. Metzler was an effective outside reader who
helped bring context to the dissertation. In addition, his warm character and positive energy
calmed my anxiety in every committee meeting. Finally, I want to say a special thank you to Dr.

v 

Linda Whiteford. If she had not officially adopted me years ago, I would never have completed a
PhD. Her compassion, support, advice, and amistad will remain with me always.
My doctoral program was funded by the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship,
International Studies and Programs Predissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, and a
Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship. I was also fortunate to work
for the Department of Anthropology, the Center for Advanced Studies in International
Development, and the Center for Gender in Global Context at Michigan State University during
my doctoral program.
This work was possible because of my Malawian participants, friends, and teachers. I
wish to extend a special thank you to Bunda College and Dr. Charles Masangano, who offered
me affiliation. I am grateful to Sister G who helped make connections with communities, fed me
local chicken and vegetables, laughed with me, and always kept her door open when I needed
advice and to see a friendly face. I am indebted to the community of caring volunteers and
donors in California, especially Papa D and his lovely wife. They allowed me access to their
projects and were always open to dialogue about questions of development, orphan care, and
addressing violence and suffering. I am thankful for Sister Bea, Brother Demello, and the staff
and people of Hope. Karonga was my final research site, and this community of volunteers and
orphan-care workers left me inspired and hopeful. They do great work! I am grateful to the other
AIC staff and volunteers who so warmly welcomed my questions and input. In addition, I could
not have done this research without the support of the staff and volunteers at Miracles
Orphanage. Finally, I wish to extend a very special thank you to my research assistant and
achimwali, Bridget Mwali, who accompanied me every step of the way. Together we asked a lot
of questions, walked up a lot of hills, carried buckets of water, spent freezing nights in Dowa,

vi 

and sweated profusely in Karonga. Bridget, my time in Malawi is very much defined by our
relationship. I will forever hold you close to my heart.
Several graduate students created an intellectual community that influenced my doctoral
work. Michael Vicente Perez, my writing partner, showed up every day and encouraged me to
put pen to paper. Ribbit! Marita Eibl read chapters, bought chicken dinners, wiped away tears,
and knew exactly what path I was on and how to get me to the end. She, too, is family. Michael
Walker also read my work and provided invaluable advice and encouragement pre-fieldwork,
while in the field, and upon return. Tracy Carrington ran, literally, through my initial graduate
school days with me as I processed this research. Some days she provided the needed respite
from anthropology and told stories that reminded me there is a big world out there. Jade Sims
was a supportive friend who encouraged me in too many ways to count and made sure I was
always “leaning into it.” Jeni Sullivan, you are warmth, sunshine, and love. Thanks to Ms. Terri
Bailey, who formatted and edited this dissertation at warp speed. To Merritt Sargent—figs,
salmon, lamb, homemade hummus, Muscadet, and turtle pie! How would I have done this
without you? Merci.
A special thank you to my family, especially my dad, Kip Freidus, who taught me from
an early age that the sky is the limit, and who never ceases to be excited and supportive of
whatever adventures I am on or direction I am deciding to take. Thanks, also, to Linda Freidus.
You provide the calm, which is so elusive to the Freidii clan. I am also grateful to Eli, my
brother, and my sister-in-law Julie Freidus. Throughout this project I felt supported and
encouraged by you both. Just knowing you cared and were proud of this work spurred me on.

vii 

T A B L E O F C O N T E N TS

LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... xi
LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... xii
KEY ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................................ xiii
INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1
Situating Malawi: Poverty, AIDS, and Neoliberalism ........................................................3
Agriculture and Economic Trends in Malawi ..........................................................5
Introducing AIDS to Malawi .................................................................................10
Malawi’s Orphans ......................................................................................12
Lay or “Do-It-Yourself” Humanitarians ............................................................................16
Organization of the Dissertation ........................................................................................18
CHAPTER 1: PROBLEMATIZING IMAGINED CHILDHOODS .............................................23
IN RELATION TO AIDS, ORPHANS, AND AFRICA
Modernity: A Brief Review ...............................................................................................26
Modern Families, Modern Childhoods ..................................................................32
Brief Genealogy: Children among the Ngoni and Chewa .................................................36
HIV/AIDS: Producing “Orphans” .........................................................................45
Conclusion .........................................................................................................................55
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH SITES ......................................................57
Research Trajectory and Justifying Research Site Selection .............................................58
Site Selection Criteria ............................................................................................60
A Note on the Anthropology of Childhood .......................................................................62
Sites ....................................................................................................................................64
Southern Allied Missions: Miracles Orphanage ....................................................65
Participant Demographics and Methods ....................................................66
AIDS Interfaith Coalition (AIC) ............................................................................69
Dowa Orphan Support (DOS)....................................................................71
Hope Orphanage and Community-Based Orphan Care .............................75
Volunteer Tourists (“Voluntourists”) ....................................................................80
Other Key Stakeholder Interviews .........................................................................81
Answering My Research Questions .......................................................................82
Positionalities: Researcher and Research Assistant ...............................................84
Bridget Mwale: Social Worker, Research Assistant, Friend .....................86
Ethical Conundrums: Miracles ..................................................................88
AIC: Voluntouring Guide ..........................................................................89

viii 

CHAPTER 3: LAY HUMANITARIANISM, ORPHAN NARRATIVES,...................................91
AND COMPASSION
Lay Humanitarians .............................................................................................................93
AIC .........................................................................................................................95
Southern Allied Missions.......................................................................................97
Lay Humanitarian Similarities ...........................................................................................99
The Power of Discourse: Creating an Aid Category .......................................................100
The Moral Imperative: Invoking Compassion .....................................................106
Bare Life: Depicting Apolitical and Acultural Subjects ......................................113
From “Backwards” and AIDS to “Developed” and “Modern” ...........................118
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................122
CHAPTER 4: COMING OF AGE IN INSTITUTIONS: EXAMINING MALAWI’S ..............123
ORPHANAGES
The Vulnerable “Orphan” ................................................................................................125
The Orphanage as a Solution ...........................................................................................128
Results: Employing Mothers............................................................................................132
Addressing Stigma ...............................................................................................135
Reconfiguring Kinship .........................................................................................138
Orphanages for Personal Gain .............................................................................147
Addressing Vulnerabilities...............................................................................................148
Preventing Abuse .................................................................................................153
Social Networks: Improved?................................................................................154
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................155
CHAPTER 5: THE STATE: POLITICIZING ORPHANS .........................................................158
Rescue and District Social Welfare Connections ............................................................159
Becoming “Orphans”: Constructing a New Demographic ..............................................162
The State’s Position within a Neoliberal Framework ......................................................163
Dowa and Zomba Districts: Government Offices ...............................................170
Humanitarianism: Emerging Orphan Responses .............................................................180
Orphan-Care NGOs: What about Rights?........................................................................183
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................188
CHAPTER 6: “MONEY HAS JUST COME, FALLEN FROM THE HEAVENS”: .................193
COMMUNITY-BASED ORPHAN CARE AND SPIRITUAL INSECURITY
AIC and DOS: General Characteristics ...........................................................................194
What Is “Community”?....................................................................................................196
Witchcraft: Historic and Contemporary Manifestations ..................................................198
Witchcraft Today: Responses to Failed Modernity? ...........................................200
It Takes a Village? ...........................................................................................................205
Planned Outcomes: Combating AIDS and Associated Stigma............................210
Resource Distribution ..............................................................................212
Building Cohesion through Inclusivity? ..................................................215

ix 

Unplanned Outcomes: Misuse of Funds and Community Dissent ......................216
Professionalization of the Rural Poor and Reifying Gender
Inequalities ...................................................................................220
Reaching Children ...............................................................................................224
Missing the Point?................................................................................................227
Witchcraft and “Community” in Dowa District ..............................................................228
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................231
CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................232
Contributions to the Field and Future Questions .............................................................243
Volunteer Tourists and Applying Anthropology .................................................245
WORKS CITED ..........................................................................................................................249

x 

L IST O F T A B L ES

Table 1: Summary of Economic and Agricultural Trends Post-Independence Period
(1964–2010) .......................................................................................................................6
Table 2: Orphan Statistics for Malawi ...........................................................................................12
Table 3: Typical Harmful Effects Facing Malawi’s Orphans ........................................................14
Table 4: Malnutrition Statistics for Malawi’s Children .................................................................15
Table 5: Miracles Participants’ Orphan Status (n=16) ..................................................................67
Table 6: DOS Participants’ Orphan Status (n=22) ........................................................................74
Table 7: Hope Activities, Program Description, and Number of Orphans Served ........................77
Table 8: Hope Orphanage: Orphan Status (n=10) .........................................................................78
Table 9: Hope Community-Based Participants’ Orphan Status (n=21).........................................79
Table 10: Volunteer Tourism Interviews (n=20) ...........................................................................80
Table 11: Key Stakeholder Interviews ...........................................................................................82
Table 12: Breakdown of Expenditures ........................................................................................177

xi 

L IST O F F I G U R ES

Figure 1: Map of Malawi .................................................................................................................3
Figure 2: Rescue Children’s Village, Lilongwe ............................................................................30
Figure 3: Dowa District Research Site...........................................................................................31
Figure 4: Children and Informal Labor in Malawi ........................................................................41
Figure 5: Typical Close-Up Shots of Children ..............................................................................44
Figure 6: Blanket Distribution in Dowa.........................................................................................73
Figure 7: Children Participating in Storyboard Drawings .............................................................78 
Figure 8: Bridget Mwali, Research Assistant ................................................................................86
Figure 9: Volunteer Tourism Visit with Home-Based Care Patient ............................................110
Figure 10: Volunteer Tourism Visit with Second Home-Based Care Patient .............................112
Figure 11: Volunteer Tourism Visit to Open Arms Nutrition and Rehabilitation Center ...........112
Figure 12: Personal Photo of Malawian Child, Orphanage .........................................................116
Figure 13: Personal Photo of Malawian Child, Karonga District ................................................116
Figure 14: View of Miracles Village ...........................................................................................123
Figure 15: Mphatso’s Storyboard Drawing .................................................................................149
Figure 16: Storyboard Drawing of an Orphan’s Imagined Future ...............................................152
Figure 17: Watwesa’s Storyboard Drawing of Life at the Orphanage ........................................153
Figure 18: Rescue Promotional Photo .........................................................................................160
Figure 19: Blanket Distribution, Dowa District ...........................................................................212
Figure 20: Food Distribution, Dowa District ...............................................................................213
Figure 21: Double-Funded Orphan Organization ........................................................................222

xii 

K E Y A B B R E V I A T I O NS

ADMARC: Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation
AIC: AIDS Interfaith Coalition
AFC: Ambassadors for Children
ARV: Antiretroviral
CBCC: Community-Based Childcare Center
CBO: Community-Based Organization
CRS: Catholic Relief Services
DOS: Dowa Orphan Support
DSW: District Social Welfare
DSWO: District Social Welfare Officer
ECD: Early Childhood Development
GoM: Government of Malawi
IFRC: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
IMF: International Monetary Fund
LDC: Less Developed Country
MoWCD: Ministry of Women and Child Development
MSF: Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders)
NPA for OVC: National Plan of Action for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children
OSA: Orphan Support Africa
OVC: Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children
PVO: Private Voluntary Organization

xiii 

SAP: Structural Adjustment Policy
TA: Traditional Authority
UNAIDS: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
UNCRC: United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
UNICEF: United Nations Children’s Fund
USAID: United States Agency for International Development
VOCC: Village Orphan Care Committee
WFP: World Food Program

xiv 

INTRODUC TION
In early 2001, Time magazine published a photo essay focused on AIDS in Africa titled
“Death Stalks a Continent.” On the cover was a picture of a grandmother holding a small child 
with the text: “This is a story about AIDS in Africa. Look at the pictures. Read the words. And 
then try not to care.” Among other things, this story brought attention to the impact the maturing
AIDS pandemic was having on children in sub-Saharan Africa. It also marked the decade that
would lead to the proliferation of a direct global humanitarian response to the African AIDS
orphan crisis (Foster, Levine, and Williamson 2005). This headline also captures a predominant
motivation of the orphan response—compassion.
This is the story of compassionate people driven to make a difference in the lives of
children touched by the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Malawi, most possessing limited or no training
in development, humanitarianism, or childcare. These non-expert or lay humanitarians dedicate
their time, talents, and funds to making the lives of children better. I intend to show 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 a result, orphans have
become a site of contestation. A variety of actors, including Government of Malawi (GoM)
ministries, community organizations, families, and children, are positioning themselves in an
effort to capture the orphan-earmarked resources now flowing into Malawi, often in ways little
imagined by the funders themselves.
I intend to show that the iconography and discourses that western donors and
humanitarians produce do not always reflect the actual circumstances of the lives of children.
Westerners, the Malawian state, local communities, and children have varying perspectives on

1 

what orphans are, how they should be served, and what the expected or desired outcomes of
orphan projects should be. I will show that this disjuncture between western imaginings of
orphans and the lived experiences of these children give rise to contestations often leading to
unanticipated outcomes for orphan projects. I will highlight positive outcomes, such as food
programs, payment of school fees, and access to AIDS drugs for children, as well as the negative
effects of these programs. For example, I demonstrate how some programs create community
dissent and jealousy, privilege an orphan identity, foster social and spiritual insecurity for
children and program organizers, and disrupt Malawian kinship and family systems.
Some children’s lives are improved, but a target-specific response aimed at orphans may
not be the best response. I argue that the profound social cleavages emerging in Malawi are not
the result of HIV/AIDS or the growth of the orphan population. While the disease impacts
Malawian sociality, I argue that growing inequality and the perpetuation of endemic poverty
must also be considered, because they are the underlying structural factors—orphans are only a
small manifestation of these processes. Indeed, I show how resources targeting orphans are
contributing to increasing social and economic differentiation and community unease and
discord. Meanwhile, the more pervasive structures that frame poverty, AIDS, orphanhood, and
suffering escape the notice of most lay humanitarians.
Throughout this dissertation, I draw on Tsing’s metaphor of friction to understand the 
way in which global power rubs up against local realities that ultimately shape the subjectivities
and lived experiences of children. Friction, according to Tsing, refers to “the awkward, unequal, 
unstable, and creative qualities of interconnection across difference” (2005:4). Like her 
ethnography, this dissertation is about global connections that play out in the “sticky materiality
of practical encounters” (Tsing 2005:1). Global power does not function like a “well-oiled

2 

machine” operating smoothly and uninterrupted (Tsing 2005:6); the global and the local meet at 
a site characterized by friction. As a metaphorical image, friction reminds us that heterogeneous
and unequal encounters can lead to new arrangements of culture and power (Tsing 2005:5). It is
the encounter between Malawian cultural practices and ideologies and west-inspired projects
based on a particular narrative of orphans that I explore in this dissertation.
In the remainder of this chapter, I situate Malawi within the global geopolitical context. I
begin by examining the broad economic transitions Malawi experienced from independence to
the more contemporary period. The incursion of AIDS into Malawi is directly related to its
economic history and geopolitical positioning. This sets the stage for understanding the forces
that produce Malawi’s orphans and 
shape their lives. I conclude by
discussing the impact of AIDS and the
emergence of lay humanitarians who are
now providing services and material
resources to orphaned children.
Situating M alawi: Poverty, A I DS, and
Neoliberalism
Malawi is a small, but densely
populated land-locked country in
southern Africa (see figure 1). Malawi’s 
population is estimated at 15,447,500
with a land area of 94,080 square
kilometers, which is approximately the

3 

size of Pennsylvania (CIA 2011). To the north, Malawi shares a border with Tanzania. Zambia
borders the western side of Malawi, and Mozambique is to the south. Lake Malawi (Nyasa) runs
along the eastern border for approximately 580 kilometers. The dominant ethnic groups include
the Chewa, Tumbuka, Ngoni, Nkonde, Sena, Lomwe, Yao, and Tonga. The dominant local
language in Malawi is Chichewa, which is spoken by 57 percent of the population. The majority
of Malawians identify as Christian (79.9 percent). Muslims account for 12.8 percent of the
population.
In 1891 Malawi, or Nyasaland as it was referred to, was colonized by the British and
remained under colonial rule until 1964. An uprising led by Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda
successfully overthrew the colonial regime. Dr. Banda later declared himself “President for 
Life,” and Malawi remained under dictatorial rule for thirty years. In 1994, Dr. Banda’s oneparty rule ended and multi-party elections took place. Malawi’s current president, Dr. Bingu Wa 
Mutharika, is serving his second term in office after winning the 2009 election. He faces many
challenges, including curbing the HIV/AIDS pandemic and its effects, alleviating chronic food
insecurity, addressing corruption, and encouraging economic growth.
Poverty is insidious in Malawi. Thirty six percent, or approximately four million
Malawians, are living in “deep or ultra poverty,” which is equivalent to 60 percent below the
poverty line of a dollar per day and is assumed to indicate chronic food insecurity (Harrigan
2008). Sixty-four percent of Malawians are living in poverty, which suggests sporadic periods of
food insecurity (Harrigan 2008). Harrigan (2008:238) points out, “Over half of Malawi’s nearly 
twelve million population is both poor and food insecure.” How is this possible with 85 percent 
of the people living in rural areas as smallholder agriculturalists? In the following section I
explore the relationship between the changing nature of agriculture and food production as it

4 

relates to the global economy in an effort to trace the path to poverty experienced by so many
Malawians. I begin with the initial post-independence boom in 1964. Table 1 provides a timeline
that summarizes the significant economic and agricultural trends that occurred during the postindependence period.

Agriculture and E conomic Trends in Malawi
Much of Malawi’s most productive land was converted to private estates during the
colonial period. Tea, coffee, tobacco, sugar, and cotton were the primary exports, accounting for
40 percent of exports during the initial post-independence period (Conroy et al. 2006). The
majority of the people remained subsistence or small-scale farmers producing to meet the needs
of the local economy. Harrigan (2008) notes that upwards of 90 percent of national employment
was tied to subsistence farming due in part to a lack of mineral resources, capital, and skilled
labor. For these reasons, the national economic strategy focused on “an export-oriented, agrobased, and labour-intensive expansion path with import-substituting industrialization playing
only a secondary role” (Conroy et al. 2006:17).
Economic growth was strong until 1979. These positive gains were garnered exclusively
by estate-sector exports of tea, tobacco, and sugar (Harrigan 2008). The contrast between
economic growth realized by the estate sector and smallholder growth is telling. During the
period between 1964 and 1977, the estate sector registered an average annual growth rate of 17
percent. In contrast, smallholders saw only a 3 percent annual growth rate for the same period
(Harrigan 2008). Conroy et al. (2006) argues that the preference for estate-sector growth was
particularly detrimental to subsistence farmers for a variety of reasons. First, customary land was
annexed to support estate growth, leaving small-scale farmers to cultivate more marginal areas.
A result of their dispossession was increased population pressure on less productive or unsuitable

5 

6 

land. In addition, subsistence farmers were not permitted to grow certain cash crops, including
burley tobacco, tea, and sugar to prevent competition with the estate sector. Maize became their
primary crop. To make matters worse, smallholder farmers were paid less than the export parity
price by the state marketing board for their maize. During this time, Banda reinvested profits into
the estate sector at the expense of public and social service expenditures (especially neglecting
the health and education sectors). He did little to devise a strategy to bolster the smallholder
farmer economically (Conroy et al. 2006).
The weakness of this economic strategy became apparent in the late 1970s, when a
variety of external shocks ended the impressive economic growth immediately following
independence (see table 1, phase II trends). In particular, the oil crisis, Mozambique’s civil war, 
and widespread drought led to negative economic growth. These crises resulted in the adoption
of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans and Structural Adjustment Policies
(SAPs).
During the 1980s, Malawi received three different loans that were focused on bolstering
the productive and economic growth of smallholder farmers. Export prices were raised and the
relative price of maize reduced (Conroy et al. 2006). In addition, subsidies were removed. These

7 

policy changes were guided by the central tenets of neoliberal logic, which theorized that free
markets, privatization, and the laws of supply and demand would equalize economic distribution
over the long run. It was recognized that there might be an initial “bump,” during which those 
living in poverty would not feel the immediate effects of these policies. This was indeed the case,
and SAPs resulted in the poor spiraling downward into even more desperate circumstances
(Conroy et al. 2006).
The response from the World Bank in the mid-1980s was to continue to promote trade
liberalization and increasing industrialization competition. In the agriculture sector, the World
Bank supported programs that targeted subsidies to poor farmers and removed the restrictions
that had kept smallholder farmers from growing lucrative exports, especially burley tobacco
(Conroy et al. 2006). Conroy et al. (2006) argues that attempts to redress land allocation
associated with the estate sector were undertaken in an effort to strengthen the smallholder
sector. This, along with the introduction of hybrid maize, made the economic landscape of
Malawi look more promising.
Until 2007 sustained economic growth was never realized. Negative trends had become
the norm as a result of regular bouts of food crises associated with a reliance on rain-fed
agriculture. In addition, the practice of monocropping, first introduced during the colonial period,
had proven detrimental to Malawian soil (Conroy et al. 2006). Extensive land cultivation,
primarily of maize, led to the depletion of soil productivity. Smallholders now require extensive
inputs, including fertilizers and pesticides, which are cost-prohibitive without government
subsidies. Several of my research participants pointed to the dramatic loss of soil productivity
and the increased reliance on fertilizers as the primary factors creating their food insecurity.

8 

Malawian President Bingu Wa Mutharika decided to defy “experts” who argued for 
privatization and free-market processes as means for reducing poverty. He reinstated fertilizer
and seed subsidies following the 2005 famine (Bello 2008). Research on crop productivity
showed a dramatic increase during the 2006 and 2007 growing seasons. Productivity was so high
Malawi began exporting maize to neighboring countries (Bello 2008). This latest trend in food
security is not shared by all Malawians. Few villages receive enough subsidized fertilizer to
reach all households. The result is increasing social differentiation, because some families
become more food secure, while others continue to struggle during the lean season. Poverty
persists, but it is differentially experienced. Harrigan (2008) notes that Malawi has one of the
most uneven income distributions in the world, with only Brazil and Namibia surpassing it. This
social differentiation, I will argue, leads to tensions in communities as orphans and funds geared
towards them are implicated in increasing differentiation.
Malawi’s ties to the global economy are not limited to agriculture strategies, although 
with 85 percent of the population engaging in smallholder farming this is certainly the dominant
mode of production. That being said, a host of other strategies—many initiated during the
colonial period—have drawn people out of their rural homesteads and into migration patterns
driven by the need and desire to engage in a diverse array of economic pursuits. During the
colonial period, people migrated to urban and peri-urban areas to join the service sector seeking
jobs such as bicycle repair, carpentry, brick-making, tailoring, trading, and beer brewing
(Vaughan 1987). Much of this migration was tied to the imposition of hut taxes, which required
local populations to engage in the cash economy to pay the colonial regime. People also migrated
across borders, primarily to work in mines in both South Africa and Zambia. People continue to

9 

migrate today between rural and urban areas within the country, as well across borders, in an
effort to secure a viable livelihood.
Despite registering some recent successes, many Malawians continue to face endemic
poverty. These broadly discussed negative economic trends are tied to poor health and education
outcomes. The historical lack of investment in social services and infrastructure, along with food
insecurity, perpetuates the cycle of poverty and disease (Conroy et al. 2006). Moreover, the
effects of neoliberal reforms set in place by the World Bank and IMF have resulted in limiting
the size and scope of government. The neoliberal logic of decentralization and privatization has
led to a deliberate shift in social service provision away from the central government toward
local governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), churches, and the private sector
(Schoepf, Schoepf, and Millen 2000; Turshen 1999).
As a result of the adoption of World Bank austerity measures, social indicators—
including life expectancy, poverty levels, access to potable water, and school enrollment—
deteriorated (Harrigan 2008). These negative trends, coupled with a reduced government, have
strained the ability of many communities and families to provide for themselves. HIV appeared
just as public health and education expenditure was declining, food insecurity was becoming
more widespread, subsidies were being phased out, and negative economic growth was regularly
documented.

Introducing A I DS to Malawi
HIV…follows the pattern of the commercial economy, straddling the urban-rural divide.
(Iliffe 2006:41).
HIV was first discovered in Malawi in 1985. By 1992, HIV/AIDS had become the
leading cause of death among adults (Foster, Levine, and Williamson 2005). In 2003, the
Ministry of Health and the National AIDS Commission (NAC) estimated a national adult (ages

10 

15–49) prevalence rate to be 14.4 percent, which translated to approximately 760,000 infected
adults (NAC 2003). The number of infected children (aged 0–14) was estimated to be 70,000. An
updated United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report puts the number of individuals in
Malawi living with HIV/AIDS at 930,000 (UNICEF 2006).
Iliffe’s (2006) comprehensive book on AIDS in Africa makes explicit the link between 
the spread of HIV/AIDS and the global economy. He highlighted the emergence of HIV
“hotspots” associated with urban and commercial areas as being the epicenter of a pandemic that 
would quickly disseminate into rural areas, following the ebb and flow of economic trends.
Malawi, situated within the broader global economy, illustrates the link between AIDS,
migration, and economic shifts.
Iliffe’s (2006:33) work includes a discussion of the “remote rural Karonga District” as 
the “earliest definite indication of HIV in southern Africa and the best evidence of the silent
epidemic anywhere in the continent.” Karonga is one of my research sites. The incursion of 
AIDS into this area is documented serendipitously through a TB and leprosy campaign initiated
in 1981 and followed up in 1987–1989 that included the collection of blood samples. The
explosion of the epidemic is traced through these samples, which were retrospectively analyzed
for the virus. Of those first identified as positive, over half had recently migrated to the area from
other parts of Malawi, as well as from Zambia and Tanzania. The majority of the strain types
(HIV has several different subtypes) are tied to the southern DR Congo and mines in Katanga
and the Zambian Copperbelt. Of the 189 infected individuals discovered in 1987–1989 testing,
forty-eight were absentees who had not been in the area between 1981 and 1984, during the
initial testing phase. Thirty-nine positive individuals were new immigrants. Iliffe (2006:36–37)
states that the disease was primarily tied to mobility outside of the district, and was most

11 

common among “traders, salaried employees, casual labourers, and generally those who were not 
peasant farmers.” It was the global positioning of Malawi, the economic structure, and the 
mobility of laborers that created HIV hotspots that ultimately left no part of Malawi untouched.
Iliffe (2006:40) quotes a Malawian villager’s explanation for the spread of HIV tied to global 
capital flows via tanker driver mobility:
The wives were spreading the virus to their husbands, the unmarried women were
infecting the young men, the young men making money from smuggling were going into
Lilongwe and having sex there. People were behaving freely, and they had no idea that
anything bad could happen to them…By 1996, twelve years after the trucks first started
arriving, the death rate in the village peaked at four a week…Our neighbors from other 
villages would not come to help people who were sick…We become completely isolated.
Iliffe does say later that most infections were passed from promiscuous men to their wives.
The presence of Malawian miners in South Africa, a prominent site for HIV transmission,
is well documented. In fact, Malawians in the mines seemed hardest hit by the pandemic. By
1986, 4 percent of Malawian mineworkers in South Africa were HIV-positive, which was the
only national group from Central Africa significantly infected (Iliffe 2006:37). Malawian miners
were forcibly repatriated, although the reason why is under debate. The South African
government asserted they were a “public health risk,” but Chirwa (1998) believes the 
government was attempting to limit the number of foreign laborers for economic reasons.
Regardless of the actual motive that forced them out of South Africa, the ties to HIV/AIDS,
migration, and economics are clear.
While initially higher in cities such as Lilongwe and Blantyre, infection rates rose in rural
areas as economic decline pushed urban residents back into rural villages (Iliffe 2006). Just as
miners may have introduced AIDS upon their return, previous urban dwellers not working in
mines may have also brought the disease back with them. President Hastings Kamuzu Banda

12 

remained silent about the epidemic despite the growing visibility of the virus. In the next section
I focus on the impact of HIV/AIDS and poverty on children’s welfare.
Malawi’s Orphans
At its peak in 1998, HIV prevalence rates in Malawi registered at 26 percent (USAID
2010). Rates have steadily declined. Today the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate appears to have
leveled off at approximately
11.9 percent (UNICEF 2006
estimate), but the number of
orphans is assumed to continue
to grow as already infected
individuals succumb to the
virus. Table 2 is taken from Malawi’s 2005–2009 National Plan of Action for Orphans and Other
Vulnerable Children (NPA for OPV). As I discuss in chapter 5, an AIDS orphan is defined as
any child under the age of eighteen who has lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS.
Research throughout sub-Saharan Africa has demonstrated the devastating impact of
AIDS on all facets of life (Conroy et al. 2006; Iliffe 2006; Kalipeni et al. 2003). Education
(Kendall and O’Gara 2007), political and democratic engagement (Barnett and Whiteside 2002), 
health (Conroy and Whiteside 2006), economics (Conroy and Whiteside 2006), social and
cultural practices, and food insecurity (de Waal and Whiteside 2003) have all felt the effects of
the pandemic. A place like Malawi—already one of the poorest nations in the world with a
human development index ranking of 160 out of 182 countries—has been negatively impacted
by the virus.

13 

The NPA for OPV spells out thirteen “typical harmful effects” related to the pandemic. I 
have included these effects and added some descriptions to make clear the connections between
HIV and the harm done to families and children in table 3.

HIV/AIDS, increasing food insecurity, and inadequate access to healthcare lead to high
levels of malnutrition and stunting among the next generation. The impact of malnutrition on
cognitive development undoubtedly perpetuates the cycle of poverty. While the numbers are
slowly improving, the situation remains precarious (see table 4). According to a UNICEF survey
(2008):

14 

It is not AIDS alone that is responsible
for these “harmful” affects. 
Metaphorically, AIDS is just one
symptom of a macro-level chronic
disease with deep historic roots tied to poverty and marginalization. But it is the face of a
suffering child impacted by a devastating disease that spurs people to action. Children are
proving to be effective bodies for rallying development support.
In an effort to serve the needs of these children and tap into global AIDS resources, the
Malawian state has created policies and drafted the appropriate documents that invite NGOs to
take over social services they cannot provide. As I discuss in detail in chapter 5, Malawi
produced a seminal document in 1992 that opened the door for the mobilization, administration,
and distribution of transnational money tied solely to orphan-centered projects. With the
guidance of UNICEF, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the World Food Program (WFP),
the GoM wrote and later revised the National Plan of Action for Orphans and Other Vulnerable
Children (NPA for OVC). This policy drew primarily on the guidelines of the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and served to legalize, justify, and frame the
presence, power, and production of donor visions of orphanhood and orphan-care programming.
It is within a neoliberal milieu that compassionate individuals not necessarily trained in
humanitarianism, development, or childcare have emerged as powerful actors able to provide
resources and services.

15 

Lay or “Do-It-Yourself” Humanitarians

1

With the Poor
The one thing on which we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the
vulnerable and poor.
God is in the slums, in the cardboard box where the poor play house.
God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end
both their lives.
God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war.
God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives,
and God is with us if we are with them.
Source: 54th Annual National Prayer Breakfast speech, by Bono, Feb. 2, 2006;
also used as the e-mail signature by one of the central AIC supporters
In October 2010 the New York Times ran an article by Nicholas Kristof about idealistic
individuals tackling social injustices in the developing world. These tend to be passionate selfstarters who fall outside the traditional development apparatus. Many have no experience with
development theories or practices, but are spurred on by a desire to make a difference. We are
told the story of a young Harvard graduate student who became enraged when she discovered
girls in the developing country were unable to attend school because of a lack of access to
feminine hygiene products. She raised money and was awarded a variety of fellowships to design
a cost-effective alternative. Is this a practical and worthwhile venture? Kristof notes that it is
questionable. He states, “Anybody wrestling with poverty at home or abroad learns that good
intentions and hard work aren’t enough. Helping people is hard.” He also notes that these do-ityourselfers are often overly naïve, fail to take into account cultural mores, and are
unsophisticated in their understanding of the roots of social injustices and what it takes to redress
                                                 
1
The names of the organizations, volunteers, program coordinators, government officials, and
children have been changed when appropriate to protect the anonymity of minors and those
individuals who have elected to remain anonymous.
16 

them. Conversely, there are individuals who approach issues with a more nuanced understanding
of the local context and develop projects that fulfill their intended goals.
In Malawi, the situation of orphans has captured the attention of westerners who are
increasingly supporting do-it-yourself projects. Just as in the New York Ti mes article, some of
these generous and compassionate individuals approach the situation of orphans with a naivety
about their culture, circumstances, needs, and desires. Other compassionate groups are more
sophisticated and attentive to cultural attitudes, local realities, and systemic social justice issues.
For this reason, I have adopted a critical position, attempting to depict with detail the impact of
these projects on the lives of people in Malawi.
Throughout this dissertation I refer to both lay humanitarians (do-it-yourselfers) and
volunteer tourists. The distinction between them is blurred. In general, I refer to volunteer
tourists as those individuals who travel to Malawi to dedicate time to community/orphan service
as well as visit tourist areas. Their involvement with orphans may be limited to their one
overseas experience. Lay humanitarian refers to an individual who is dedicated to supporting
orphans for a longer period of time.
How does one go about critiquing people who have genuinely good intentions; who
sacrifice an exorbitant amount of their time, talents, finances, and heart/soul to better the lives of
others? The focus of this ethnographic account is not on the political economic motivations of a
group of capitalist neocolonizers attempting to “save” Malawi, but rather the good intentions of
people who feel called to make a difference. Some lay humanitarians are successful in listening
to local people and incorporating culturally sensitive approaches to caring for children. Others
carry with them a naive understanding of the complex and deeply historical cultural and social
milieu within which they work. In these cases, the unanticipated and negative outcomes can be

17 

profound and disturbing, especially for children who are divorced from their families and their
cultural context.
While my work is critical, I also want to point out that I believe there is potential for lay
humanitarians to make a difference that is culturally relevant and appropriately addresses issues
of social injustice. Engaging with issues of endemic poverty, human rights, suffering, and
disease is becoming more common among self-motivated and compassionate young people. In
all of my interviews with volunteer tourists, many of them college-aged students, they reported
that their experiences in Malawi changed their worldview—and sometimes even their career
paths. Indeed it was my own earlier overseas volunteer tourist experiences in the Dominican
Republic and exposure to unnecessary suffering that led me to advanced degrees in Public Health
and Anthropology. I, too, acted out of compassion and the desire to “do good.” I want to state 
clearly that I believe there is nothing wrong with compassion; it is how one acts on it. In chapter
7, I suggest that this work should not deter a spirit of volunteerism or humanitarianism, but rather
help guide compassionate people who want to make a difference to seek a sophisticated
understanding of cultural systems and macro-level forces.
O rganization of the Dissertation
In this dissertation I show how Malawian orphans are imagined and constructed within
transnational global discourses associated with lay humanitarian organizations that have
founded, funded, and implemented orphan-care projects in Malawi. I argue that the imagined
orphanhoods created by these organizations become contested by a variety of Malawian actors,
including state ministries, community groups, and children themselves, as programs and
resources get operationalized. The friction between transnational constructions and local
particularities leads to unanticipated outcomes that I explore throughout this study. I conclude

18 

that orphans and their vulnerabilities, both perceived and real, are the expression of deeper
structural dilemmas that need to be understood and addressed for sustained impact to occur.
In chapter 1 I focus on transnational organizations initiated by lay humanitarians that
target orphans in Malawi. I explore modernity and ideals of “modern” youth, which frame their 
projects, as well as the orphan narratives they produce, to encourage donor giving. I then contrast
these ideals, assumptions, and narratives with Malawian perspectives on children. I include a
brief genealogy of the place of children in southern African social systems (especially among the
Ngoni and Chewa). There is friction between western perspectives of children/orphans and
Malawian ideologies. This tension is expressed when west-inspired orphan projects are
implemented in a context that maintains a different worldview.
Chapter 2 presents my research trajectory, including a section on how I came to identify
this topic, as well as a note on the importance of contributing to the emerging field of the
anthropology of childhood. I identify my research questions; discuss how I selected my research
sites; describe my methods and sampling, participant demographics, and the background of the
organizations I studied; and end with a section on positionality, the centrality of my research
assistant to my fieldwork, and several ethical conundrums that I faced while undertaking this
work.
Chapter 3 examines the rise of humanitarian responses to crisis, including a discussion of
the emergence of non-professional or lay humanitarians wanting to help orphans in Malawi. I
explore the construction of orphan narratives and the ways in which transnational organizations
depict the situation of children and their suffering in Malawi. I describe three central
characteristics of these lay humanitarian responses, which are dependent upon and shaped by the
orphan discourses they employ and disseminate. These include: (1) the presentation of suffering

19 

to trigger a compassionate response among potential donors; (2) the generation of a discourse
and iconography that creates apolitical and acultural children living in isolation and dependent
on the benevolence of western donors; and (3) the presence of an underlying paternalism rooted
in discourses and projects framed by modernity ideology.
In chapter 4 I focus on orphanages and how they are proliferating to meet the needs of
children facing a host of vulnerabilities. I review the vulnerabilities children face and the rise of
orphanages in southern Africa. I report children’s outcomes, both positive and negative, that 
result from institutionalization. I show how being designated an orphan is becoming a valued
identity for some, and a source of vulnerability and exploitation for others. Data suggests that
these institutions address material vulnerabilities, yet that they can also lead to increased
stigmatization, struggles over belonging, and the disruption of community and family ties.
Chapter 5 examines Malawian constructions of and responses to orphans from the
perspective of the state ministries focused on child welfare. Just as with transnational NGOs,
there is deliberate maneuvering to make children labeled orphans more visible by certain
Malawian ministries and government officials, including Malawi’s president. However, the 
intentions of these different stakeholders and the modes of producing orphans are different. In
this chapter I argue that the state is attempting to turn what the NGO industry imagines to be an
apolitical response to children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS into a state-building exercise.
They accomplish this by drawing on UNICEF definitions and depictions of orphans, engaging
with children’s rights discourses, and promoting a decentralized response that requires a fully
functioning local-level government infrastructure. I show how the state’s obvious lack of 
capacity—especially in terms of resources, funds, and staffing—justifies significant expenditure

20 

of globally generated orphan-earmarked funds in order to ensure children’s rights, as well as to 
monitor and evaluate transnational organizations attempting to serve children.
Despite depictions of orphans as socially isolated, the majority of Malawi’s orphans are 
under the care and guidance of a single parent, another extended family member, or both. Very
few children actually fall through these social safety nets and end up in the streets or orphanages.
For this reason, the majority of orphan-earmarked resources are funneled to community-based
projects.
In chapter 6 I interrogate the idea of “community,” which is imagined by donors to be a 
homogenous, compassionate, socially harmonious body that functions to maintain the good of
the whole. I then describe what has been accomplished by community-based programs, such as
accessing antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) for HIV-positive children, funding orphans to attend
secondary school, and implementing feeding programs. I also describe unanticipated outcomes,
which are equally relevant and present their own forms of intelligibility. For example, there is
regular misuse of orphan resources, which increases community dissent. In addition, some
community members access these funds for their own professional development, at times at the
expense of providing for vulnerable children.
Finally, I discuss the disturbing trend of children’s involvement in witchcraft. I argue that 
the failure of the promises of modernity as mobilized through humanitarian efforts contributes to
the unequal distribution of resources creating tensions within Malawian villages. This has
resulted in increased material and spiritual insecurity, as depicted by emerging occult practices
involving all children, not just orphans. The idea of community can be interrogated through the
idiom of witchcraft, as it is often considered a gauge of social stability or instability at the village
level.

21 

Chapter 7, the conclusion, summarizes how the western construction of a particular type
of homogenous aid category leads to the implementation of programs in Malawi that are not
always compatible with local needs. I explore the notion of compassion and suggest ways of
directing the desire to ease suffering toward projects that are more appropriate and reflective of
local needs. Anthropology’s role is to guide these groups by helping them avoid the perpetuation 
of an antiquated paternalism underlying much of humanitarian and development efforts
predicated on the western assumption that “we” have to help “them” because they lack the
capacity. In this dialectic, there is no sense of partnership. In addition, anthropology can help
these groups avoid the practice many westerners have of identifying a “problem” and providing a 
“technical fix” with limited knowledge about theories of development, cultural particularities,
structural violence, and the macro- and micro-economic systems that shape poverty and illness,
which are deeply connected to the orphan crisis. Western assumptions need to be challenged, and
engaged and involved individuals desiging and implementing these projects need to think
critically. By exposing the situation that structures the lives of these children, including an
engagement with broader economic, social, and political forces, we can encourage people to
think more deeply about how we are connected to and in many ways involved with the
structuring of the livelihoods of these children. This, I hope, will move compassionate people to
think beyond a simple orphan project towards a lifelong commitment to issues of social justice,
activism, and volunteerism.

22 

C H A PT E R 1: PR O B L E M A T I Z I N G I M A G I N E D C H I L D H O O DS
I N R E L A T I O N T O A IDS, O RPH A NS, A N D A F R I C A
Most people know the classic tale of Oliver Twist written by Charles Dickens. It is the
story of an orphaned boy born in England during the early 19th century who is mistreated by the
state social welfare system. Unscrupulous individuals attempting to profit from his marginalized
status abuse Oliver. He spends the early part of his life living in deplorable conditions
characterized by abject poverty, food insecurity, poor clothing, inadequate housing, and little to
no care. As fate would have it, Oliver inadvertently takes up with a band of juvenile pickpockets
in London, thus exposing himself to potential moral corruption. He is naïve about the criminal
element that surrounds him. He is successful in avoiding becoming involved with their illicit
activities, thus maintaining his purity and goodness. Throughout the story there are several
compassionate individuals with faith in Oliver’s moral character. They take up his cause and 
ultimately provide him with a fairytale ending.
I began with this brief summary of the life of Oliver Twist because it is this character and
his life circumstances, although fictive, that the majority of western donors draw upon to imagine
what it means to be an African orphan. Volunteer tourists, donors, and even government officials
reference Oliver Twist when describing orphans in Malawi. In essence he embodies the
homogenous aid category being targeted with an increasing amount of resources by transnational
organizations. In chapter 3, I argue that organizations purposefully draw on and construct a
discourse centered on an Oliver Twist image to encourage a compassionate response from
donors. These children are imagined as isolated or abandoned victims, meaning they have no
parental figures or extended family members caring for them. They are poor, living in destitute
conditions, and are often exposed to moral corruption, including illicit sexual activities that put
them at risk for contracting HIV.

23 

Many children in Malawi do, in fact, live in poverty, and some are vulnerable to
mistreatment and exploitation. However, my work suggests that the majority of children labeled
orphans do not live in social isolation and are not abandoned as many westerners imagine. What
is at the root of the mythologized Oliver Twist-like African orphan? I argue that many
westerners when confronted with the term orphan are conceptually biased by their own cultural
constructions and assumptions of both childhood and orphanhood. The majority of lay
humanitarians is from the upper or middle class and draw upon a distinctly upper/middle-class
construction of childhood. An upper/middle-class childhood assumes a nuclear family, provides
a protected space of nurture for future economic production, and emphasizes the psychological
worth of the child (Scheper-Hughes and Sargent 1999). This is not necessarily indicative of the
social and cultural position of children in Malawian communities. I explore the discontinuity
between what these individuals imagine a modern upper/middle-class ideal childhood ought to
be and the reality of childhood in Malawi.
What those involved in orphan-care projects in Malawi imagine an ideal childhood to be
does not resonate within the west, itself. Childhood takes on various forms dependent upon one’s 
ethnicity, religious background, class, and so forth. For example, Lareau (2003) teases out the
impact of class and race on family life and childhoods in the United States in her text, “Unequal 
Childhoods.” Children from upper- and middle-class households are parented in ways that equip
them for more “successful” adult lives. For instance, parents are more invested in their childrens 
schooling and educational development. Children are often enrolled in structured activities or
placed in schools that require more adult interaction. These interations develop reasoning,
negotiation, and interpersonal skills, which are highly valued and legitimated by the various

24 

institutions they negotiate on a daily basis. She refers to this parenting as more systematic,
because parents attempt a deliberate culivation of children’s talents and skills.
In contrast, the children of working class and poor families tend toward less structured
activities and are parented in more organic ways, allowing the child’s development and their 
inherent talents to unfold naturally. These children spend less time interacting with adults and
more time involved in informal activities with their peers. As a result, they exhibit less
confidence with adult-child interactions and often demonstrate constraint within the various
institutions they must negotiate daily. For example, Lareau notes children from poor families are
less likely to make eye contact with adults, develop advanced verbal abilities, or demonstrate
familiarity with abstract concepts. She concludes that these children do not acquire the same tyes
of skills as their upper-class peers, suggesting that this has implications for the ways in which
inequality in the United States is perpetuated. There is a dominant, hegemonic ideal of childhood
premised on upper- or upper-middle-class values and cultural mores that are tied to modernity
and capitalism, albeit contested, which I explore here. Stephens (1995) argues that it is within the
production of this type of modern ideal childhood that Third World childhoods are juxtaposed
and deemed deviant.
I begin with a discussion focused on modernity discourses and ideology, seeing that this
paradigm largely encapsulates the worldview of those involved in the design, implementation,
and funding of Malawian orphan-care projects. I will describe where children fit within this
modernity paradigm. I then discuss African conceptualizations of both childhood and the
emerging orphan population as they relate to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This discussion lays a
foundation for the remainder of this dissertation as I examine the effects of the incursion of

25 

modernity discourses and the culturally incompatible western construction of modern childhood
perpetuated by most orphan-care project designers and implementers in the Malawian context.
Modernity: A B rief Review
Modernity (framed by modernization theory) has proven to be a “messy,” problematic, 
2

and ambiguous narrative. At its peak, between the 1950s and 1960s, modernity as a social
theory framed development practices, policies, and institutions (Cooper and Packard 1997).
Modernization theory is teleological, asserting that “primitive and backward” societies will 
naturally and inevitably proceed forward toward an advanced, civilized, modern form (Ferguson
1999; Moore and Sanders 2001). The archetype was imaged to be western civilization, and all
other societal forms would inevitably move toward this end. This ideal modern form is
characterized by a “package” of elements that invariably include technological advancements 
(including modern transportation and communication), democracy, nuclear families, capitalism,
urbanization, achieved as opposed to ascribed status, rationality instead of superstition,
3

individual sovereignty, and a secular worldview (Cooper 1997; Cooper and Packard 1997;
Ferguson 2006b). “Progress” is measured according to these domains (Hall 1992 as referenced in 
Gupta 1995).
An essential element of modernity ideology is the belief that the transition to the ideal
modern form, if it were to occur, needs to be dictated and guided by knowing professionals.
Western societies were the only ones who could orchestrate proper development (Comaroff and
                                                 
2
Eurocentric, linear modernity discourses are rooted in Enlightenment thinking (social
evolutionary theory) (Moore and Sanders 2001).
3
The ideal form being “secular” is only in theory. Several authors have noted that, in reality,
modernity narratives actually emerged within a strongly Judeo-Christian milieu. Comaroff and
Comaroff (1991:xii) note that “conversion to a world religion” was a central tenet of the 
Eurocentric modernity narratives.
26 

Comaroff 1991:xii). Expert knowledge was valued and generously disseminated to needy,
ignorant, and backward societies. The idea of the backward primitive society requiring the
guidance and governing of colonizers (and even early slave traders) is echoed in postcolonial
development projects and their discourses. As Rist (1997) argues, the shift from a discourse of
“colonizer”/“colonized” to “underdeveloped”/“developed” was a rhetorical ploy that legitimated 
the continued presence and power of the northern hemisphere in the post colony. Many of the
central tenets of the modernity package were in place and widely circulated within dominant
colonial discourses as a means of legitimizing colonial rule over African populations.
Another critical piece of the narrative on modernity is the assertion that change in one
domain would result in a domino effect, changing and ultimately substituting previous domains
with new ones (Cooper and Packard 1997). The expectation was that traditional “values, 
attitudes, practices, and social structures [would] break down and [would be] replaced by more
modern ones” (Martinussen 1997:56). This evolutionary transition to “developed” would take
time and patience while underdeveloped societies marched toward their rightful place at the top
of the global order (Ferguson 2006a).
4

Rostow’s “stages of growth,” now vigorously critiqued and seemingly abandoned, is
one of the most widely cited examples of this Eurocentric and patronizing modernity narrative.
Rostow believed that change in the economic domain would lead to unconditional
reconfigurations of the entire society (Rist 1997). Traditional societies would evolve through five
stages on a continuum from underdeveloped to developed. The initial stage, or “natural state of 
underdevelopment,” included societies that were deemed minimally productive (judged against a
western standard) due to a lack of modern technology. Rostow believed that these unproductive
                                                 
4
However, it could be argued that Sachs’ (2005) “End of Poverty” is eerily reminiscent of 
Rostow’s long-negated “stages of growth theory.”
27 

populations, once exposed to western technology, would gladly embrace these new forms,
because everyone innately desired to be modern. In this framework, western society holds the
expert knowledge necessary for undeveloped societies to advance toward a more modern,
civilized form. According to Rostow, advancement through these stages requires “social and 
cultural upheavals” in order to make way for modern (western) forms (Rist 1997:98). The apex 
and goal is the “age of high consumption” whereby disparate populations would merge, 
reflecting homogenous social, economic, and political systems with access to a particular level of
material wealth.
Clearly, Rostow was mistaken and modernity theories (and globalization) have not
melded local particularities into a monolithic, single global entity (Appadurai 1990). Moreover,
most African economies targeted with Rostow’s stages of growth have neglected to take off. In
fact, some are worse off today than in the 1950s and ’60s. Today modernity is understood to 
have emerged as a “deeply cultural project” not based on “universal truth.” Modernity is 
produced knowledge constructed by the dominant power structure (Moore and Sanders 2001).
With the subjective nature of modernity revealed—at least the older, Eurocentric version—it has
been largely discredited as a social theory. Yet it still creeps into development and humanitarian
5

discourse and practices.

While there is some consensus about the central tenants of modernity narratives, they
have also been critiqued. Cooper (2005) does problematize modernity, demonstrating that it is
exceedingly difficult to talk in generalizations because there are too many shades of grey and
contested definitions. Therefore, it is hard to talk about modernity as guiding development and
                                                 
5
The Rhodes Livingston Institute anthropologists are also implicated in constructing narratives
using modernity ideology (Mitchell1961; Powdermaker 1962; Schumaker 2001; Wilson 1941).
They predicted an assumed transition from “traditional” and “primitive” lifestyles to “modern” 
and “urban” ones.
28 

shaping people’s lives on a theoretical scale with any real confidence. However, like Ferguson 
(1999, 2006a) and Gupta (1995), I think it is valuable to situate modernity ideology within local
experiences, understandings, and expectations. These discourses are present and hegemonic,
which do privilege a certain way of being that marginalizes specific populations, often the poor
and minorities.
In my research, modernity discourses are common and powerful. One reason these
notions are prevalent is that many orphan projects have been developed and implemented by lay
humanitarians. These individuals are engaged in orphan projects out of a sense of compassion
and draw on their own assumptions about what progress is and the best way to go about
achieving it, which tracks along the lines of modernity ideology (see chapter 3). Some groups are
ethnocentric as they assume their own forms or ways of being are superior to others’. Bundled 
into these assumptions is the neoliberal logic that capitalism is not only the dominant global
economic system, but also the answer to alleviating poverty and inequality. The neoliberal
subject can gain access to the modern via education, hard work, and individual determination and
accountability. For example, Chad, a volunteer tourist working in an orphanage in Malawi,
explained his hopes for the children in residence. The emphasis is on individual responsibility
coupled with American financial support (the expert, if you will), access to education, and hard
work to achieve success:
[ALF] What are your hopes for these kids? Where do you see them ending up?]
Right. Well, I’ve talked to a lot with them. I say, “What do you want to do when you 
leave [the orphanage]?” And, you know, I remember one of them saying, “I want to be a 
pilot.” I always try to say, “That’s great! That’s awesome! I think that would be really 
cool. You should do whatever you can to be a pilot.” One of them wants to be a doctor, 
which is amazing. I hope that never changes in his heart because Malawi needs a doctor.
As hard as it is to become those things in Malawi I don’t think that it’s impossible, 
largely because they have sponsors that are willing to pay for them to be those things. So,
I really hope that each kid will understand that it is possible for them to be what they

29 

want to be. They’re free to dream here, whereas in other places they may not even be able
to dream because they’re so caught up in trying to survive. So I really hope that they have 
the desire to at least pursue their dreams if not obtain them, because I do think if we raise
a generation in an orphanage, speaking outside Miracles walls, that they will go on to be
better than those who were not raised inside an orphanage. I mean, if you take all these
kids that were raised in orphanages and provide them with the path to get to what they
want to be, in their pursuit of doing that they will be better for the country than those who
do not have that opportunity. So you have a population of people who has come out of
childhood educated, well fed, and prepared to be the next working class in Malawi. And
if their standards are higher than the ones below [in the surrounding villages], I see that
as a chance to climb out of poverty.
Chad makes reference to and contrasts life in the orphanage with life “below.” This 
statement reflects the physical and ontological divide that exists between the orphanage and
those who are chosen to inhabit it and the rural villages that surround the complex. The
orphanage stands out as a modern symbol that both materially and ontologically cultivates
certain expectations of modernity for the children brought into the facility. Running water, food,
electricity, clothing and Nike shoes, movie nights, Coke, soccer balls, swing sets, painting
supplies, and library books are readily
accessible to those children found within the
walls of the facility. Villagers living just thirty
feet away have a different material reality.
Ontologically, children within the orphanage
are considered privileged and seek a modern
lifestyle that emphasizes a way of being
characterized by independence (less tied to extended kinship systems), technology, selfactualization, consumption, upward economic mobility premised on hard work (achieved), and a
more urban lifestyle (figure 2). Children in villages may express some similar desires, but exist
within a different ontological and material reality (figure 3).

30 

Chad asserts that providing a quality
education and access to food and healthcare
will in some ways provide children with
better employment opportunities, as well as a
higher quality of life than that experienced
by their peers in villages. It was not
uncommon for me to hear volunteer tourists
express their views that if these children could access education then they were certain to achieve
success. Success, for them, is defined primarily in economic terms. This individual-centered
worldview negates those larger systems at work that create poverty, cyclical food insecurity, and
breakdowns in social, political, and even community support.
High rates of unemployment, limited access to both quality education and higher
education, and the common practice of employment being offered first to family members limit
the opportunities of many children in Malawi. In chapter 4, I explore in more detail the failed
expectations of modernity children face when they graduate from orphanages. Nearly all of those
I interviewed expressed a sense of disharmony as they straddled the urban and more
cosmopolitan lifestyles they desired yet were unable to achieve because they could not find
urban employment or relate to the rural villages and families from which they originally came.
In the remainder of this dissertation I employ the use of modernity much like Ferguson,
as a myth that “is not just a mistaken account but a cosmological blueprint that lays down 
fundamental categories and meanings for the organization and interpretation of experience” 
(1999:13–14). It is clear that modernization theory is “bad social science” (Ferguson 1999:14) 
and, I would argue, similar to theories of biological race. Just as the fallacy of biologically

31 

distinct racial categories has been proven, the reality of race as a lived experience shaping the
ways in which people experience, act, and conceive of their worlds cannot be denied.
Modernity—flawed, misconstrued, and Eurocentric—still works to shape individual experiences,
understandings, and expectations, and is embraced by both lay humanitarians and often the
Malawians with whom they work. In subsequent chapters I will demonstrate the presence of
elements of modernity discourses—at both the transnational and local levels—which profoundly
shape African social systems, ideologies, and subjectivities.
Since this dissertation is focused on children and childhoods, the differences and/or
similarities between western—often deemed modern—visions of childhood and the ways in
which Malawians conceptualize children need exploration. Western notions or assumptions of
childhood, similar to modernity ideology, frame the way images and grand narratives of African
children labeled orphans are interpreted. This, in turn, affects how orphan projects get designed
and implemented. As I demonstrate in chapter 3, orphan narratives used to generate donor
support can consciously and unconsciously perpetuate a vision of Malawi and orphanhood that
carries particular assumptions and reifies certain power constellations leading to unanticipated
outcomes. I now turn to a discussion of the rise of modern families and childhoods tied to
economic shifts and the dominance of global capitalism.

Modern F amilies, Modern Childhoods
Ariès (1962) argues that the contemporary modern construction of childhood as a distinct
life stage separate from adult life began in Europe as early as the 15th century and became more
ingrained during the onset of the industrial revolution. Previously, children had been perceived
as “little adults” after the infancy stage (Stephens 1995). The industrial revolution is cited as a
watershed moment that engendered this shift to a sacred childhood space in large part constituted

32 

by the codification of a gendered division of labor pivoting around the construction of the ideal
modern family (Foucault’s “Medicalization of the Family” 1980a). Mothers stayed at home and 
performed domestic duties, especially childcare, as fathers went off to work to earn a family
wage. The modern ideal family is a nuclear family. Today, the assumption that nuclear families
are the ideal and universal form of social organization for children is captured in the UNCRC,
which assumes that “biologically based relations between parents and children are more 
fundamental and natural than other sorts of family relations” (Stephens 1995:37).
In this arrangement, children were no longer identified as individuals with economic
value. Instead, they were taken out of the work force and relegated to the private, domestic, and
intimate space of the conjugal family (Ariès 1962; Christensen and Prout 2005). The period of
childhood became a time of seclusion as parents were expected to protect children and prepare
them for their futures. Ariès (1962) does note that only upper-class members of society were able
to actualize the ideal modern form of childhood because they had the financial freedom to invest
heavily in the development of their children. The children of lower- and middle-class families
worked to support themselves and their families. Zelizer (1985) reports that children were
initially highly valued industrial laborers because of their small fingers and great dexterity. She
asserts that, as economies grew, technologies flourished, requiring higher-skilled laborers. At the
same time, education became standardized and compulsory. With increasing incomes associated
with the industrial revolution and improved education, families embraced sending their children
to school instead of the factory.
Within this modern paradigm, children were recognized as developing subjects needing
strict surveillance, often by their mothers, and discipline, often by their fathers, in order to ensure
a healthy and productive future (Christensen and Prout 2005). Parents were obligated to invest

33 

heavily in the physical and psychological needs of their children, including providing material
resources, psychosocial support, healthcare, and a space for exercise and play, with the purpose
of fostering a healthy, productive adult (Foucault 1980a). What emerges is a construction of
children as immature and innocent beings valued for their future and not necessarily their present
potential (Christensen and Prout 2005). It is expected that they will grow into independent,
individual, self-reliant, and most importantly productive workers. I argue that the emphasis on
children’s imagined futures is a critical terrain wherein many development organizations map out 
their projects and ideological agendas.
Despite the modern form of childhood being unattainable for the majority of European
families during the 18th and 19th centuries, it became the ideal norm that most people sought, as
evidenced by the burgeoning of institutions geared toward children. These institutions came into
being to distinguish children from adults for the purposes of socialization, discipline, and
physical nurturing. Education, healthcare, and legal systems emerged as technologies of
governance meant to shape the ideal, modern child (Stephens 1995). Modern children are to be
protected from the productive or economic sphere and given a sacred and pure space, which is
often characterized by time for fantasy, play, and extensive parental attention (Stephens 1995).
Anthropologists and other social scientists recognize childhood as an historical and social
construction, a category not necessarily translatable across time and space (Gottleib 2004). Not
everyone subscribes to this imagined modern childhood. The ideal has been shown to be
something constructed by and for upper- and upper-middle-class western families. It was and
remains today a controlling discourse that those in less powerful positions are unable to
challenge. A reward system is established that favors those already occupying the upper rungs of
the social structure, thus reinforcing their position. Social class dynamics go relatively

34 

unchallenged within this paradigm (Lareau 2003). This constructed ideal of childhood was not
the reality for the majority of the population in the United States or Europe then, and it continues
today to be an ideal achieved only by those in positions of power with access to economic
resources.
Yet, it is easy to assume an ideal version of modern childhood despite the anthropological
evidence and conviction that childhood is wholly a cultural construct (Chin 2003; Gottleib 2004;
Stephens 1995). Today, powerful transnational organizations, such as UNICEF, define the
parameters of childhood, laying out universal rights and freedoms that should be protected
premised on a biological age and a nuclear family. I will problematize the hegemonic western
definition of childhood—embraced by many of the lay humanitarians I encountered—that is
assumed to be normative and ideal, leading to its unchallenged exportation to Malawi and other
non-western countries. I do this throughout the dissertation via ethnographic examples of the
friction that arises when local practices of childraising and constructions of the social value of
children collide with the hegemony of western constructions of childhood and the ideal child.
Transnational ideology tends to be inconsistent with local realities, constructions, and
values that shape lived experiences and worldviews of children in southern Africa. Reynold’s 
(1989) work in South Africa speaks to these differences. She draws on western childhood
assessment tools to try and capture Xhosa children’s cognitive development, including 
understandings of kinship and personhood. These tools or cognitive tests proved to be utterly
inadequate for understanding Xhosa children’s understandings of kinship relations. She notes 
that this is due to such factors as the fluidity of persons living within homes, the nuclear family
not being the primary social structure within which children are embedded, and the practice of
children referring to individuals with kin terms premised on their desired social relationship and

35 

not necessarily their biological connection. Children in South Africa are socialized into broader
family structures from an early age, which is not comparable to the hegemonic upper- or uppermiddle-class nuclear family assumed by many westerners to be the ideal and norm.
Broadly speaking, Malawian constructions of childhood value the “social personhood” of 
a collectively imagined child. I am reminded of the African word ubuntu—“a person is a person 
through other people” (Farber 2003). Traditional responses to orphaned children reflect the
sociality and cohesiveness of the African social context. These systems are being challenged by
increasing poverty, global capitalism, and rising AIDS rates (Ghosh and Kalipeni 2003), which is
an issue I examine in chapter 6. I will argue that children are being maintained within extended
family structures, but there are signs that point to resentment, suspicion, and anxiety (see also
Peters, Kambewa, and Walker 2008). Subsequently I trace the historical place of children among
the Ngoni and Chewa, the ethnic groups I studied, to create a point of reference for
understanding the contemporary context. I then discuss the impact of HIV on these social
systems. The purpose is to demonstrate that children in these contexts are often thought of and
related to in ways that are unique to their cultural context and not necessarily reflective of the
western, hegemonic ideals of childhood many westerners bring with them to Malawi.
B rief Genealogy: C hildren among the Ngoni and C hewa
The UN definition of an orphan includes anyone under the age of eighteen who has lost
one or both parents through death. This definition is based on the western assumption of the
centrality and importance of the biological conjugal family (Chirwa 2002). As will be discussed
in chapter 5, the Malawian government and many other organizations have adopted this
definition for strategic reasons, especially in their efforts to access the abundance of financial
and material resources earmarked only for orphans. In reality, southern African social systems

36 

conceptualize family as extending well beyond biological parents, and the adopted UN definition
obscures what it means to be an orphan in Malawi.
The following literature review highlights the centrality of children within broader social
6

networks. I articulate these differences in meaning and constructions of personhood because
transnational projects are often premised on western assumptions of orphans. Malawian children
face different circumstances and vulnerabilities than those imagined by the majority of western
donors and lay humanitarians. Here I present a brief genealogy that explores two different
Malawian ethnic groups and their kinship systems to better understand the place of children
within these societies. I also include a discussion of the impact of AIDS on these systems. Are
they changing to reflect western modern constructions or are they proving resilient in their
complexity and depth? Or is some combination emerging?
Read (1959) provides an extensive description of how children are raised in Ngoni
society. The Ngoni are both matrilineal and patrilineal (Brantley 1997), although Read (1959)
argues that they were primarily patrilineal during the time of her 1939 Nyasaland nutrition
7

survey. Patrilineal groups trace descent through the male line. Women marry into men’s 
villages, and the offspring they produce belong to the male’s side of the family. “Ngoni children 
                                                 
6
There is an obvious lack of ethnographic data focused on children in southern Africa. For this
reason I have included ethnographies that move beyond the Chewa. Read’s work is pertinent 
because she discusses the Ngoni who have ties to my field site in Dowa District. In fact, there are
several respondents in my sample who identify Ngoni ancestry. In addition, the Ngoni are
patrilineal and share similar ideas of kinship with the Nkhonde and Tumbuka. The Nkhonde and
Tumbuka are prominent in my northern research site. I also briefly reference works done on the
Zambian Copperbelt by Rhodes Livingston Institute anthropologists.
7
Brantley (1997) closely examined Read’s data and concluded that it was not uncommon for 
Ngoni men to marry Chewa women. This is referred to as a chitengwa marriage. In this
arrangement women lived in their husbands villages and men took on the responsibility of the
matrilineage. Today, marriage that crosses lineage types is common, leading to even more
complicated systems of care and responsibility concerning orphaned children, which I describe
later.
37 

were indeed the children of their fathers from the time of their birth onwards” (Read 1959:63). If 
a woman dies or is divorced the children remain in the care of their father and his relatives (Read
1959:63). Often co-wives, paternal grandmothers, nurse girls, and older sisters will become
responsible for these children.
Woven throughout this ethnography is a constant reference to those who care for and are
responsible for children in influential ways. Read’s descriptions of Ngoni rituals involving 
children focused on birthing, weaning, naming, teething, and puberty and demonstrate the child’s 
complex web of social relations. Different community and family members play important roles
in socializing and caring for children, thus creating bonds that situate children beyond the
borders of their biological family. According to Read (1959:71) the Ngoni believed, “A child
belongs to the village. They can all cherish him and correct him.”
Read maintains that during the colonial period, which included a proliferation of
missionary activities, the Ngoni were even more deliberate in their socialization of children as a
means of maintaining culture amidst rapid social, economic, political, and religious change. She
reports:
Ngoni pride of race, and a consciousness that they had a culture worth preserving,
inspired them to put up a fight against all that threatened the values inherent in their way
of living…In order to safeguard their society and maintain their culture they exercised a 
fairly rigid social control over the upbringing of their children (1959:27–28, 30).
I argue later that, although Malawi continues to undergo rapid change associated with
global processes, such as capitalism and the spread of disease, the extended family systems
remain resilient and able to incorporate children who lose one or both biological parents.
Looking beyond the rearing of children, Read (1959) also attempts to capture the Ngoni
system of values. She posits that central to Ngoni values is “keeping together,” stating “The
focus of much of their thinking was on maintaining cohesion” (1959:152). This value is clearly

38 

depicted in one of the Ngoni creation stories, The Story of Heva. It is said that Ngoni herds
became smaller because of the separation between two brothers, Heva and Malusi. Heva was
protecting the sun with his mother, Golela. Malusi was supposed to be looking after the cattle.
Instead, Malusi was “disturbing the cattle.” Golela became upset and cast away Malusi. She did 
allow her son to take whatever cattle he wanted, which significantly reduced the herd. It is said
that Heva’s descendants have suffered from poor cattle herds ever since. This story was told to
Ngoni children as “a warning against quarrels between brothers” and to illustrate the negative 
impact of family fissures on society as a whole (Read 1959:39).
This extensive investment in the lives of children and diligence in socializing offspring,
along with the centrality of group cohesion within their value system, factor into the absence of
truly abandoned children. It is not surprising that Read makes virtually no mention of orphans.
The only explicit reference she makes is to mention that if a child loses his/her mother during
childbirth the paternal grandmother, nursemaid, or father will suckle the child using cow’s milk 
(1959:59).
The Chewa, descendents of the Maravi, are matrilineal and matrilocal and maintain a
very different system of responsibilities concerning their children (Tew 1950). Specifically,
“guardianship of the child is vested in the father until its initiation, when it passes to the maternal 
uncle” (Tew 1950:47). If a child’s mother dies then the uncle, not the father, will assume 
8

responsibility. This is because siblings of the biological parents are considered “junior” parents 
(Chirwa 2002). In contrast to western constructions of family that situate children under the
supervision of their biological parents, Chewa children have multiple sets of parents and are
                                                 
8
Chirwa (2002) and Peters, Kambewa, and Walker (2007) note that who takes on the
responsibility of children is highly variable according to age of the orphans, their gender, and the
material conditions of their relatives. Younger orphans often stay under the supervision of their
older siblings.
39 

connected through a complex network of kinship structures determined by blood relations
(Chirwa 2002; Peters, Kambewa, and Walker 2008). This means that children move deliberately
through these systems if parents pass away. They go first to their maternal uncle, and if he passes
away then custody of the children goes to their deceased mother’s other brothers and then on to 
the mother’s other sons (Hodgson 1933). In cases of divorce, the women always maintain
custody of the children.
Yet fathers remain vitally important in the lives of their children (Peters, Kambewa, and
Walker 2008). For example, the Chewa believe in mdula, or misfortune, which can translate into
illness. Several recognized causes revolve around the care of children (Hodgson 1933). For
example, if a father “fails to achieve connection after [an unweaned child’s birth]” or commits 
adultery while the child is in the house, he can be expected to face misfortune (Hodgson
1933:129). If wives/mothers pass away, then men often play a central role in the lives of their
children (Peters, Kambewa, and Walker 2008). I draw attention to these beliefs to emphasize the
importance of the entire kinship structure, both paternal and maternal, in caring for children.
These descriptions highlight the place of children both within and beyond the biological
family. Malawian children are positioned within the broader social context, even when orphaned.
According to Chirwa (2002:98), a popular Chichewa proverb highlights the ways in which
fostering can benefit both the child who is orphaned and the family that decides to take the child
into their home:
Mwana wa mnzako ndi wako yemwe
Ukuchenjera manja udzadya naye.
Your friend’s child is your own child
If you are flexible (or fast) with your hands
You will benefit from him/her.

40 

This proverb also draws attention to another difference between the ways in which
westerners and Malawians imagine childhood. The modern child envisioned by most westerners
is considered sacred or “economically worthless, emotionally priceless” (Stephens 1995). In 
Malawi and on rural farms in the United States, especially among poor families, there is no
sacred childhood space. Children in most parts of the world tend to be workers who produce for
their families either in the domestic sphere or by engaging in other forms of labor outside the
home (Abebe 2010; Lancy 2008; Reynolds 1991). This economic value of children may also be a
contributing factor in the near-wholesale incorporation of children into extended family systems.
One of my research participants, Mery Jackison, is a widow taking care of seven children—two
are nephews from her deceased elder sister. She
explained that initially it was difficult to feed all of
the children, but as they have aged they have been
9

able to engage in ganyu labor so the older children
are now able to contribute to the household food
supply (see figure 4). As a result, she notes that their
food insecurity has decreased, although her house
would still be considered food insecure, with family members eating one meal per day during the
rainy/hunger season.
The extended family system has proven resilient despite overt attempts to “civilize” 
Africans into adopting the western, modern, nuclear family social structure beginning with
colonization. Early colonial writings produced by Rhodes Livingston Institute anthropologists
hypothesized that Zambian migration and urbanization associated with mining in the Copperbelt
                                                 
9
Ganyu labor refers to “short duration casual labour contracts for unskilled work paid in cash or 
kind...involving exchange labor of neighbors or relatives” (Bryceson 2006:187).
41 

would lead to the adoption of nuclear family structures and movement away from family life
characterized by extended kinship systems (Mitchell 1961; Powdermaker 1962; Wilson 1942;
Wilson and Wilson 1968). These anthropologists were guilty of perpetuating modernity myths.
Modernity theory assumes that a change in one aspect of societal organization will
automatically bring about a progressive shift in other aspects. It was assumed on the Copperbelt
that colonial politics, Christianity, western education, urbanization related to mining, and the
adoption of an industrial capitalism would lead to changes in Zambian social structure. Miners
would move to the Copperbelt with their womenfolk and become more Europeanized, which
included a “shift in family life, with ‘traditional,’ ‘extended’ families giving way to ‘modern,’ 
‘nuclear’ ones” and ultimately the abandoning of rural ties (Ferguson 1999:170). Ferguson 
(1999) notes that colonial officials reflected this assumption in their implementation of housing,
welfare, pension, and property ownership policies based on the adoption and preference for
nuclear, conjugal families. Ultimately, these anthropologists discovered, much to their surprise,
that despite colonial and religious pressure to adopt a nuclear family form, most Zambians
maintained complex extended familial relations. Ohadike’s (1981) historical review of 
households on the Copperbelt between 1968 and 1969 found that urban households actually had
greater numbers of inhabitants who represented a more diverse set of kinship ties than rural
households.
The nuclearization of families never became the dominant social structure on the
Zambian Copperbelt.

10

The same can be said about family structures in Malawi. In my research,

I note that patrilineal and matrilineal intermarriage is common. As a result, those families with a
                                                 
10
However, Ferguson (1999) reports a variety of tensions within extended family systems that
are tied to migration, modernity, and capital accumulation. I highlight these tensions here
because in chapter 6 I argue that they are evident in Malawian villages and may be indicating a
shifting of Malawian ideas of sociality.
42 

certain amount of financial stability or who are geographically situated to provide better access
to education, jobs, and/or healthcare tend toward a more diverse mix of relatives living in the
same home. For example, one of my research respondents who is a faculty member at the
University of Malawi’s Chancellor College explained the complicated makeup of her household 
in the following way (taken from my field notes):
The respondent is of Lomwe descent from the southern region of Malawi, which
traditionally practices matrilineality/matrilocality. Her husband is Ngoni from the central
region of Malawi. As previously discussed, the Ngoni tend toward
patrilineality/patrilocality. She said they tend to follow the patrilineal descent practices,
as illustrated by her choosing to go and live with him and “his side.”
TIMELINE:
1991 ~ Respondent’s husband’s brother passes away. The family had paid a dowry so the 
children belonged on the husband’s side. The wife (who later passed away in 1993) came
to live with them. She brought nine children. Today there are three children remaining in
the respondent’s custody. The other children have moved out to marry or work.
1992 ~ Respondent’s sister’s husband passes away. Respondent’s sister is unable to 
provide enough resources to her children. Respondent takes in her sister and her sister’s 
four children.
1996 ~ Respondent’s husband’s sister and her husband divorce. The husband is Lomwe, 
which the respondent explains is the reason he has very little responsibility for his
children. He provides no resources or support. Later that year, her husband’s sister passes 
away, leaving five children. One of the five is currently living with the respondent. In
addition, the respondent is taking care of one grandchild belonging to one of the five
children. She is taking care of this child because she wanted to send the child’s mother to 
school.
2000 ~ Respondent’s uncle, on her mother’s side, and his wife pass away, leaving 
another five children. Three of them are living with the respondent. At this time, the
respondent hired a girl to help care for all of the children. She has grown fond of this
child and is now “taking care of her as if she were my own.”
The respondent also explained that other family members come and go, but these are the
ones that have stayed in her home on a more permanent basis.
This respondent’s experience is not unique. The increased movement of people, rapid 
urbanization trends, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic has impacted families and kinship systems. I

43 

observed that these changes reflect a resiliency as families continue to rely on their extended kin
for a multiplicity of reasons, in both urban and rural areas. That being said, my data suggests a
shifting or reconfiguring of these social systems. Nuclearization may be happening on a small
scale, even though it is not yet the norm.
In this dissertation, I demostrate how a variety of actors, including the Malawian state,
lay humanitarians, and volunteer tourists, are presenting orphanhood in Malawi as a particularly
precarious form of childhood—one based on innocence lost and suffering that ought to be
addressed by those with the power, knowledge, and resources to make a difference. Orphan
iconography and discourses emphasize aloneness and despair that need to be met via western
donor involvement (see chapter 3 for an in-depth discussion of orphan iconography). Orphans, in
the minds of donors and westerners, are left to fend for themselves (see figure 5). Ruddick
explains:
This is the tight-shot close-up photograph of a single child—usually (apparently) not
older than ten or eleven looking, wide-eyed, directly into the camera… This “Child” 
comes to stand as the universal child of developing nations, disconnected from context,
with few clues as to his or her culture or background. To the extent it is included, context
simply signifies excessive and incessant labour and/or poverty. What I am asked to
consider is this person’s aloneness—his/her absolute dependence on me as a funder,
political supporter, volunteer for his/her welfare. Support mechanisms—kinship
structures, village context—are absent. This absence intrigues me: it makes invisible a
context that might be disrupted by my intervention, and it allows me to fill the emptied
space with fantasies of my own idealized interpretation of childhood. Moreover, it is
precisely this context in which I am asked to collude—the construction of buildings
around the child are imagined structures of the modern world (2003:342).

44 

When context is included, as suggested by Ruddick’s research, it tends toward depictions 
that suggest deviance, because they explicitly challenge the western, upper- or upper-middleclass ideal, sacred space of childhood. Children are imagined as laborers, both domestic and
commercial, or are criminalized as street children engaged in illicit activities. Or, children are
thought of as starving and/or suffering physical abuse. We are encouraged to chose between two
tropes—the upper-class ideal, happy, carefree, western version of childhood or a dark, deviant,
third-world childhood characterized by suffering and solitude. Stephens explains why this is
significant: “…within the provisionally structured coherence of high modernity, the ‘deviant 
childhoods’ of third world children could be interpreted as local particularities and instances of
backwardness and underdevelopment, thus justifying expanding efforts to export modern
childhood around the world” (1995:19).
There is seldom, if ever, mention of orphaned children in historical writings on Malawi,
because the idea of a socially isolated child left to fend for him- or herself is rare. Yet in the most
extreme circumstances, such as Vaughn’s (1987) work that discussed the Malawian famine of 
1949, there are accounts of children being abandoned and walking the streets as they begged for
food. Vaughn (1987:36) says that oral histories suggest this only occurred under the direst of
conditions, and even then Malawians recognized it as “definitely abnormal.” This is the only
account I could find that suggested children in Malawi could face abandonment. This raises the
question—is HIV proving to be just such a cataclysmic disease that it is resulting in the
proliferation of truly abandoned and socially isolated children?

H I V/AIDS: Producing “Orphans”
Madonna says in her documentary, “I Am Because We Are,” that there are a million 
orphans who are living in the streets and under bridges or are abducted and trafficked as a result

45 

of AIDS. In my own experience, as I regularly drove through and walked along the streets of
Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi, it was not uncommon for children to beg for money, food,
or other forms of assistance. When traffic would get backed up at congested intersections, there
were usually children pushing disabled people in wheelchairs or walking alongside blind people
as they tapped on car windows and held their hands out asking for donations. Are these the AIDS
orphans Madonna is referring to? Are these the isolated, homeless, hungry, AIDS-affected, and
parentless children embodied in Madonna’s and others grand narratives of orphanhood?
In an effort to understand this population, I conducted interviews with Sister Rita, the
director of Tikondane, a Catholic charity that “Rescues and rehabilitates” street children. In 
addition, I interviewed several street children who were residing at another Rescue home, Safe
Haven, meant to be a temporary shelter. I should note that, while I ran across some of these
children walking the streets, their numbers were not staggering. There certainly were not a
million of these children inhabiting the streets of Lilongwe, Blantyre, and Mzuzu (the major
metropolitan areas).
Sister Rita established Tikondane in 1998 to reunite street children with their extended
family members. She explained that nearly all of the street children she had come across had
families in rural areas, but were living in the streets for a host of reasons. Some children ran
away from home because of familial conflict. Some were migrating as laborers and found
themselves unemployed and then unwilling or unable to return to home villages. Others
expressed preference for street life over village life. Some children had been accused of
witchcraft and were cast out of villages. Some faced abuse by stepparents. She believed that
most children could either be placed back in their homes or they could be placed with alternative

46 

family members. Her experiences and successes in reuniting street children with their kin prove
that this is the case for the majority of these children.
In our interview, she said that they had placed approximately five hundred children with
extended family members. Thirty-three of the five hundred children were sent to boarding
schools because their home life was in some way inadequate in meeting their needs. She gave
examples of children who came from food-insecure homes or homes where there were signs of
abuse. She explained that these children were still able to maintain ties with their extended
family members even though they were not living with them. All but two of these thirty-three
children went home during the school breaks to visit their families. Tikondane hired and trained
social workers to monitor and evaluate them to ensure that their basic material needs were being
met. In addition, if there was concern about abuse then the children would stay at Tikondane’s 
facility in Lilongwe. At the time of this interview there were only two children unable to stay
with their extended family members either permanently or when on break from school.
The few street children I interviewed have extended family members still active in their
lives. Sherman, a sixteen-year-old boy who had been living on the streets since he was fourteen,
not only has family but visits them regularly. He has two brothers and three sisters living in Area
25, which is a neighborhood within the Lilongwe city limits. His mother died; his father is still
alive and working as a driver. His grandmother lives in Chisapo. In addition to these family
members, he also has an uncle living in South Africa who is working as a mechanic. Sherman
said he still stays in contact with his uncle, although the last time he saw him was in 2003. When
I asked why he lived in the streets he could not give a straightforward answer. He said he did not
remember why he left home. Later he said he was in the streets to beg for food.

47 

Amari, another resident of Safe Haven, is thirteen years old and had been living on the
streets for three years. He has siblings, and his mother is still alive. She comes to visit him from
time to time, but he complains that she primarily begs him for money. He says he is at Safe
Haven because they assist him with his education. When he was reliant on his mother he was
unable to go to school because she could not afford school fees, the required uniform, and other
education materials. He is not alone. Many children are either giving up or in some way
diminishing their ties to poor families in an effort to tap into orphan-earmarked resources and the
promises of modernity that are often prevalent in west-funded projects (see chapter 4). He did
complain about the organization and its founder. He felt that a lot of the resources being raised
were lining the pockets of the main administrator and his family. This criticism was echoed by
all of the boys in Safe Haven that I interviewed. It is an issue I take up in chapter 6. I draw on
these ethnographic examples to demonstrate the complexity that lies behind the orphan label and
ultimately addresses the question: What constitutes an orphan from the Malawian perspective?
Chirwa attempts to answer this question in one of the few articles that explores what
orphanhood means in the Malawi context and as a result of HIV. He provides a more concise
definition of the term orphan, one reiterated by various research respondents throughout the
course of my fieldwork:
In most Malawian languages the terms used to define an orphan and orphanhood include
loss of parents; the rupture of social bonds; lack of family support; the process and
situation of deprivation and want; and the lack of money or means of livelihood. Some of
these are, in indeed, the effects of orphanhood. However, the Malawian equivalents of
orphanhood treat these as integral parts of the totality of the process of orphanhood
(Chirwa 2002:96).
He goes on to say that orphanhood “is a social category or/and status, as well as a 
material condition for those who have lost their parents. It is both a process and a situational
or/and structural condition. It can be heightened and highlighted, or suppressed, depending on

48 

the material and social conditions of those who experience it at any particular time” (Chirwa 
2002:97).
Chirwa’s discussion of what it means to be an orphan highlights that a myopic focus on 
the loss of a single parent masks the myriad ways Malawians think about orphanhood and the
ways they care for children (see also Peters, Walker, and Kambewa 2008). It assumes the
vulnerability and risk of a broadly defined segment of the population that does not necessarily
capture what is happening in villages. Among the Chewa in rural areas around Zomba District,
Peters, Walker, and Kambewa point out that the death of a single parent does not necessarily
indicate increased vulnerability in relation to other children in the village:
The fairly high rate of divorce and remarriage and the common pattern of children living
with grandmothers or mother’s sisters for all to part of their lives all indicate the 
problems of placing too great an emphasis on the death of one parent, especially a father,
as constituting the negative state—“orphan” (2008:36).
Adoption of western notions of orphanhood and family opens the door to the penetration
of transnational organizations into the private, personal lives of many Malawian families and
communities. Just as in the past, children in Malawi today are connected to family through
broad, extended family networks. These networks generally ensure that those who lose parents or
whose parents are unable to care for them do not end up having to fend for themselves (Peters,
Kambewa, and Walker 2008).
These systems are adaptive, and new strategies to care for orphaned children are
emerging (Chirwa 2002). For example, some children choose to stay in their homes, usually
under the care of the eldest sibling, to protect property rights and maintain the cohesion of the
family instead of splitting up siblings between different homes (Chirwa 2002; Ghosh and
Kalipeni 2003). Community members, often relatives, oversee these child-headed households to

49 

ensure their wellbeing. In other scenarios, children migrate between households, staying for
varying lengths of time (Ansell and van Blerk 2004).
In my study, Wilson, a sixteen-year-old paternal orphan decided to live with a teacher in
the military barracks adjacent to his natal village. In exchange for school fees, food, and clothing
the boy provided companionship and domestic duties to an unrelated man who had not married
and had no children. Moreover, there is electricity in the military barracks, which Wilson said
afforded him the opportunity to study in the evening. Prior to making this arrangement, Wilson
was unable to attend school regularly because of a lack of clothes and shoes. Wilson said he was
thankful for the opportunity and also appreciated the guidance he received from the teacher,
which he felt replaced the guidance he was missing after his father’s death. Other studies have 
affirmed that migration can serve children’s own needs, such as moving to urban areas or 
locations that have better access to education (Ansell and Van Blerk 2004). My research
confirms that extended family members quickly absorb children into social systems, providing a
setting not unlike that of their circumstances prior to the death of their parents (Meintjes and
Giese 2006).
Children who have lost a parent are not isolated and are not conceptualized as
disconnected (Peters, Walker, and Kambewa 2008). Meintjes and Giese writing on South Africa
(2006) demonstrate that many children labeled orphans are still living with mothers and may not
experience life in dramatically different ways than when they were living with both parents. The
same is true in Malawi where just under half of the estimated orphan population is categorized as
“paternal” orphans. In Zomba District, Peters, Walker, and Kambewa (2008) demonstrate that
many children never live with both parents because of high rates of divorce and migration. In my
research, one guardian, Gloria, said that her six children were actually better off after the loss of

50 

her husband. She said, “…now it is better because when my husband was alive I was struggling 
to assist the family all by myself. My husband, who was a drunk, would use up the money I had
made doing piecework.”
In my own work, there were no cases of orphan-headed households in Dowa District. In
the northern region, there were three cases—but all were either located on the same compound as
extended family members or within close proximity. Peters, Walker, and Kambewa (2008) found
that in their research in Zomba District, Malawi, no orphaned children were completely
disconnected from familial systems. The same was true in a large retrospective study conducted
in Karonga, one of the sites of my research (Floyd et al. 2007). Floyd et al. (2007) followed a
sample of 487 children with HIV-positive parents between 1998 and 2000. None of these
children became part of orphan-headed households.
Data emerging from studies conducted in both northern (Floyd et al. 2007) and southern
Malawi (Doctor 2004) further demonstrates the resilience of extended family systems in caring
for orphans. In both cases there was no significant difference between non-orphans and orphans
in terms of school enrollment. In a study conducted in the southern region, there was no
significant nutritional difference between orphans and non-orphans (Panpanich et al. 1999).
However, I should note that just as these studies are emerging, there are others that
contradict these findings, pointing to social system fissures and a variety of increased
vulnerabilities premised on an orphan status (Bicego, Rutstein, and Johnson 2003; Oleke et al.
2006). This contradiction will be resolved over time; however, data from this study supports the
former assertion that extended family systems are under pressure, but are not buckling. Poverty
impacts all children, but there is the potential for orphans to be impacted in differential ways.

51 

AIDS is also considered a factor, as one respondent, Eunice, a seventy-three-year-old
grandmother taking care of a granddaughter, explained:
These days, because of HIV/AIDS, children are losing both parents, which is painful. For
example, in our family there are fourteen orphans from my late sisters and they have also
lost their fathers. Some of the children are with me, some are with other relatives in
Lilongwe, and the elder ones are off working. In the past, orphans had a lot of food, but
they were lacking school fees. Nowadays, food is scarce because things are expensive
and the orphans are not being kept properly as they should be. For the school fees, the
organizations are supposed to be paying those, but the organizations which are supposed
to be working in this area are only benefiting themselves.
Eunice highlights two factors that she believes are stretching extended family systems:
AIDS and poverty. Nevertheless, it is significant that none of these children are actually
abandoned. She demonstrates the versatility of these systems and the ways in which the children
have migrated to different households within the extended family. A grandmother taking care of
orphans in the same village echoed similar sentiments. Janet Kasauka, fifty-eight years old, who
is caring for four orphans stated:
Nowadays it is difficult to take care of orphans because things are now expensive and
children are demanding expensive things like fashionable clothes and shoes, especially
girls. In the past, orphanhood was not common like it is today. Then it was being
orphaned, but by a single parent. These days it is both parents dying, which is painful. In
the past there were no organizations to help orphans like there are today. Although there
are organizations, in this village we can say there are no organizations because DOS
committee members are just benefiting themselves.
Many interviewees said that the difference today was the presence of orphan-care
organizations, although many people complained about their non-distribution of resources, an
issue examined in chapter 6.
Nonetheless, many Malawians are now ascribing to the UN orphan definition, broadly
speaking, a notion of orphanhood as consisting of a child who has lost one or both parents. This
notion is different from older ideas involving the socially excluded, uncared for, and abandoned
child. One possible explanation for this ideological shift is the power and material resources

52 

associated with the term orphan, which discursively frames a population and constructs a discrete
demographic targeted for aid. It pays, literally, to claim orphanhood.
Charity, the mother of one of the orphans in my sample from Dowa District, again
mentions the impact of AIDS and poverty on the changing experiences of children. In addition,
she touches on the issue of discrimination. There is some question as to whether or not
discrimination against orphans occurred in the past, and to what extent it is actually occurring
today. Peters, Walker, and Kambewa (2008) found few, if any, reported cases of discrimination
against orphans in Zomba District. In those cases that are reported, it is difficult to know if the
discrimination is a result of the explicit loss of parents, the implicit stigma associated with AIDS,
the drain these children are on already stretched and poor extended family members, or the
financial/material privileging of a particular group in a context defined by endemic poverty. It is
most likely a combination of all of these factors. Charity explains:
In the past people were keeping orphans without any problems because things were
cheaper than nowadays. Those days there was a lot of food than these days as you know
that even nowadays the rains is not coming the way it was in the past. In the past there
were not a lot of diseases which are now common like HIV/AIDS that they kill both
parents within a short period of time. Because the disease kills both parents most of the
orphans are being mistreated by other people. In the past children were orphans through
single parent for a long time. Nowadays things are a little bit better because there are
different organizations, which help orphans than in the past. But for our organization in
the village is very unfortunate that they are not helping orphans but they benefit
themselves. Had it been that the organization in this village is good I would not have any
problem because people have written down names but nobody received things in my
family. What I see is that people are using our names to have things from donors and
using it as personal things
Chrissie Sefasi, the mother of one of the orphans in my sample, explained that traditional
systems are present, but are changing, which she implies is tied to poverty. Her statement
suggests that poverty is driving most of the vulnerabilities children face, especially when it
comes to discrimination. She does not suggest a total collapse of the extended family system, but

53 

rather highlights an obvious strain tied to the incursion of global capitalist systems and related
ideologies (see introduction and chapter 6):
In the past… things were cheaper. People were planting maize without fertilizer, but they 
were harvesting a lot of maize, so it was not hard to take care of orphans like it is
nowadays. In the past, there was no discrimination, but nowadays people are giving all
the orphans to one person. Like in my case, my children have their relatives from the
male side, but they have left all the children with me. They don’t want to take care of 
orphans. In the past, people were discussing in their family and giving one child to one
relative to make things simple for the caretaker. These days fertilizer is expensive, and I
cannot afford to buy it. Nowadays there are organizations in the villages, but it seems like
they only benefit themselves and not orphans.
Peters, Walker, and Kambewa (2008) also found that some orphans ended up with
relatives as a “social default,” meaning nobody else was willing to step in and claim 
responsibility. This touches on the issue of social cohesion in villages discussed in chapter 6. I
argue that the romanticized notion many lay humanitarians have of community in southern
Africa is masking profound changes and a turning inward of family systems, even if they are
proving resilient in terms of absorbing children.
Chrissie suggests that discrimination is a result of poverty, and not necessarily explicitly
tied to AIDS. The point here is that the majority of children in Malawi are not completely falling
through social safety nets in the ways Vaughan (1987) discussed as happening during the famine
of 1949. Instead, they continue to be absorbed into a host of different familial arrangements,
arrangements that are under economic and social strain. There is friction between western ideas
of orphans and local Malawian perspectives. The national early childhood development (ECD)
director, in the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD), explained it to me as
follows:

54 

I think we can’t deny that there is a stigma surrounding that word [orphan/ ana
11
amasiye ]. If communities they are using it, they are using it because of donor support
that people are looking for—but when you just take the literal translation of mwana
amasiye it’s a child who has been left alone and needs to be cared for. But when you take
it in a technical sense, in a traditional sense, there is no child who has been left alone;
there is always a community around. That is why for us we devised this program,
community-based childcare, and encouraged the communities to use that for their
projects, community-based childcare, that and the like. We have a number of guidelines
to that CBCC (community-based childcare center). Instead of saying “orphan care and 
the like” because CBCC is inclusive. This pressure that is coming from outside is keeping
people going back to the word.
Throughout this dissertation I explore the friction that arises as western imagined and
assumed ideas of modernity and orphanhood meet Malawian understandings and experiences.
Conclusion
This discussion is meant to highlight the disjuncture between a west-inspired,
homogenous aid category, which assumes one million children in Malawi are facing separation,
isolation, and social deprivation (Meintjes and Giese 2006; Peters, Walker, and Kambewa 2008).
I argue that this singular focus on children who are targeted with substantial amounts of
resources in an impoverished context is engendering new social and cultural configurations that
may prove detrimental to children.
Meintjes and Giese (2006:411) argue that the definition of orphan “frames the focus of 
children’s experiences on the basis of dead as opposed to living parents.” These children are then 
constructed and (mis)represented within an orphan discourse that refers to a mythologized Africa
as diseased and producing a vast population of children who collectively experience alienation,
stigmatization, isolation, physical and emotional abuse, psychosocial distress, and potential
vagrancy, all leading to societal disorder and decay as I discuss more fully in subsequent
chapters. Meintjes and Giese argue, “If it is a decisive rhetorical strategy to bring attention to a 
                                                 
11
Ana amasiye in the Chewa language is used to describe “children who have been left behind” 
(Peters, Kambewa, and Walker 2007:31).
55 

desperate situation, we are troubled by the inflammation of the orphan mythology, for in longer
terms this is a powerful and counterproductive form of othering…[that is] exacerbating
misunderstandings of the actual circumstances of children’s care” (411–412). It also obscures the
needs and problems facing innumerable Malawians dealing with poverty, disease, and hunger as
alluded to by Chrissie in the earlier quote. Whether a rhetorical strategy or not, the emergence of
orphans has led to the injection of a considerable amount of resources into Malawian
communities.
Orphans are being produced and westerners, especially lay humanitarians, are
responding. Their programs are often premised on the production and perpetuation of grand
orphan narratives framed within a modernity paradigm that imagines an Oliver Twist-like child.
In the remainder of this dissertation I examine in detail the process of producing orphan
narratives/discourses, program development, and the outcomes that result from these activities.
Transnational discourses about orphans are effective at generating money and resources,
as well as structuring the orphan-care projects that are implemented. Plans are made, projects are
put into action, and Malawian communities feel the effects. Ferguson (1994) writes that, whether
intentional or not, there is an intelligibility to the outcomes of such projects. I explore the
intelligibility connected to orphan projects by examining the places where transnational
discourses and projects meet Malawian cultural particularities. I discuss some of the outcomes,
planned and unplanned, associated with orphan-care projects. What outcomes emerge from these
projects that move beyond a simple material assessment of success or failure? How does the
situation of orphans reflect larger changes or social and cultural shifts that are occurring in
Malawian communities?

56 

C H A PT E R 2: M E T H O D O L O G Y A N D R ESE A R C H SI T ES
At the orphanage one late afternoon I was sitting with a young boy, Ziketo, as he was
coloring. He turned to me and asked in broken English, “Andrea, do you know Arnold 
Schwarzenegger?” I was a little surprised at the question and mentioned that I knew him from 
films, but that I never actually met him. I asked how he knew about him, and he said he had seen
him in a movie. Ziketo inquired, “Did you know he is also the governor of California? Do you
live near him?” I drew a map of the United States to show Ziketo where I lived and explained
that it would take a few days driving in a car to reach his home. As Ziketo drew we discussed a
variety of topics, ranging from George Bush, political parties, Spiderman, and soccer to what the
inside of an airplane looks like. He asked these questions wearing Nike tennis shoes and what
looked like a Gap t-shirt. We later watched Pirates of the Caribbean together and performed
moves meant to imitate Jackie Chan.
Ziketo’s story illustrates that Malawi, like most places around the world, is not immune
to the extraordinary rate of globalization characterized by the rapid movement of ideas, people,
and things across time and space (Appadurai 1990). As children like Ziketo are exposed to
western culture, depictions of Malawi, especially of orphaned children, are being transmitted to
the west. Thanks to celebrities such as Madonna and Angelina Jolie, orphans in Africa are
capturing the minds and pocketbooks of westerners, leading to new relationships that bridge
distances and cultures. The impact is profound. For this reason, this study is not a traditional
ethnography focused on a single place, but rather a multi-sited exploration of global connection
(Marcus 1995) that has emerged around a particular identity: orphanhood.
This research examines how orphanhood is produced through imagined and
mythologized ideologies and practices situated primarily in the west. I follow the ways in which

57 

these programs focused on orphans are created and then flow into and play out in the “sticky 
materiality of practical encounters” (Tsing 2005:1). I ask: How are Malawian orphans imagined
and constructed within these global discourses? What happens in the space where a westconstructed notion of childhood premised on upper-class values meets Malawian cultural
realities? What are the implications for children as new collaborations develop through
increasing global flows?
I answer these questions by drawing on research conducted in Malawi over a fourteenmonth period between May 2006 and December 2008 at three different sites, as well as in the
capital city. These three sites are funded by two different donor agencies. One organization funds
two community-based projects I studied, and the other funds an orphanage. I traveled to
California to conduct research with the founders and donors who supported the orphan-care
research sites in which I worked. I also visited Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, to conduct
interviews with volunteer tourists who worked in one of my Malawi research sites. In this
chapter, I explain how I identified this research project, explain the value and difficulty of
studying children, provide a detailed description of the Malawian sites and the two US-based
organizations that founded and fund these sites, and describe the means by which data was
collected. I include a section on my positionality, my research assistant, and some important
ethical conundrums that I faced during the course of this research.
Research T rajectory and Justifying Research Site Selection
When I was twenty-two, I decided to move to the Dominican Republic to volunteer at a
medical hospitality house. Patients from rural areas came to the capital, Santo Domingo, to
receive treatment that was not accessible in their communities. They stayed with us during these
trips to the city. It was a difficult job because the public health system in Santo Domingo was in

58 

disarray. Patients were offered substandard medical care, and many sick Dominicans were
suffering or dying from preventable illnesses. These issues of social injustice and health disparity
became personal when I picked up Luz Marie from the bus stop. Luz Marie was a young
Dominican woman with breast cancer. She had two small children, but she always came to
receive chemotherapy alone. Luz Marie and I formed a strong friendship. I always looked
forward to her monthly stay at the hospitality house. I was deeply saddened when I learned that
Luz Marie died shortly after I left the hospitality house in 2004. She was just thirty-six years old.
I relate this story because it laid the groundwork for this dissertation. Like Luz Marie, my mother
was diagnosed with breast cancer in her mid-thirties when she had two small children. That is
about all they had in common. My mother’s birthright and high socioeconomic status afforded 
her access to some of the best cancer treatments in the world. She died just shy of her fiftieth
birthday when I was nineteen and my brother twenty-one. My brother and I can say that we knew
our mother and that she profoundly impacted who we are as adults. Luz Marie’s children were so 
young that they might not be able to say the same.
I was, and continue to be, opposed to the social inequality and violence that framed Luz
Marie’s experience. I have also often thought about Luz Marie’s children. I wanted to better 
understand the nature of the inequalities I had witnessed, as well as imagine responses that would
address them. For this reason, I pursued an education that would allow me to focus on issues of
health disparity and structural inequality among vulnerable populations, especially women and
children.
Children in sub-Saharan Africa captured my attention long before celebrities brought
notoriety to their plight by adopting them. When I was in Kenya in 1998, I regularly felt
uncomfortable around the innumerable street children begging for money and food. I vividly

59 

remember many of them carrying plastic bottles to sniff industrial strength glue. I was unclear as
to why there were so many of them or what was being done for them. I think it was my
discomfort and a sense of guilt about my privileged position and material wealth that brought me
back to southern Africa with a research project focused on children.
In 2006, with the guidance of Dr. Anne Ferguson and armed with a Foreign Language
and Area Studies Summer Fellowship and an International Studies and Programs pre-dissertation
research grant, I began to investigate the situation of orphans in Malawi. It became obvious that
only a small portion of the social services being provided to orphans and vulnerable children was
under the direction of large, well-known development organizations. Instead, projects and social
service provisions were being initiated and implemented by smaller, often non-credentialed,
development organizations (Hefferan 2006). It was these organizations—not dissimilar to the
hospitality house where I worked in the Dominican Republic—that sparked my interest. While in
Malawi, I made contact with individuals from two small-scale orphan-care organizations. These
initial contacts allowed me to solidify access to these research sites and get letters of affiliation
from both groups, as well as the University of Malawi. I received a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral
Dissertation Research Abroad grant to return to Malawi in January of 2008 to conduct research
for this study.

Site Selection Criteria
Before I provide a detailed description of the methods used and the demographics of the
participants, I will explain the key reasons I selected my sites and the programs that I studied.
First, the programs represent different models of orphan care. One program operates an
orphanage, while the other sponsors community-based or local grassroots projects and a shortterm nutrition care center. Within these different sites a variety of services is provided, including

60 

alleviating malnutrition, paying school fees, providing transportation for HIV-positive children
to receive ARVs, tutoring, bible study/psychosocial support, women’s empowerment, and 
community daycare.
I also chose these sites because they had a focus on children’s health, which was a central 
research focus when this dissertation was proposed. Two sites are connected to hospitals or
clinics, and all sites address malnutrition through feeding programs. As this research project
evolved, the scope shifted to include characteristics of orphan care that moved beyond health and
nutrition.
Another central component to site selection was volunteer tourism. Both of the funding
agencies based in the United States that I studied encourage volunteers to visit Malawi in an
effort to connect with aid recipients, learn about the situation, and for some to participate in
orphan-related projects.
These sites were also easily accessible and the contacts I had were open and excited
about the prospect of my research focusing on their organizations. They assured me ready access
to their programs, documents, and participation in volunteer tourism activities. I was also invited
by both organizations to visit them in the United States. I was given the opportunity to interview
US staff, as well as observe stateside fundraising drives.
Finally, scholarly work focused on larger organizations, such as Save the Children
(Bornstein 2005; Manzo 2008) and UNICEF (Henquinet 2007), already exists but there are few
studies of smaller, alternative development models run by lay or non-professional development
workers (Hefferan 2006), which today are proliferating in the arena of orphan care. These
smaller organizations often function with a different logic and within a different set of
parameters than larger transnational organizations that fall within the conventional development

61 

and humanitarian paradigm, hiring experts and premising program design, implementation,
monitoring, and evaluation on contemporary development theory (Hefferan 2006).
A Note on the A nthropology of C hildhood
Aside from the work of Margaret Mead, until recently anthropologists have engaged in
few ethnographic studies of children (Gottlieb 2004; Hewlett 1991; Levine et al. 1994; ScheperHughes 1987). Anthropologists often perceive children as “in process” and therefore not worthy 
subjects of direct anthropological inquiry (Christensen and Prout 2005; Gottlieb 2004).
Historically, the few instances where children appear in anthropological research draw on the
assumption that they are passive or immature beings awaiting socialization and the imprinting of
culture and knowledge (Schwartzman 2001). For example, children have been
anthropometrically measured “specimens” used to prove or disprove the existence of race, as in 
the work of Boas and Krdlicka (Schwartzman 2001). In the 1950s, Benedict, Mead, and Whiting
focused their attention on the socialization process to study the way culture becomes imprinted
and social beings are shaped by particular institutions (Christensen and Prout 2005). There are
numerous studies on rituals and rites of passage or initiation ceremonies (Kaspin 1993, 1999;
Longwe 2006), which examine those transitional periods around puberty, marriage, and
childbirth. These studies reveal some dimensions of southern African childhoods, but do not
necessarily capture the breadth of children’s experiences as anthropological subjects. In many 
ways, they reaffirm the notion that children are to be studied only in process and not as valuable
ethnographic subjects of their own right.
While this work is insightful, today there is a movement to recognize children as active
agents in the construction, dissemination, and reproduction of culture (Christensen and Prout
2005). Children should be approached with an appreciation for their current value and as subjects

62 

of anthropological examination (Christensen and Prout 2005; Clacherty and Donald 2007).
Fundamental to this movement is a concerted effort to deconstruct the category of childhood as
the universalized, biologized, naturalized state that I discussed in chapter 1. The UNCRC is
credited with this theoretical shift in the social sciences from perceiving children as passive
recipients to considering them social actors able to express their own fears, concerns, and desires
( Christensen and Prout 2005; Clacherty and Donald 2007; Farber 2003; Scheper-Hughes and
Sargent 1999). Fortunately, anthropology is now heeding this call. Anthropological publications
focused on childhood are beginning to appear (Cheney 2007; Lancy 2008; Montgomery 2009).
In 2007 the Anthropology of Children and Childhood Interest Group was organized, and as of
early 2010 they estimate having over 740 members (Cheney 2010). At the American
Anthropology Association meetings in Philadelphia in 2009, there were seventeen organized
panels on children, childhood, and youth sponsored by the Anthropology of Children and
Childhood Interest Group (Cheney 2010). In keeping with the spirit of this new wave of
anthropological inquiry, this dissertation is not simply about issues of development and
globalization focused on children, but includes methodological approaches that seek to capture
the voices of children and allow them self-representation.
Conducting research with children is challenging. A significant dimension that needs to
be addressed is the disparate power relations inherent in adult-child interactions (Clacherty and
Donald 2007). Clacherty and Donald (2007), discussing research in southern Africa, emphasize
the need to build trust with children. Children should feel empowered to make decisions about
participating in the research, and they should feel secure in sharing their opinions and
knowledge. This is accomplished through long-term interactions with them, as well as speaking
their language and being familiar with their cultural context (Clacherty and Donald 2007).

63 

With the aid of my Malawian research assistant, I was able to address some of these
power dynamics by spending time with the children in their social settings, learning Chichewa,
and presenting myself as a student of their lives, culture, and language. In many ways, they felt
as if they were the teachers or “experts” and took pride in being able to guide me in knowing 
about their lives. I believe this adds to the authenticity and validity of the data presented in the
following chapters.
There were children, most notably girls, who behaved shyly during interviews despite my
attempts at getting to know them. I am not sure these participants would ever feel confident in an
interview-type situation or with my presence. On three occasions, I left my research assistant to
conduct storyboard drawings with children without me to assuage any fears or discomfort
children projected. On all three occasions, my research assistant said that the children seemed to
respond the same with or without my presence. In the future, I would attempt to overcome this
barrier to building relationships with these girls by including a methodological approach that is
more group-oriented. I witnessed that children, especially girls, seemed to have more confidence
within a larger social network.
Sites
Transnational organizations based in the United States funded the sites I studied. Like
many small, lay organizations working with orphans in southern Africa, the two organizations I
work with are faith-based (Foster 2005). I briefly describe the nature of each organization’s 
religious affiliation and the ways in which each affects local programming. Finally, I include
descriptions of my three field sites in Malawi, including a brief history of each, the sample that
was selected, and the ways in which data was collected, in order to provide a context for the
chapters that follow.

64 

Southern Allied Missions: Miracles Orphanage
Miracles exist to glorify God through the care of orphans and the sharing of the good
news of Christ around the world…
All of this is done in the name of Jesus and to live out the great commandments, the great
commission and James 1:27.
Jim Chardy, Founder of Miracles
The vision for Miracles Orphanage began in 2005 when Jim Chardy, a prominent
member from a Church of Christ in Alabama, decided to participate in a mission trip to Malawi.
While there, he was overwhelmed by the large number of hungry children and decided to start
his own non-profit organization called Southern Allied Missions to raise money to build an
orphanage. Southern Allied Missions is a 501(c)3 organization that now funds orphanages in
several different countries, including Moldova, India, Mexico, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. At times,
Southern Allied Missions partners with other church groups or local agencies. What is unique
about the Malawian orphanage, Miracles Village, is that it is the only orphanage that Southern
Allied Missions funds which it is fully in charge of operating.
Miracles is located just outside the capital city, Lilongwe, and approximately two
kilometers from the international airport. Construction began in late 2005 and is ongoing. It
currently houses 144 children, the majority of whom come from villages in and around the
central region. It is on a property that also houses a clinic and a porridge processing plant. The
director of Miracles is a young Malawian man in his late twenties, but Southern Allied Missions’ 
board members in Alabama do the majority of decision-making. Miracles is considered resource
abundant (Phiri and Tolfree 2005). The children are housed, clothed, fed, sent to school, and
have access to medical care.
The founder, Jim Chardy, made the decision to build an orphanage predicated on the
ideals of a conservative Christianity that called him to evangelize and develop Malawi. His goal

65 

is to materially, socially, and spiritually provide for suffering children, encourage an
entrepreneurial spirit, and create a locally sustainable institution. Miracles is an example of a
“faith-saturated” organization, which is characterized as an institution that manifests religion in 
all aspects of its work, including in fundraising and program design, as an expected outcome or
goal, in staff hiring, and in the day-to-day workings of the organization (Hefferan, Adkins, and
Occhipinti 2009). The place of religion is explicit in Miracles’s mission, constituting the logic 
behind the inception of the organization, as well as in the lens used to approach all issues dealing
with the orphans in their care. All employees are expected to practice a form of Christianity that
is in keeping with the spirit of the Church of Christ in the southern United States. All orphans are
encouraged to attend a local Church of Christ and are regularly visited by a Malawian Church of
Christ pastor. Volunteers from the US Church of Christ visit the orphanage annually to conduct
vacation bible schools. Following is a breakdown of the demographics of children in the
orphanage who participated in my study and the research methods used to collect data. I was in
residence at Miracles just under one month, starting at the end of January, but I made regular
visits there over the course of the year to participate in a variety of activities.

Participant Demographics and Methods
Sixteen children between the ages of eight and sixteen who were designated as orphans
participated in this study. They were selected at random. The median age of these children was
12

twelve years old.

The average age of the girls was twelve, with the youngest being eight and

the oldest sixteen. The average age of the boys was thirteen, with the youngest being nine and
the oldest fifteen. Table 5 provides information on the participants’ orphan status. A maternal 
                                                 
12
Their ages are estimated because many of the children and the administrators did not have
actual documentation of ages. Some of the children gave contradictory responses when their
stated age was compared to the intake forms the administration used to document their arrival.
66 

orphan refers to a child whose mother has died. A paternal orphan is a child who has lost his or
her father. A double orphan has lost both parents.
Thirteen of the sixteen orphans
came from Dowa District, which is a
matrilineal area in central Malawi. One
orphan came from Lilongwe and two
came from Kasungu District, which is just north of Dowa. It is important to note that nearly all
children have extended family members and often siblings living outside of the orphanage. For
example, only seventeen (12 percent) of the 144 residents did not have identifiable family
members in rural areas. All children included in the sample were self-identified and/or identified
by the community as orphans, and all were given the choice to participate using appropriate
methods of gaining informed consent. Verbal informed consent was attained for children aged
eight to twelve. For older participants, written informed consent was obtained.
Data was collected from the majority of children using storyboard drawings. The children
were given several sheets of paper and asked to draw their lives before coming to the orphanage,
their lives at Miracles, and where they see themselves in the future. Children were interviewed
individually to discuss their drawings, including their needs, fears, future dreams, and thoughts
about family and relatives. All children were given the opportunity to draw, but older orphans
sometimes preferred to simply tell their life history.
Open-ended interviews were conducted with all seven of the orphanage’s 
“housemothers.” In addition, three administrators were interviewed, including the Malawian 
director, an onsite American manager, and a teacher. These interviews focused on the history of

67 

the institution, daily operations, the process of enrolling children, positive and negative aspects
of institutional care, and how they perceive outcomes for children.
Participant observation was ongoing throughout this project. Primary activities included
playing soccer with the children, helping with preschool activities, “chatting” with the girls, 
watching movies at night, playing games with the older kids, including organizing races and
other competitions, participating in daily milk distributions, and helping organize and distribute
clothing donations to the children. I was also able to observe the daily workings of Miracles from
the administrative side. Cindy Chardy, the daughter-in-law of Jim Chardy, was residing at
Miracles for a year to observe and direct the orphanage’s operations. Her presence there resulted 
from concerns about unscrupulous activities, including the misuse of funds and lack of adequate
care of the orphans. I befriended Cindy and became her regular confidant (see section on ethical
conundrums). She often presented issues that arose at Miracles to seek my advice because she
had intimate knowledge of my research experience and considered me an expert in the field.
Participant observation was recorded in field notes.
Finally, I was able to acquire documents from Miracles, including the organization’s 
profiles of the children that participated in my study. These profiles were the basis of US child
sponsorship fundraising drives. I was also given access to the intake evaluations of each child,
which were conducted by the previous Malawian director. Finally, I was given the general donor
solicitation materials and pamphlets that circulated in the United States to raise money. Southern
Allied Missions also has a web site that I visit regularly to collect materials, get project updates,
and gain insight into how they present themselves to a broader, primarily western, audience.
Because Miracles is relatively new, having started residential care in 2005, there were no
orphans who had “graduated” to live outside the facility. I felt it was important to gain the 

68 

perspective of children who have experienced residential care and were no longer living within
the facility, because they could provide retrospective insight on their experience. They are able to
speak about outcomes as they perceive them. Therefore, I attempted to contact orphans from a
more established orphanage in the country, Rescue Children’s Village. I was able to interview 
three orphans from Rescue Children’s Village who had graduated, including two men and one 
woman. They were all double orphans. Additionally, in both 2006 and 2008 I participated in a
guided tour of Rescue with other foreign visitors. I also interviewed the previous director of the
Lilongwe Rescue Children’s Village, as well as the South African employee in charge of donor 
solicitation and child sponsorship drives.

A I DS Interfaith Coalition (A I C)
AIC, originating in California, supports Malawian-led projects focused on HIV/AIDS,
including orphan care, HIV/AIDS education, home-based care projects that train villagers to care
for dying AIDS patients, and mobile health clinics that visit rural villages. They have also
incorporated women’s empowerment into their overall development agenda. Specifically, they
fund women’s income-generating activities, which include beekeeping, mushroom cultivation,
piggeries, and microfinance trainings.
AIC was founded by an Episcopal priest, Steve Cross, in 2000 who wanted to address a
global health issue through religious structures at the local level by working alongside mosques,
churches, and other faith-based organizations (personal interview, S. C., July 2008). AIC has
expanded and now works with a variety of organizations. It follows a liberal, nondenominational, community participatory strategy that aims to transform entire villages. Its
development approach seeks to incorporate local perspectives by calling for grant proposals from
grassroots organizations including clinics, churches, schools, and CBOs. These proposals must

69 

be written in English, typed, and submitted electronically to the central selection committee in
the United States. Once proposals are approved, two local Malawian directors distribute the
funds and monitor the projects. My data was collected from two sites supported by AIC, Dowa
Orphan Support (DOS), and Hope.
AIC is an example of a “faith-affiliated” or “faith-background” organization (FBO)
(Hefferan, Adkins, and Occhipinti 2009). Religion is manifested in peripheral ways. AIC
promotes social justice and humanitarianism in the context of the AIDS pandemic. It is adamant
about not evangelizing. Its projects, mission, and language do not contain overt religious
language. The use of “interfaith” in their title refers to the structure of their board that represents 
numerous religious denominations and the multiplicity of religious groups they are willing to
work with in their fight against AIDS and in easing the suffering of orphaned children. Their
activities reflect goals of heterogeneity and openness, rather than exclusivity. The AIC web site
addresses the question of why it works with many different religious groups:
We partner with community and faith-based organizations to reach rural areas where the
majority of Malawians live. Religious groups, both Christian and Muslim, are frequently
the only providers of desperately needed services like home-based orphan care. AIC is a
non-governmental, non-religious organization and does not proselytize or work with
organizations that do.
The central region director, a local Malawian nun and nurse named Sister Brenda
explained:
[ALF] What role does religion play in AIC?
My perspective is that AIC is working with different religions, faiths. It does not look at
whether someone is Muslim, Anglican, Catholic, Pentecostal, or if someone has no
religion or they have different beliefs other than what we believe—AIC will work with
them provided they are promoting human dignity.
In contrast to Southern Allied Missions, AIC purposefully avoids overt religious
discourses in an effort to incorporate more participants on the US donor side as well as in their

70 

Malawian programs. Drawing on a particular religion is seen as limiting as opposed to expanding
and connecting.
I conducted in-depth, open-ended interviews with several key stakeholders associated
with AIC. I was able to interview the founder, Steve Cross, as well as an influential leader and
former board member who escorts volunteers to assist in Malawian clinics and hospitals for short
periods of time. He has been pivotal in developing a Malawi Transformation trip that brings
church members from Steve Cross’s former Episcopal Church in California to Malawi to visit
AIC-funded sites. I was also able to interview the central area director for AIC, Sister Brenda,
and a technical assistant who was a former social welfare assistant for the MoWCD.
Participant observation was central to my research with AIC. I have participated on two
Malawi Transformation trips that lasted two weeks each (see Ethical Conundrums for a further
description), and traveled twice to California to experience AIC fundraising events. In Malawi, I
conducted participant observation of a AIC grant writing workshop for a small CBO, a blanket
and school uniform distribution, and several field site visits with AIC staff to check on the
progress of one of the CBOs they fund.

Dowa Orphan Support (D O S)
DOS, one of the two AIC-funded sites I studied, began receiving funding from AIC in
July 2005. It is a small CBO located in Dowa District in the central region of Malawi
approximately 70 kilometers from the capital city. Dowa is one of the poorer districts in Malawi,
which development workers find surprising because of its close proximity to Lilongwe. Sister
Brenda mentioned her frustration with the area saying most development organizations pilot their
projects in this district because of geographic convenience, but little if any change has occurred.
The three villages in my catchment area would be considered some of the poorest in the district.

71 

There is no running water or electricity. Nobody in the central village in my cluster has a metal
roof, which is considered a sign of wealth. The road that merges off of the highway to Salima is
rudimentary, but somewhat maintained because of the military barracks that sit just a few
kilometers from the village center.
The close proximity of my catchment area to the military barracks is significant. Military
personnel are a fixture in this community. Some men have married women who live in this area,
others have “girlfriends,” and there are many men who just visit the area to drink locally brewed 
beer. It was not uncommon for me and my research assistant to encounter inebriated men
walking between beer huts and the barracks. We were instructed not to walk between the villages
in the evening without a male escort because drunken military men were known for violence. I
carried mace. Military personnel, beer drinking, and close proximity to impoverished
communities lends itself to the spread of HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS rates in Dowa District are high,
estimated at 14.8 percent at the urban sentinel site, Mchinji District Hospital, and 6.3 percent at
the rural sentinel site, Thonje Health Clinic (NAC 2003).
For this reason, AIC was eager to fund DOS. In addition, Orphan Support Africa (OSA)
(http://www.orphansupportafrica.org), UNICEF, and NAC (with funding administered by World
Vision) also are currently supporting DOS activities. The District Social Welfare (DSW) office is
aware of DOS and has monitored funds they received through NAC that is being distributed by
World Vision International. It is not uncommon for CBOs to secure funding from a variety of
sources. Once organizations understand the small grant writing process, they often submit similar
if not identical grant proposals to a variety of agencies. This can lead to unscrupulous behavior
when a CBO secures money from multiple agencies for the same project (being double
funded)—a practice discussed more fully in chapter 6.

72 

DOS has a board that is comprised primarily of members of the same family. The
chairperson is a man named Pitirani. The Secretary is Noah. Both are young men in their early
20s. Noah wrote about DOS’s mission and projects,
The mission of DOS is to respond to the growing number of children orphaned or made
vulnerable by HIV/AIDS in our catchment area. DOS is currently offering the following
services and resources—material assistance to orphans and other vulnerable children
(OVC), material assistance to people living with HIV/AIDS, and transportation for HIV
positive children to the pediatric clinic (Baylor) where they receive ARVs
(antiretrovirals) and other treatment. However, we would like to also provide nutritional
support to these HIV positive children.
My initial contact with DOS was on February 16, 2008 when I accompanied Sister
Brenda and a private donor from the United States to a blanket and school uniform distribution
event (see figure 6). Orphans and their guardians gathered to
receive these items as well as a traditional Malawian meal. I
was the designated photographer.
After gaining consent from the community,
including the village headwoman, I returned on April 1st to
secure housing. I stayed in Mvera until early July. I usually
left on the weekends to return to the capital city to write
field notes, transcribe data, and replenish food and water
supplies. I was accompanied to the field by my research
assistant Bridget Mwali. Interviews and storyboard drawings were completed in late June, but
regular site visits were continuous throughout my eleven-month research period.
A random sample of twenty-two children from three villages in Dowa district under the
Traditional Authority (TA) Mseu participated in this research. The three villages selected were

73 

Chinsisi Village, Mtsika Village, and Mwenda Village
recipients of orphan aid from DOS.

14

13

because they were the primary

A list of all children enrolled in DOS orphan-care

activities was obtained and the children were randomly selected. Fourteen of these children were
orphans. As table 6 shows, four children were maternal orphans, seven were paternal, and only
three were double orphans. There were no orphan-headed households in the sample. I included
eight children who were non-orphans to compare differences in access to material resources,
education, and perceived
stigma or discrimination.
The average age of children
in the sample was thirteen.
The average age of the girls in the sample is twelve years with the oldest girl being seventeen
and the youngest eight. The average age of boys in the sample was fourteen years old. The oldest
boy was eighteen and the youngest nine. All participants were from matrilineal kinship systems.
Most of my research participants self-identified as Chewa, with a few individuals stating they
were Ngoni.
I also conducted participant observation with DOS. When this organization received
funding from NAC, I traveled with their members to the boma, or district center where local
government offices are located. I was able to observe how the DSW office and World Vision
handled the distribution of these funds. I was also able to observe the blanket and school uniform
                                                 
13
Village names have also been changed to protect the anonymity of research participants and
children.
14
One other village could have been included in the sample; however, the village headman was
a notorious drunk and harassed Bridget and me on multiple occasions. On one occasion he asked
to search her bag for money or other consumable items, which he called payment for allowing
access to his community. After consultation with DOS volunteers and Sister Brenda, I decided to
avoid research in his village.
74 

distribution, several committee meetings, various youth activities, AIC field visits to DOS, and a
visit from OSA. I participated in daily activities and become a fixture in the community. I
regularly gathered water, washed clothes, cracked peanuts for processing, prepared maize for
pounding, and scared little children who had never seen an azungu, which is a commonly used
term for foreigner. In many ways the community did accept me as a student and was eager to
teach me about Malawian culture.

Hope Orphanage and Community-Based Orphan Care
Hope, the second AIC-funded site I studied, was founded in 1997 by Sister Bea Chimudzi
who is a Malawian nun affiliated with the Rosarian Sisters under the Catholic Diocese of Mzuzu
(St. Mary’s Parish) in the northern region of Malawi. Sister Bea started Hope after noticing a
group of street children stealing at the local bus depot. She befriended these children, many of
whom were orphans. An American Catholic Marianist brother was working in Karonga and
became interested in her project and is now a full-time staff person and fundraiser. Sister Bea
relates the circumstances that led to the beginning of Hope in a newsletter:
My heart was moved with compassion and I was stirred to do an impossible thing, I
wanted to save [the orphans]. I wanted to not only save them from stealing, but to keep
them from other bad things which they encountered as street children living in empty
houses without parents.
Hope emphasizes a community-based approach to meeting the needs of OVCs. They are
located in the Karonga city center (boma). Their resources, primarily focused on meeting
nutritional needs, are distributed through a network of sixty-four villages. Each village has
established a village orphan care committee (VOCC) to provide the basic infrastructure with
which to systematically apply for, accept, distribute, and monitor nutritional resources coming
from Hope.

75 

Hope estimates that they serve nine thousand orphans and other vulnerable children
through eleven different projects. Table 7 gives the title of each project, a brief description, and
an estimate of the number of orphans served.
The Children’s Village at Hope was constructed as a temporary residential facility at their
central offices. There are approximately fifty children in residence. Sister Bea stresses that this is
a temporary arrangement as the children who reside on the premises are there for emergency
reasons, including malnutrition, abuse, or the sudden loss of a parent in childbirth. These
children are meant to be rehabilitated if they suffer from a health issue, and then returned to their
guardians. It they are unable to receive proper treatment or if there is the potential for abuse at
home, the children are supposed to be relocated to an alternate guardian.
Hope began as a local NGO with little or no outside support. Over time, the size and
scope of the project has expanded, in large part due to the support of a group of Marianist
Brothers living in the area. Peter Demello has been pivotal in connecting Hope with outside
funding sources, especially donors from the United States. Peter regularly travels to the United
States and speaks in a variety of venues, especially in churches, to solicit donor support. An
anonymous donor became interested in the work of Hope and has become their primary funding
source. In an effort to ensure accountability and transparency, the donor has involved Catholic
Relief Services (CRS). CRS manages the majority of funds coming into Hope, which submits to
CRS their project proposals, budgets, and reports as required by this particular donor.
Hope submits project proposals to other funding sources as well, because the CRS donor
only wants to fund nutrition-related projects. This is how AIC became involved with Hope. Hope
is receiving funding from AIC to pay school fees for orphans. I became interested in Hope as a
field site for three reasons. First, I had an acquaintance at CRS who made regular visits to Hope

76 

77 

and was very positive about their program. Second, Sister Brenda from AIC went to visit Hope
before they would release the funds. She was impressed with their structure, program design,
implementation, and monitoring. Third, I wanted to be in a research site that was far removed
from the central region and capital city. It was also an attractive site because of the diversity of
projects, including the use of institutional and community-based approaches to serving orphans. I
was able to conduct interviews and
storyboard drawings with the
children in residence, as well as
with children living in three villages that receive aid from Hope. Table 8 records the status of the
orphans who participated in this research and were in residence at Hope.
Using a random sample, I conducted interviews
and storyboard drawings with ten children living at Hope
(see figure 7). The average age of the sample children
15

was sixteen.

The average age of the girls was sixteen

years old, with the youngest girl being eleven and the
oldest twenty-two. Three of the orphans, all girls, were
older and attended a secondary boarding school in Mzuzu City. I was able to interview them
because they were home on a holiday break. The oldest boy being interviewed was eighteen and
the youngest fourteen. Three housemothers were also interviewed at Hope. More females than
males were interviewed, and there were few paternal orphans in this sample. The same research

                                                 
15
The majority of the children in residence was under the age of eight and therefore did not
qualify for my research. I randomly sampled only those children who were over the age of eight
in keeping with IRB restrictions.
78 

methodology used at Miracles was employed at Hope (see earlier section for details), but the
predominant language used was Tumbuka.
Similar to the community-based research conducted in Dowa, I sampled twenty-one
children from three villages receiving aid from Hope. The three villages were selected for their
ease of accessibility in addition to their extended involvement with Hope. These villages
included Mwanyongo, Mwanganda, and Mweninyumba. A random sample of children enrolled
in the Hope programs was used to determine participants. Table 9 records the gender and orphan
status of children enrolled in this research who were living in communities.

The average age of participants was fourteen. The average age of the girls in the sample
was fourteen, with the oldest girl being eighteen and the youngest twelve. The average age of the
boys in the sample was fifteen, with the oldest boy being eighteen and the youngest thirteen. All
participants spoke Tumbuka and came from patrilineal kinship systems, identifying as either
Tumbuka or Nkhonde. Storyboard drawings and in-depth interviews were used to gather data.
The children in this sample fell within the catchment area of three different VOCCs. We
interviewed the heads of each committee. Additionally, we interviewed the founder/director of
Hope, the assistant director of Hope, the Hope field officer who monitors the VOCCs, the
assistant social welfare officer, and the chairperson of the CBO who oversees the VOCCs in this
catchment area.

79 

Volunteer Tourists (“Voluntourists”)
On my flight to Malawi during the summer of 2006, I witnessed a growing trend that
would become an important thread of this research: volunteer tourism. It seemed the majority of
non-Malawians on my flight were associated with some type of organization going to Malawi to
volunteer as well as enjoy some of Malawi’s tourist attractions. These groups were fairly obvious
because many wore matching t-shirts touting a map of Malawi or Africa and indicating some
type of partnership or linkage (often clasped hands) between themselves and Africa.
I incorporated research with voluntourists into my project because both AIC and
Southern Allied Missions receive voluntourists at their project sites. Many of these volunteer
tourists are funders of orphan-care projects in Malawi. In fact, Miracles Village came into being
because of a voluntourist’s experience. Staff at Miracles estimated that they receive over two
hundred international visitors a year. I wanted to understand what these connections meant to
both children and the volunteers who engaged with them.
I conducted a total of twenty-one in-depth, open-ended interviews with volunteer tourists
(see table 10). Five interviews were at the Miami University of Ohio with members of a chapter
of the Ambassadors for
Children (AFC)
organization. AFC sends
volunteer tourists to various
locations around the world, including Miracles Village. I conducted four interviews with students
and another interview with the faculty sponsor. The Miami of Ohio chapter of AFC sent a group
of students to Malawi for two weeks during the summer of 2008. I was at Miracles when they

80 

arrived and participated in some of the activities, including helping to paint the orphanage’s 
library.
I also conducted nine interviews with voluntourists from a Church of Christ group
located in the southern U.S., which has direct links with Southern Allied Missions. While in
Malawi, I traveled with this group on a food distribution drive, we visited a field school that
teaches Malawian farmers about innovations in agricultural production, and I participated in
orphanage activities they facilitated, such as painting, soccer, and movie night.
Finally, I traveled with two groups of voluntourists connected with a group from an
American Episcopal Church on their Malawi Transformation Trip. They were associated with
AIC and primarily visited AIC-sponsored projects, including a trip to DOS. All of these groups
stayed in Malawi for approximately two weeks.

Other Key Stakeholder Interviews
While in Malawi, I was able to conduct formal and informal interviews with twenty-one
key stakeholders, as well as collect documents related to orphan care in Malawi. Table 11 sorts
these interviews into three broad categories: (1) Religion-based; (2) Government-based; and (3)
Other (which refers to interviews conducted primarily with other NGOs working on similar
issues related to orphans). For example, Raising Malawi is Madonna’s organization, which also 
funds the Network of Organizations for Vulnerable and Orphan Children. Questions focused on a
variety of topics, including the nature/characteristics of orphans and orphan care; poverty and
development; the efficacy and justification for different models of orphan care; the
collaborations that develop between various stakeholders emerging around orphan-care
initiatives; and issues regarding the rights of the child. I was able to collect numerous documents
from these organizations, particularly UNICEF and NAC.

81 

Answering My Research Questions
The first of my three research questions is:
ï‚·

How are Malawian orphans imagined and constructed within transnational global
discourses associated with organizations that have founded, funded, and implemented
orphan-care projects in Malawi?

Data collected to answer this question involved asking individuals and organizations
working and volunteering with AIC and Miracles orphan-care projects, government officials,
orphan-centered CBO directors, religious leaders, and all of my research participants, including
82 

children and their guardians, how they conceptualized orphans. Some of these interviewees had
substantial experience working with orphans, while others were simply interested in their plight
and decided to attend fundraising events. In addition, I collected materials that contained
representations of orphans, including donor fundraising materials, documentaries and films
focused on orphans,

16

newspaper articles in Malawi and the United States related to OVCs, and

official government documents. I also witnessed two fundraising events in the United States and
noted how orphans were represented.
In my analysis, I presented the relationship between Malawian ideas of orphans,
transnational definitions as articulated in official documents produced by organizations such as
UNICEF, and western donor and volunteer visions of orphans. I explored how these varying
conceptualizations influence different organizations’ program design and expected outcomes.
The impact of these views of orphans, which provided the base and justification for
orphan-centered projects, is profound and leads to my second research question, which is:
ï‚·

What happens in the space where western imaginations about orphans, which
structure transnational organizations’ donor drives and project designs, meet 
Malawian cultural constructions?

To answer this question, I collected data through interviews and participant observation
at the Malawian sites of these orphan-care projects. I asked Malawians—those caring for orphans
as well as those who were not—about the changing nature of orphanhood and the perceived
impact of the transnational response to the orphan situation in Malawi. I asked children about
being labeled orphan and the effects of this identity. I asked a variety of community members,
including community leaders and government workers, about the workings of community-based
                                                 
16
Madonna released the documentary, “I Am Because We Are,” in 2008. It is focused on the 
situation of orphans in Malawi.
83 

childcare centers (CBCCs) and their impact on children’s welfare. In the analysis, I compared the
purpose, design, and justification of the transnational projects to what is happening in local
communities, finding some unanticipated outcomes.
My final research question focuses specifically on children’s experiences and
perspectives:
ï‚·

What are the implications of an orphan identity for children who adopt it and how do
they understand and experience being targeted with resources via collaborations that
develop through increasing global flows of people, resources, and discourses?

Data collected to answer this question came from the storyboard drawings and in-depth
interviews with children labeled orphans. Interviews with older orphans were pivotal to
answering this question, as they have had more time to process what this identity means. By
collecting data from children who are institutionalized, as well as those being cared for within
villages, I was able to compare what impact the orphan identity has on shaping children’s 
subjectivities.

Positionalities: Researcher and Research Assistant
Generally speaking, I can say that Malawians I worked with were very open and
amenable to my research and participated actively in my project, but they expected something in
return because of obvious wealth differences between us. This was evident in both urban and
rural settings. On one occasion, an upper-level Malawian government official in the MoWCD
called me back to his office seeking advice on how to apply to MSU for graduate training. In
villages, I was regularly asked for daily incidentals, such as soap, money for transportation, food,
or clothing. These requests did not surprise me, but what did was the inability to feel connected
with local Malawians, aside from a select few individuals.

84 

I remember one day, when I first arrived in Malawi, driving out to Bunda College,
listening to my iPod, wearing new clothes and shoes, with my cell phone tucked neatly beside
me. I watched as Malawian women walked up and down the highway barefoot, with enormous,
heavy bundles balanced neatly on their heads and sweat pouring off their brow. I should have
realized then that my entrée into the world that most Malawians inhabit would be circumscribed,
at best. While in Malawi, I slept in a village, ate nsima, walked with water jugs balanced on my
head, cleaned corn, cracked ground nuts, played soccer, and washed my clothes in a river.
Regardless, I was always on the fringe. Children often cried and ran away when they saw me;
when I walked through villages or even the city center, men and women often stared or laughed;
and strangers regularly asked me for things because I was seen for what I had and not who I was.
My experience of standing out, or being a foreigner, would read the same as other
dissertations written by white, unmarried, childless women going to do research in Africa.
Malawian women felt sorry for my perceived barrenness and singlehood, and most men wanted
to marry me. I was considered privileged and rich, despite being a student. And, comparably
speaking, I was. The very nature of my skin color afforded me a privileged identity and
acceptance into places women might not normally be welcomed. Yet, I found it difficult to relate
with and feel accepted by many Malawians in urban and rural settings. Fortunately, I hired a
young Malawian social worker to assist me throughout the course of my research. We became
friends, and I am indebted to her in innumerable ways for helping me bridge what at times
seemed like a vast divide between me and the communities within which I was living and
working.

85 

Bridget Mwale: Social Worker, Research Assistant, and F riend
I asked my in-country advisor, Dr. Daimon Kambewa, to help me locate and hire a
research assistant. I preferred a local Malawian woman with basic computer capabilities,
experience conducting research, and preferably someone tri-lingual (speaking Chichewa,
ChiTumbuka, and English). He suggested Bridget Mwale,
who is the niece of the Dean of the College of Nutrition at
Bunda College of Agriculture in Lilongwe (see figure 8). She
had just received her certification from a NAC-sponsored
program to train and place junior social welfare officers
throughout the country. This funding was part of a larger
Global Fund Initiative to improve services to orphaned and
vulnerable children. Unfortunately, the government did not
have the capacity to place these trainees in each district and
provide them a regular salary. Her training in social work, as well as proficiency in both
qualitative and quantitative research methods acquired through participation on her aunt’s 
research projects, made her an ideal candidate.
Bridget worked with me for eleven months during 2008. She became a good friend and
an asset to my work. She was able to bring a critical eye to the work and many times would
educate me on more subtle Malawian cultural practices. Her status as a cultural insider enabled
her to tap into gossip networks in the communities within which we worked in ways that I could
not because of my foreigner identity. This was informative to my research in ways I had not
anticipated. For example, on one occasion we had invited a teenage boy to come over to the
house where I was staying to participate in the research. Late that evening, the secretary of the

86 

CBO told Bridget that we should not invite this teenager to the house because he was a notorious
witch who had killed an older woman in the village (see chapter 6). Bridget was able to learn and
later share with me a significant amount about ongoing issues and perspectives within the
community through these informal conversations.
As a junior social welfare officer with extensive experience working in rural communities
and conducting research, she was also able to identify and interpret situations in ways that were
beyond my own abilities. In our first village site, Bridget was told about some potentially
unscrupulous CBO activities, especially the mishandling of funds. She knew this was not
uncommon because of previous experiences in the field with CBOs working with orphans. She
brought this to my attention, and we decided to investigate the situation further. We traveled to a
village community approximately ten kilometers from our field site to visit with the chief. We
were able to ask about their experiences with the CBO. This unscheduled trip directly informed
my research questions as we incorporated new issues into our data-collection activities.
Finally, Bridget’s extensive experience conducting qualitative research was beneficial to 
this project for several reasons. First, she was able to make research participants feel comfortable
with our presence. It was obvious that the Malawians we interviewed felt amicable towards
Bridget. Secondly, she was personally engaged with the research and brought a natural curiosity
to the data collection and preliminary analysis. She regularly brought emerging themes to my
attention, and we revisited the research tools on several occasions to make sure we were
capturing respondents’ ideas in authentic ways. Third, she was attentive. She listened carefully to 
what the respondents had to say and was quick to ask follow-up questions, at times without my
probing. Finally, Bridget was a good friend and confidant to me during the course of the research

87 

project, which was pivotal in helping me remain focused, engaged, and encouraged. This
research would not have been possible without her.

Ethical Conundrums: Miracles
One of the major ethical issues I faced was at Miracles. Over the course of my year in
Malawi, I spent a significant amount of time at Miracles Village and had befriended the
American woman, Cindy, and her daughter, who came to Malawi to address problems with the
operation of the orphanage. She was very friendly—allowing unsupervised and free access to the
children, housemothers, and staff with complete confidence. She also allowed my research
assistant and me to stay in her house. She regularly prepared meals for us and constantly asked
my opinion on matters related to the orphanage. I genuinely liked her. Through the course of our
friendship she disclosed privileged information that I know would not be discussed with other
researchers or investigators, including issues related to politics, religion, internal fighting, power
struggles, witchcraft accusations, controlling sexual relationships among orphans, and the
orphanage’s illegal status with the government. I asked her about these topics in our formal
interview. This is information I would not have been privy to had it not been for our friendship.
In addition, she often asked for advice. At times I gave my opinion, and for the sake of
the welfare of the kids I directed her to consult other orphan-care program operators, especially
the former director of Rescue. I recognized the value in being objective, but when it comes to
issues that directly impacted the lives of children I felt it was my responsibility to give advice
and direction. The American Anthropological Association Code of Ethics suggests that your
responsibilities lie first with seeing that no harms come to the people you study. I felt I was able
to ensure the best outcomes for my participants through my conversations with Cindy and
connecting her with someone who had years of experience running an orphanage in Malawi.

88 

AIC: Voluntouring Guide
Just as I befriended Cindy, I developed a strong relationship with an older couple that
works closely with AIC. At one point, the husband was a AIC board member, and he continues
to be involved in fundraising. This couple facilitated my access to AIC and to the village sites
where I worked. When I traveled to California for AIC fundraisers I stayed with them, and we
still talk regularly on the phone. I was considered an “adopted daughter.” I have deep respect and 
admiration for both of them and their commitment to bettering the lives of individuals both in the
Unites States and abroad. For this reason, I found myself not only being a participant on a
voluntouring expedition during the summer of 2008, but also a driver and guide.
In 2008 I asked to participate in the Malawi Transformation Trip sponsored by an
American Episcopal Church in California. I had been a participant during the summer of 2006.
These trips often include doctors and nurses who spend part of their time in Malawi volunteering
at local clinics and hospitals, which are often health facilities sponsored by AIC. Other
participants have included influential donors, young people interested in volunteering or having a
cultural experience, and religious leaders or teachers. In addition to volunteering at clinics, the
group travels to a variety of AIC projects and visits a few tourist attractions. The older couple I
have befriended are pivotal to this experience. They are in charge of coordinating all of the
details of these trips and acting as a liaison between trip participants, AIC staffers, and local
Malawians.
At the end of June I received a frantic phone call from the couple.

17

Papa D, the husband,

explained that his wife had fallen and broken her hip. He was in Blantyre while she was at the
                                                 
17
They couple had arrived in Malawi just a few weeks prior to this call. They were there to set
up details about the Malawi Transform Trip’s itinerary and establish new contacts. I had dinner 
with them shortly after their arrival and knew they would be returning to the capital in a few days
89 

hospital. She was in traction, and they would not be able to meet the Malawi Transformation
Trip participants at the airport in Lilongwe where I was living. He asked if I would be willing to
help facilitate the trip since I was familiar with Malawi and could speak Chewa. I agreed. The
shift from trip participant to facilitator altered the way in which I was perceived by Malawi
Transformation Trip participants and impacted the overall spirit of the trip. I became a leader
amongst a group of people I was meant to objectively observe. I was asked to make decisions
about a variety of scheduled activities. I was considered an expert on all things Malawian,
despite my constantly reminding them that I, too, was here to learn. My perspective, knowledge,
and presence did shape their experience and is reflected in the interviews that I conducted with
each participant at the end of the experience.
I recognize that this is the participant part of participant observation, and it sometimes
conflicts with being an observer. The ethical point is not to harm but to help people, and I believe
I was always able to stay true to that principle. My standpoint was always made clear.

                                                                                                                                                             
to meet the trip’s participants. I was scheduled to participate in the experience as part of my 
research.
90 

C H A PT E R 3: L A Y H U M A N I T A R I A N ISM,
O RP H A N N A R R A T I V ES, A N D C O M P ASSI O N

My first reaction is the feeling of helplessness, and hopelessness. Seeing so many eyes of
the orphans, innocent and pure, makes me feel a little overwhelmed…Poverty and 
HIV/AID S, malaria, are now all over southern Africa…Without a heart of compassion
and love, without a true passion in helping and offering, Madonna could not do this. So I
give more credit to her now than before, and I see this as a gift to Malawi rather than a
tool of celebrity propaganda.
–MSU undergraduate student after viewing Madonna’s documentary on Malawi
As an assignment for an advanced women’s studies undergraduate course I was teaching 
during the summer of 2009, students viewed the film “I Am Because We Are.” This 
documentary was produced by Madonna to raise awareness about her non-profit organization,
Raising Malawi. It focuses on the situation of orphans and AIDS in Malawi. Students were asked
to respond to the content of the film, including their perceptions of Malawian orphans, their
overall reaction to the film, and the film’s impact on their desire to be connected or involved 
with these issues. This quote is just one of many that captured the ability of celebrities and other
humanitarians—and the organizations or projects they support—to use the media and other
outlets to produce a discourse about suffering children that fosters an emotional and
compassionate response. This response is based on the recognition of an interconnected
humanity and the need to address suffering. The student’s reaction highlights the power of the 
image of the orphan and the iconography focused on these children to bring about a sense of
compassion drawing on the innocence of orphans. Nearly all students in the course were moved
by the images of the sick and dying AIDS patients, the children left behind, and the overall
poverty evident in the film. Several students responded that they wanted to go to Africa to “see it 
for themselves” or become involved and help these children.
Madonna’s documentary is also effective in framing the situation of orphans as an 
emergency, placing it within a humanitarian response matrix. Many orphan-care projects solicit

91 

donations by using this crisis rhetoric, which is explicitly tied to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. AIDS
has been cast as an emergency by numerous organizations, as well as various governments
(Nguyen 2009). Nguyen (2009) asserts that humanitarian emergencies decree a “state of 
emergency,” suspending history and disabling local politics. This process disrupts local
institutions, thus initiating a mobile sovereignty. Nguyen (2009) makes the case that the AIDS
epidemic in Africa, which is continuously framed as a “humanitarian emergency” requiring
urgent intervention, is a recent occurrence that has mobilized a massive response. This crisis
rhetoric and its subsequent humanitarian call to action are exemplified in the introductory story
Madonna tells in her video. Victoria Keelan, a local Malawian woman, calls Madonna, pleading
for assistance for the million children orphaned by AIDS. Victoria says that there are not enough
orphanages and that children are sleeping on the streets, in abandoned buildings, and under
bridges. Children are being abducted, kidnapped, and raped. We are told, “This is a state of
emergency.” Madonna is elevated to the position of a humanitarian capable of and required to 
make a difference, despite having limited knowledge about Malawi, orphans, or AIDS. This new
role resulted in the creation of her NGO, Raising Malawi, and the affiliated orphan-care projects
she funds and implements. Madonna is not alone. Innumerable others of less fame have followed
suit.
In this chapter I examine the rise of individuals such as Madonna, or lay humanitarians,
who are not experts in issues related to development, humanitarianism, or childcare, but become
engaged in orphan projects. In this dissertation I focus on a variety of humanitarian responses,
ranging from those that have limited understanding of the situation of orphans and children in
Malawi, such as Miracles Village, to others that are adopting a more culturally aware and
context-specific approach, such as AIC. Central to this chapter is an exploration of the power of

92 

discourse, especially circulated through the media, in creating an aid category that western
donors feel compelled to support via a sense of compassion for the suffering. Orphan narratives
generate donor dollars and inform orphan-project design. I argue that mythologized ideas about
Africa persist, capturing the minds of program organizers who actively incorporate them into the
discourses they produce about Malawi, about orphans, and about HIV/AIDS. This leads to the
development of programs that do not necessarily resonate with Malawian needs.

Lay H umanitarians
My work examines the rise of a particular type of humanitarian—the lay humanitarian,
similar to the “lay development worker” referred to by Hefferan (2007). Many lay humanitarians 
have limited experience with cultural difference or with development/humanitarian theories and
practices, and they have little knowledge of the political, economic, historical, and cultural
contexts within which they work. They tend to be volunteers who have minimal or no training in
humanitarian activities, and their involvement in these programs is not their primary occupation.
Many may put into practice programs that have unanticipated outcomes as a result of their
insufficient understanding of the Malawian cultural, social, political, economic, and historical
milieu. Director Kilembe in the MoWCD captures this phenomenon:
The other issue is with the donors. You know they come here and confuse the situation.
This is especially the case with churchmen, religious organizations, and even tourists who
come to Malawi just on vacation or just passing through. They become moved by their
emotions and the things they see around them without knowing anything about the
situation and how complicated it is. They think they are going to have some kind of
impact. These people start these organizations because of these emotions of feeling bad.
And the communities accept their money and projects. It is frustrating because we, [in the
Ministry of Women and Child Development], know better the situation on the ground,
the gaps, the things that will work best to alleviate these situations, but very few people
come and chat with the government to find out what to do and the proper channels for
going about doing it.

93 

This quote highlights central features of this emerging response to orphans. First,
Kilembe identifies the emotionally charged nature of many donors’ reactions as they experience 
or perceive the suffering of orphans through a western lens. Although some donors and project
organizers do not travel to Malawi to have these experiences first-hand, they rely on exposure to
orphans and discourses of their suffering via fundraising campaigns, documentaries like
Madonna’s, web sites, and other forms of print and news media that I describe later in this 
section. I will demonstrate how lay humanitarians involved in these projects actively generate a
particular orphan discourse to elicit a powerful emotional response from donors (Meintjes and
Giese 2006).
Second, this response is often coupled with a limited understanding of local social
systems and Malawian needs or “gaps,” as Kilembe says. This can result in responses that are 
inappropriate, and often prove to be framed by modernity ideologies. Third, Kilembe suggests
these organizations often bypass the state, resulting in unscrupulous behavior or the
implementation of projects that run counter to government policies and community needs and
expectations. I highlight these effects in chapters 4 and 6. Finally, Kilembe mentions that
communities willingly open themselves up to west-inspired projects because of the potential to
access material resources in a context characterized by endemic poverty. In these impoverished
contexts, power relations play out around orphans. Throughout this study I demonstrate how
friction arises as a result of inequitable and often volatile interconnections between transnational
actors, the state, communities, local leaders, families, and children themselves.
Another central feature of lay humantarian projects is the emphasis on a narrow problem
that makes intervention appear manageable (Kristof 2010). The ability of untrained, but
compassionate, individuals to make a difference must seem plausible—one child at a time. Thus,

94 

fundamental to their endeavors is reliance on an apolitical and circumscribed solution. In some
cases this allows humanitarians to assume local populations are to blame for their own problems
or difficult circumstances, or they simply ignore macro-level processes that structure poverty,
inequality, and poor health outcomes. Solutions, then, can be imagined as contained within these
demarcated places. Larger systems implicated in inducing problems are erased or completely
ignored. The obvious problem with these approaches is that they are only bandaids, which do not
disrupt the systemic cycles that shaped these locally experienced issues in the first place.
Moreover, failures associated with these projects can thus be blamed on the local context.
Lay humanitarian responses, while targeting a specific issue, can be varied. In the next
sections I describe AIC and Miracles to give a sense of this heterogeneity.

AIC
AIC’s founder had little or no experience with Malawi or international
development/humanitarianism, and he was not trained as a physician or healthcare provider. He
is an Episcopalian priest motivated by compassion and the desire to help others—“God is with 
us, if we are with them.” He contacted a friend and educated himself on the issue of HIV and its
forms of transmission. Using what he did know, religious institutions, he began to imagine a way
of addressing the AIDS situation in villages in southern Africa. He explained how his
organization chose a particular issue he felt was manageable, albeit somewhat narrow in nature,
and devised a solution:
I went to [a colleague who is also Chief of Surgery at UCSF] and asked him naively if
there was a health problem global in scope that could be addressed at the local level. He
gave me an article on single dose nevaripine to prevent mother-to-child transmission of
HIV. We realized that the majority of people in Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa,
lived in villages and the best way to reach them was through religious organizations, such
as churches, mosques, and faith-based organizations…

95 

This concentration on a very specific issue has both strengths and weaknesses. While
many organizations are quick to act—often prematurely involving themselves in establishing and
running orphan-care activities or projects—they can also be responsive to the local context and
expand their initial narrow focus. For example, AIC has begun to think long term with a focus on
systemic change. The founder of AIC noted this shift over time:
Another trend is that we rigorously cleave to funding things that are HIV related. When
we started in 2001 that was the purpose, but we have finally understood that HIV is
broader than just those who are positive. So now we are doing things that are related to
TB and malaria and we are expanding our projects.
The other projects he mentioned that AIC is supporting include women’s empowerment, orphan 
care, bed net distributions, nursing scholarships, and distributing food during times of hunger.
Although many of those involved in these humanitarian organizations only visit Malawi
once, those who return frequently can become more knowledgeable of local circumstances, and
more deeply involved in social justice activities, both at home and abroad. One of the volunteers
and fundraisers working in Malawi with AIC, an emergency room physician, dedicates his time
to volunteering in hospitals for varying lengths of time; encourages students and older
professionals to visit Malawi and volunteer their own time; raises funds for AIC projects; and
has gone back to school to study liberation theology and sustainable development on a part-time
basis. He regularly discusses and debates issues related to development, social justice, and
Malawi with a variety of audiences.
Similarly AIC’s founder has begun to co-author papers in peer-reviewed journals on
AIDS and community-based responses in Malawi. He was able to do this by connecting with a
scholar at UCSF who was funded by NIH to conduct research on AIDS, gender, and religion. As
a consequence, some programs and activities better correspond to local needs than was the case
in the past.

96 

Southern Allied Missions
As discussed in chapter 2, Southern Allied Missions and Miracles orphanage came to
fruition as a result of a volunteer tourist experience initiated by a church group in Alabama.
Southern Allied Missions’ founder, Jim Chardy, a real estate developer, came to Malawi to bear 
witness to poverty and disease. He reported being overwhelmed by the number of children he
perceived to be orphans that he saw in villages. He decided he wanted to help these children.
Chardy established an orphanage, an institution that the Government of Malawi explicitly
opposes, favoring instead community-based care similar to the projects undertaken by AIC.
Chardy did this because of the misperception that there were large numbers of orphans with no
families or means of support. He assumed these children to be abandoned, without anyone to
care for them.
This institutionalization of children has a variety of repercussions that I discuss in chapter
4, which include creating a privileged identity for orphans, fostering community dissent and
jealousy, developing institutional dependency, and stressing traditional kinship systems.
Southern Allied Missions is a cautionary tale. Chardy is an example of a compassionate
individual driven to make a difference with no understanding of either local cultural systems or
macro-level factors that influence poverty, AIDS, children, and inequality. The consequences are
profound, because 140 children now rely on him for sustaining their lives and ensuring the
“better future” he has promised. It is unclear if he will be able to follow through on his promises 
and if he will have the resources to support this costly institution.
For example, Chardy plans to utilize the farmland attached to the orphanage so the
children can grow their own food and raise livestock. In his vision, the excess grains and animals
would be sold for a profit that could then be used to pay the institution’s expenses, creating a 

97 

sustainable orphanage not reliant on donor funds. This has proven unrealistic because the
harvests have been inadequate and there has not been enough capital to invest in livestock. The
financial demands of running the institution—including paying school fees and salaried staff,
and finishing construction and renovation of the complex to meet minimal state standards—have
been substantial. Despite a lack of sustainable and stable funding, he relies heavily on his
Christian faith by regularly describing the miracles that Jesus performed, including feeding the
5,000. The following ethnographic example highlights the potential for benevolent intentions to
be at odds with local needs.
I received a phone call one day from the American administrator asking if I had contacts
at the US Embassy who could help her obtain visas for all of the children. Chardy wanted to take
them to Disney World. He would fly them across the ocean, put them up in hotels, let them
experience a variety of rides and shows, and then fly them to his home in the United States to
sing at a fundraiser. I explained that it would be nearly impossible to get visas for children, as he
does not have legal custody of them. I argued that there were potentially negative psychological
impacts of such a journey for these children. In addition, it seemed impossible to justify this trip
in financial terms. It would cost approximately US $3,000 per child. Miracles’s funding sources 
are precarious. They rely on donor drives that have proven fickle in the current economic
climate. As a result, Miracles is lacking much-needed funds. At the time of this research, some
buildings housed twenty-five children together with one housemother. Government guidelines
call for a maximum of twelve children per household/housemother. Miracles did not have the
funding to hire more housemothers.
One of the purposes of the trip was to bring the children to the United States to sing in
front of influential donors. In his mind, the money raised in such an encounter would justify the

98 

trip’s expenditure. When his daugther-in-law and I expressed our misgivings, he reminded us of
the many miracles that Jesus was able to perform and that nothing is beyond the power of God.
Chardy has an exorbitant amount of control over the lives of these children and is
disconnected from the context of their lives and the forces that will structure their realities once
released from the institution. Children who have graduated from another well-established
orphanage are having difficulties finding jobs, and the orphanage itself is now supporting these
adults past an age they had originally planned (see chapter 4). Although his intentions are
benevolent and founded on principles of easing the suffering of vulnerable children, he has the
power to affect the lives and futures of people in vastly different ways than he intends (see
chapter 4).
L ay H umanitarian Similarities
AIC and Southern Allied Missions have distinct approaches to meeting the needs of
orphans; however, there are similarities tied explicitly to the homogenizing orphan narratives
they they simultaneously buy into and produce. I will explore three features that are present
within these organizations, which are dependent upon and shaped by the orphan discourses that
they employ and disseminate. These include: (1) presentation of suffering to generate a
compassionate response among potential donors; (2) a discourse and iconography that creates
apolitical and acultural children living in isolation and dependent on the benevolence of western
donors; and (3) the presence of an underlying paternalism rooted in discourses and projects of
modernity ideology. In many cases, Malawians are presented as underdeveloped and needing the
west to Rescue them to a more developed state, assumed to be western in nature. In essence, it is
the suffering and abandoned child without culture or place/politics that is ideally situated to be

99 

“saved” and shaped into a proper modern subject. Before I examine these three features I discuss 
more broadly the power of discourse that has directly shaped transnational orphan projects.
T he Power of Discourse: C reating an A id C ategory
It’s not what we don’t know that’s dangerous; it’s what we do know that’s not true.
Bohannan and Curtin (1995:3)
Writing about Africa during the late 17th until the early 19th centuries was almost
exclusively done by colonizers, explorers, slave traders, and missionaries. These literatures were
produced during the time of slavery and colonization. Achebe (1998), Bohannan and Curtin
(1995), and Harris (1987) remind readers that this context is significant, as texts were
strategically produced to justify the enslavement of another, while also reinforcing Christian
sensibilities and the need to save Africa from its degraded self (through colonial rule). The
motivations of these particular purveyors of knowledge about Africa became clear. Slave traders
relied on a discourse and image of a less-than-human African (Harris 1987). Christian
missionaries called upon an image of an immoral, savage, and even innocent African in need of
saving (Bohannan and Curtin 1995). Imperialists relied on depictions of Africa as degraded,
backwards, and in need of colonial governance and direction to develop. These images and
discourses were produced and disseminated through a variety of genres, including slave trader
journals, explorer reports, missionary letters, and novels.
Early colonial settlers were often medical missionaries and explorers who created an
image of Africa that associated the continent and its people with disease, heat, contagion, filth,
odor, porousnesss, dampness, cannibalism, infestation, grease, “dank rottenness,” “marshy 
miasmas,” and as “a repository of death, disease, and degeneration” (Bohannan and Curtin 1995; 
Comaroff 1993; Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Vaughan 1991:2). Physicians such as Dr. Hugh
Stannus took notes with enthusiastic detail about new diseases, photographing them and

100 

publishing reports in European tropical medical journals (Vaughan 1991:29–54). Examples of
diseases comprehensively documented include elephantiasis, leprosy, yaws, and trypanosomiasis
(African sleeping sickness) (Vaughan 1991:31–32). Many of these diseases present with
shocking visual deformities that elicited reactions from readers that included disgust, fear, and
anxiety over contagiousness. These reports were significant because, as Vaughan notes, “[t]he 
image of the ‘sick African’ and of Africa as a ‘sick continent’ to be pitied and despised is one 
which, though not entirely of the missionary societies’ making, was greatly influenced by the 
reports which they sent home, and one which retains a strong hold even now” (1991:74).
Mythologized images and understandings of Africa continue to shape the way
contemporary development and humanitarian workers think about the continent. Achebe (1998)
and Bohannan and Curtin (1995) argue that misrepresentations about Africa have become so
deeply rooted in the western consciousness that they become almost impossible to challenge.
Negative, false, “fairy-tale” depictions of Africa are so pervasive that, when authentic accounts
of African culture, tradition, and history are presented, they are not accepted because of the sharp
contrast that arises between them and the previously invented Africa (Achebe 1998:109).
Therefore, it is not surprising that the image of the backward, pestiferous, dark Africa continues
to permeate western society with profoundly negative consequences for both Africa and the west.
Unfortunately, institutions, including NGOs such as Save the Children, UNICEF, World Vision,
and Madonna’s Raising Malawi, often perpetuate instead of challenge this “backward” and 
“uncivilized” image, via discourses and iconography broadcast through mass media and the use 
of new technologies such as the Internet.
Within a globalizing world, the role of these institutions in articulating and circulating
ideas, knowledge, news, history, and so forth becomes increasingly evident. Uneven power

101 

relationships and global inequalities can be seen in the production and consumption of various
forms of media and the associated discourses disseminated through them. Socially dominant
populations shape and filter what is produced, disseminated, and consumed (Fairclough 1995).
This is possible because the power of discourses and iconography is predicated on the belief that
it is able to mirror reality (Fairclough 1995:64). People turn to news stations with the expectation
that the stories they hear and the images produced are authentic and legitimate. For these
institutions to maintain legitimacy, their discourses and iconography must be perceived as having
some level of truth. Therefore, these institutions, especially reliant on iconography and
discourses distributed through a variety of media outlets, are “able to naturalize dominant
ideological representations of reality, which often result in the perpetuation of asymmetrical
power relations” (Fairclough 1995:64–65; Hall et al. in Fairclough 1995:64). These institutions
and the discourses and iconography produced are then able to influence the way consumers
(donors) understand, interpret, and construct their world, including their social relationships.
Bohannan and Curtin (1995:5) argue that, historically, media has played a particularly
important role in shaping global images of Africa for western consumption:
The worse the failure, the more lurid the reporting. In the 1970s, spectacular tyrants like
Idi Amin in Uganda or ‘Emperor’ Jean Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Empire got 
more space and air time than the spectacular but peaceful economic progress and
comparative freedom of an Ivory Coast or Cameroon.
This type of one-sided reporting continues today and serves to reify in the minds of many
westerners an uncivilized, hyper-sexualized image of Africa whereby tribal warfare leads to
unimaginable atrocities and HIV/AIDS is rampant because of uncontrolled sexual behavior.
Few Africans are able to represent themselves or their lived experiences because of the
power of western media to filter and interpret particular discourses, events, cultures, histories,
and livelihoods. Why are western or socially dominant voices and discourses privileged over

102 

others? One explanation is the inability of many Africans to access mass media. For example, in
Malawi a major impediment to self-representation and monitoring of these discourses is lack of
access to computers and the Internet. Most Malawians remain silenced because they cannot
create web pages, post commentaries, communicate via e-mail, telephone, fax, and so on. Access
to the Internet is limited to cities where there are a handful of Internet cafes.

18

Bunda College,

part of the University of Malawi system, is connected to the Internet through a dial-up
connection that is often overburdened and thus painstakingly slow.
In Malawi, it would be very difficult to produce and monitor global discourses and
images, which are created so easily in western countries. The result of these unequal power
relations and unequal access to resources is the ability of west-based institutions to mold an
image of Malawi for global consumption, often without input from Malawians themselves. This
branding of Malawi is evident as NGOs employ discourses to raise money for and awareness of
the HIV pandemic and the orphan crisis. Aside from unequal access to resources, how do these
organizations have the authority to create images and speak on behalf of Malawians?
According to Bourdieu (1991a; 1991b), discourses that are produced to reify social
relations by building upon preconceived ideologies are more likely to be accepted as legitimate.
In addition the producer of a particular discourse must be in a position that is recognized as
legitimate by the consumer or donor. Institutions, he argues, have the power to create (act of
social magic) discourses that are more likely to be accepted as legitimate. Institutions, through
the production of discourses, shape a reality that is used to justify their particular investment,
purpose, or role in addressing/governing that reality. Discourses produced and disseminated by
                                                 
18
In a country plagued by poverty, it can be assumed that paying to use the Internet is isolated to
the small elite or middle-class Malawian population. In addition, 85 percent of Malawians live in
rural areas that have no electricity or only sporadic electricity.
103 

NGOs (or institutions, in keeping with Bourdieu’s vocabulary) are privileged and therefore 
conceptualized by donors as valid descriptions of particular processes at work in Malawi. In
addition to gaining legitimacy through a discourse that reproduces and builds upon ingrained
ideology and social structures, NGOs gain legitimacy from the US government when they are
granted 501(c)3 tax-exempt status. Given this authorization, these discourses have the power to
shape the image of Malawi that is circulated, as well as the beliefs and ideologies of the audience
exposed to these representations. Fairclough (1995) and Bourdieu (1991b) both contend that
discourses serve to establish, maintain, or change social positions and relationships, not always
for the better.
These discourses produce unanticipated outcomes when they inform humanitarian and
development programs that are implemented in local contexts. Ferguson (1994) provided a
cogent example of the power of a circulating, hegemonic discourse to impact rural Lesotho lives.
In The Anti-Politics Machine (1994), he explored the way the development apparatus
discursively creates and often misconstrues actual facts about Lesotho to present the country as
having problems associated with underdevelopment and poverty. Lesotho is thus constructed as a
particular type of underdeveloped country that can be targeted with a technical and packaged
solution. For example, Lesotho is portrayed as being aboriginal and thus able to be transformed
for inclusion in the modern world/economy. It is presented as agricultural, which would suggest
that it could prosper under agricultural improvements and extension/technical advancements to
shift from subsistence to cash cropping. Lesotho is presented as having a national economy and
thus perceived as independent of South Africa. Finally, according to Ferguson (1994), Lesotho is
constructed by the development community as being open to governmentality, meaning the
government is stable enough for economic programs to be effective.

104 

These characteristics make Lesotho an “enormously promising candidate” for 
development (Ferguson1994:69), yet they are inaccurate. Lesotho has long engaged in global
economic systems; agricultural production contributes just 6 percent to rural household incomes;
and “concepts such as national economy and governmentality are more than usually absurd” 
(Ferguson 1994:72). The purpose for constructing Lesotho in these terms is to “set up a target for 
a particular sort of intervention: the technical, apolitical, ‘development’ intervention” (1994:28).
Central to Ferguson’s argument is the notion of discourse as conceived of by Foucault 
(1980b). Broadly speaking, Foucault posits that discourse, or utterances and statements, do not
exist in a social vacuum, but rather are situated and given meaning by the social context. In the
case of Lesotho, the development industry makes statements about Lesotho that are intelligible to
those who have a stake in casting Lesotho as a technical problem able to be targeted with a
development solution. This discourse and construction of Lesotho will aid in the perpetuation of
the development apparatus, and is generally accepted as truth.
Foucault (1980b) also notes that discourse is actually responsible for constituting the
social context within which the discourse is being produced. As Ferguson (1994) demonstrates,
Lesotho literally becomes the less-developed country it is imagined to be as evidenced by its
status as a Less Developed Country (LDC), leading to the implementation of particular types of
development interventions. Certain economic policies are implemented premised on the
aforementioned, yet misconstrued, characteristics of the country. LDC status also impacts
Lesotho’s overall geopolitical positionality and its relations with foreign investors, other
countries, and transnational lending agencies. Discourse is simultaneously informing and
informed by the social context. Because of this, any attempt at understanding social or cultural
processes must be rooted in an examination of the discourses that shape one’s reality.

105 

Both Foucault (1980b, 1980c) and Ferguson (1994) recognize that hegemonic discourse
is contested and exists alongside alternate discourses, thus introducing power dimensions into
this theoretical discussion. In fact, for every discourse there is often a counter-discourse—for
instance, feminism, environmentalism, or rights-based approaches to development. This site of
contestation, or friction, is central to understanding what is being experienced within the social
milieu. In fact, it is their contestation that also impacts one’s subjectivity and frames the ways in 
which one thinks and interacts. This discussion of the nature of discourses and the recognition of
hegemonic discourses that are granted more legitimacy and power over others is relevant to the
ways in which the situation of orphans is being produced at the transnational level. The
production of orphan discourses by lay humanitarians and the power to construct a particular
population/subjectivity based on western ideologies get refracted and reconfigured by the very
Malawian children being created by this discourse. In later chapters I take up the friction that
arises when these various stakeholders and their discourses meet. Here I examine the production
of orphans via particular hegemonic western discourses and their centrality in framing
transnational responses to the situation faced by children in Malawi who are labeled orphans.

19

The Moral Imperative: Invoking Compassion
Lay humanitarians working with orphans address the moral imperative to bring relief to
suffering and to save lives. They, along with more established NGOs, draw on a particular
discourse of childhood and innocence that engenders an ethics of compassion. Orphans are an
effective trope for rallying transnational support because the suffering of a child is emotionally
charged and ethically deplorable. Humanitarian organizations often legitimize their presence and
                                                 
19
In the next chapter, I demonstrate how the state is also adopting these discourses to capture
resources, even though they acknowledge the discontinuity between these hegemonic discourses
and the actual on-the-ground social configurations emerging around children.
106 

generate material support through a specific iconography or discourse of a sick, suffering, or
innocent child (Lamers 2005; Manzo 2008; Ruddick 2003). This suffering must be palpable
enough to spur action from compassionate funders and volunteers. AIDS is particularly effective
in evoking a response.
In Malawi, most of the cacophony perpetuated by organizations and the Malawian
government tethers the vulnerability of children to HIV/AIDS discourses and images, which
encourage a powerful emotional response (see Meintjes and Giese 2006 for a discussion of South
African orphan discourses). Global concern about the wellbeing of children imagines a diseased
and sexually immoral Africa culpable for producing a generation of vulnerable, innocent, and
needy children. UNICEF’s promotional material reads:
There are about one million orphans in Malawi. Half a million of these children have lost
one or both parents to AIDS. Losing a parent to AIDS is terrible for any child, but
children living in developing countries who lose parents to AIDS face unthinkable
hardships. Anecdotal evidence speaks of orphans forced into domestic work by their
caretakers to earn their keep. Reminiscent of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, pauper 
children are vulnerable to ill treatment. Orphaned girls are particularly at risk of sexual
abuse and exploitation. Stigma and discrimination trail these children everywhere they
go.
In this statement, a clear connection is drawn between orphans and AIDS, despite the fact that
the majority of Malawi’s orphans remain with a living parent or are taken in by extended family 
members. I will show in chapter 4 that NGOs may be creating stigma and discrimination as they
target specific children living in areas of endemic poverty with material resources.
The UNICEF excerpt is just one example of the emerging hegemonic orphan discourse
that discursively creates a homogenous aid category for a targeted intervention. Orphan
discourses partnered with a particular iconography of suffering children are simultaneously
producing and being produced by most organizations focused on these children. Larger
transnational organizations, such as UNICEF, Save the Children, and World Vision, have a

107 

longer history of presenting suffering children to a global audience. They have been critiqued for
their depictions, which some argue are an offense to children’s rights. As a result, some larger
organizations have signed codes of ethics that agree to not present children in suffering and
deplorable conditions. However, many continue to do so (Manzo 2008). The UNICEF quote was
taken from their 2006 promotional material, demonstrating their persistence.
AIDS is central to the suffering orphan discourse, which was evidenced by tourists from
the United States who were volunteering in my research sites. They stated that they raised funds
by quoting HIV/AIDS figures, life expectancy, and numbers of orphaned children. As one
respondent said:
HIV, you know, well it sells in America. You play up HIV in your letters and you get all
this money cuz it’s like, “Oh, you know, AIDS, help AIDS!”
Voluntourists also ascribed to the image of a diseased, helpless African orphan
population. For example, all respondents, when asked what percentage of the one million
orphans in Malawi were HIV positive, significantly overestimated the figure, some quoting
numbers as high as 70 percent. It becomes the moral obligation of the west to Rescue these
needy, poor, and vulnerable children. As Fassin (2007) asks, “Who can’t get behind the image of 
a child?”
Arendt (1963) notes that compassion is most effective in intimate interactions between
those who suffer and those who do not. This is accomplished by the Miracles web page, as well
as the “orphan profiles” distributed at churches and other fundraising events. These materials 
contain pictures of individual children and compelling stories of their suffering. Children talk
about hunger, illness, exposure to the suffering of dying parents, abuse, sadness, and need—lack
of education, healthcare, and love. The orphan profile that describes the situation of a particular
child at the orphanage, Pilirani, reads:

108 

When her mother and father could not care for her young Pilirani went to live with her
aunt. Her aunt could not care for her and problems grew. Pilirani tells of the other
children in the house eating porridge with sugar on it, but she was given salt for her
porridge. She also remembers the pain of going outside to play, but being forced to play
beyond sight of the house while the other children could play near home. When she was
given support (resources from organizations, neighbors, etc.) her aunt took it away from
her. She can remember sleeping outside for there was not enough room in the house, and
often going without food, because there was not enough food to go around. Then her aunt
deserted her, and returned her to her mother. In time both her mother and father died and
Pilirani found herself alone, except for a young neighbor girl, Emily, who helped her by
giving her a place to sleep.
These ubiquitous appeals are constructed to draw potential contributors into face-to-face
virtual encounters/relationships with children. Anyone late at night channel surfing has watched
an advertisement for Save the Children or a similar sponsorship program. It is during these
moments in the comfort of their homes that many Americans come face-to-face with the
suffering of children in extremely impoverished circumstances. As Paul Farmer advocates in
Madonna’s documentary, “I Am Because We Are,” the ability to “link the desire to help people 
have a future and feel good about their own engagement, that is the most powerful thing we can
do.”
Volunteer tourism takes these encounters a step further by physically transporting
individuals from their homes directly into the lives and spaces of Malawians for a literal face-toface experience. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers from diverse north-based groups embark
on touristic adventures that include a humanitarian component meant to provide an opportunity
of these travelers to give back and serve the poor. In some countries, the powerful allure of these
children’s plights rivals more traditional forms of tourism today. AIC takes a handful of
influential donors (many affluent members of the clergy or medical professions) to Malawi, and
they visit a variety of the programs AIC sponsors. These potential donors act as liaisons between
Malawian children and transnational capital. The pictures taken are powerful fundraising tools in

109 

their home communities in the United States and are included in web site picture galleries and
used at fundraising events.
I traveled for two weeks as an observer on one of these tours, with a group of Americans
who came to experience the suffering of Malawian men and women in an effort to learn about
HIV/AIDS and its effects. As part of the tour we were taken on home-based care visits. We
journeyed into rural villages accompanied by local gatekeepers who displayed dying patients
outside of their homes as a testimony to the need for global support. Several American
participants said the experience of bearing witness to suffering was necessary for them to go
back and “tell the story” of AIDS in Africa to raise funds for programs and support the innocent 
children left behind. Photos were taken and minimal words exchanged in these encounters, yet it
was imagined as a space for American donors to experience and understand suffering through an
intimate encounter.
Figure 9 is an example of these encounters. It was taken after a brief visit with a man
dying of AIDS. We stood out as we drove two vans filled with azungus (a phrase that means
foreigner, but usually refers to white people) into
the center of village. Vehicles rarely travel into the
center of these villages, and it is even more rare to
see them full of foreigners. Plastic chairs were set
up around the entrance of the AIDS patient’s 
home, and he was brought out to sit on the front
porch. People from throughout the village came
out to see what was happening. Children ran
toward us shouting “Azungu! Azungu!” After the visit, several of the voluntourists expressed 

110 

anxiety and anger at having participated in this home-based care excursion. They felt they had
violated this man’s privacy and were complicit in processes that perpetuated stigma and 
discrimination. Other group members disagreed saying it was a way of honoring the man’s life 
and death. Several took pictures, one of which is the photo included here. While I can appreciate
the attempt at making the situation of AIDS “real” to westerners who might feel disengaged by 
the pandemic, for me the exchange was short and awkward. Most people did not speak directly
to the dying man nor did they ask the translators to engage in any conversation with him. I sat
next to the man (pictured here in the blue shirt), greeted him, and introduced myself. Beyond
that, I was at a loss for what to say. When I asked a satisfied participant to explain his thoughts
about the encounter, he said:
I’m not inclined to say it’s worthless to visit the very sick. I don’t think you want to do 
that full time, or anything remotely close to that. But to me, I know intellectually there’s 
many, many, many, many sick people and VERY sick people and I don’t see them and 
I…and most people in the United States don’t ever want to see them, but somehow I feel 
that it’s important to see a few of them to remind me of one of the things that we [AIC] 
are doing. And when I give money to AIC, it’s much more meaningful to me to give to 
them and you know, whether it’s seeing the orphans, or seeing the very, very sick, or 
seeing the hospitals and how lousy the stuff they have is, they don’t have enough surgical 
gloves, they don’t have enough sterile equipment, they don’t have enough blankets, you 
know, they don’t have enough of ANYTHING! It’s good to see that, for me.
In general these encounters visiting sick patients typically lasted less than five minutes. I
do not know how the patients felt or if they would be honest with us if we asked them. It is
possible that they felt it is positive and that they were happy to have the company and attention.
It is also possible that they feel obligated to entertain us because they are recipients of AIC
project funds. Either way, these experiences could be interpreted as proof that Malawi is a
diseased, dark place producing dying adults and innocent children in need of saving, an image
that effectively raises donor altruistic intentions as noted in the quote.

111 

One patient we visited did seem genuinely appreciative of our presence. She was much
healthier than the others we had visited, and she lived in a more secluded area that had fewer
peering eyes (see figure 10). She laughed and joked with us
and wanted her picture taken. Trips to visit very young
children were perceived by everyone as productive, because
volunteers believed that simply holding the children could
provide comfort. Figure 11 was taken on the “orphan tour” 
when we visited Open Arms Nutrition and Rehabilitation
Center. Many infants who lose their mothers in childbirth or whose mothers are too poor to
provide for their children are brought to
Open Arms, where they are given
nutritional supplements and access to
healthcare. We were encouraged to hold the
babies, feed them, and try to stimulate them
to encourage their motor reflexes. The
evident malnutrition overwhelmed many of
the visitors, and some cried openly,
expressing their distress about bearing witness to this type of suffering. While upsetting, these
trips continued to be endorsed by most of the participants. One volunteer tourist explained her
purpose and expectations for participating in these orphan tours in the following way:
I expected that I’d be with Malawian people. That I would somehow find a way to
communicate with them even though I didn’t know Chichewa. That I’d be able to see 
them in a number of different settings, the urban as well as the rural/village settings, that I
would be able to touch them, you know, hands on, shake their hands, that I’d somehow 
feel my heart moved by them and not in pity, but feeling touched that there was
something that was common between us. I guess those are the main things.

112 

It may be possible to find a place of compromise that allows these visitors and the people
they meet to validate each other’s experiences and humanity. Without my presence, there seemed 
to be little opportunity to gain an understanding of Malawian perspectives on AIDS and orphans,
and no discussion of the structural processes that lead to poverty, inequality, and disease.
However, the group appreciated my knowledge, and they were obviously interested in better
understanding what they were seeing and experiencing. They constantly complimented me on
my ability to communicate in Chewa and asked an inordinate number of questions about Malawi,
orphans, AIDS, poverty, and development when we were not in the presence of patients. I was
one of the drivers, and several participants asked that there be a rotation between the two
vehicles so that the various group members could ask the resident anthropologist different
questions. There was a genuine hunger for knowledge among all the participants that I found
encouraging and endearing.
In these encounters, children and adults function as “depoliticizing” agents. They are sites 
of benevolent humanitarianism, whereby capital is redistributed, but can be critiqued, because
western consciousness of structural violence, global inequalities, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic is
made invisible. By creating relationships based on empathy, voluntourists come to feel that it is
their moral obligation to care for these innocent children. In the next section, I will explore how
children framed within such a moral milieu are often inadvertently depoliticized—this
compassionate gaze largely overlooks the broader political and social dimensions that lead to
their situations.

Bare Life: Depicting Apolitical and Acultural Subjects
Another central characteristic of humanitarian discourses and representations of orphans
that emerged from my study is how the broader historical, social, political, and economic

113 

contexts are erased. In the discourses and ideologies of humanitarian organizations, recipients of
aid are often reduced to passive and innocent victims, objects of charity rather than active
subjects (Malkki 1995, 1996). Bodies become labeled, targeted, and ultimately governed within a
new structure that can be vastly different from that from which they came (Malkki 1995, 1996).
For Malkki, it is the refugee as constructed by humanitarians who is taken into a camp and
provided the barest existence, who is reduced to an ahistorical, universal victim existing in an inbetween space without state, land, or citizenship. The refugee is “stripped of the specificity of
culture, place, and history—is human in the most basic, elementary sense. As bare humanity, the
refugee stands for all of us at our most naked and basic level” (Malkki 1995:12). It is this 
simplification and standardization of a particular state of being, refugee—or in this case
orphan—that, once defined, becomes manageable and governable.
Ticktin (2006), drawing on Agamben’s (1995) conceptualization of zoe or “bare life,” 
makes a similar argument in her work on African immigrants to France who have to prove they
are severely ill and cannot be treated in their own countries in order to stay in France. They must
adopt an identity of suffering and potential death to retain their French immigration status. Illegal
immigrants may embrace an illness identity that, although it may gain them some more time in
France and the future possibility of French citizenship, divorces them from ties to family and
community in France and in their countries of origin. Malawian orphans, most of them too young
to be aware of these tradeoffs, have these decisions made for them when they are placed in
orphanages. Other children actively pursue this tradeoff. As I discuss in chapter 4, some orphans
initially accept the community jealousy and the potential for being a target for malevolent
witchcraft that comes from living in an orphanage. They are willing to be ostracized if it means

114 

being able to access the material support and education orphanages provide. Conversely, as these
children start to mature, some are beginning to exhibit mixed feelings about these tradeoffs.
The morality of humanitarianism, based as it is on a politics of compassion, gives rise to
images of circumscribed lives focused on suffering and potential alleviation via western
assistance. The concept of bare life is reflected on most of the web sites and other means I have
examined that are used to recruit contributions and volunteers to humanitarian causes. Many of
the web sites present orphaned children as existing in a social and political vacuum. Much of
these children’s compelling appeal resides in this separation from family and community, even 
though in reality many of those in orphan care at rehabilitation centers and in formal orphanages
have nuclear and extended families. Moreover, these children become our fictive kin—they
become our children. For example, Rescue purports that for a mere US $28 a month the lives of
youngsters can be enriched. They can be provided an education, food, basic health amenities, a
roof over their heads, and even a family—yours. Miracles’s recent Malawi Update e-mail letter
stated, “We are constantly trying to encourage our kids and remind them that they no longer 
wear the names ‘abandoned & forgotten’! God has been so good!” And through child 
sponsorship every donor dollar goes to raising a Malawian orphan.
Madonna’s work in Malawi is premised on the idea of an isolated and abandoned child. 
She purposefully has extracted children from their social milieu in order to “save” them to a 
western lifestyle. In both her adoption cases she sparked controversy, and in David Banda’s case 
even a human rights lawsuit to prevent his adoption. The children she sought to adopt were not
living in isolation, but rather were members of extended kinship systems and communities.
David Banda, her first adopted child, has a living father and other extended family members.
Chifundo “Mercy” James has a grandmother who fought to keep her in Malawi. In her quest, 

115 

Madonna erased the social systems and cultural configurations within which Malawian children
live, contending that her western-style affluence was superior.
Many of the voluntourists interviewed in the course of this study held a view of
Malawian orphans as completely abandoned, isolated, and stripped down to the barest form of
humanity. One voluntourist working at Miracles orphanage
explained her understanding of an orphan:
When I had heard the word orphanage before, orphan, it
made me think like, you know, they all live in one room,
they all get one bowl of pea soup a day, and none of them
have clothes, and they don’t have anything.
Hegemonic orphan discourses and iconography deliberately
exclude the social context. The orphan is understood as having
nothing, not even culture. Ruddick (2003) discusses the iconography
of children in developing countries as purposefully hiding or blurring their context in an attempt
to make them appear acultural and isolated. Pictures focus on close-ups of faces or eyes or
bodies, without an attempt to capture their sociality. Looking back
on my own photos, I realized that I could also be accused of
snapping similar shots (see figures 12 and 13). Such an erasure or
misrepresentation of culture is harmful, but it allows donors to
imagine their own vision of childhood for aid recipients—a vision
usually reflecting a hegemonic modernity paradigm (Ruddick 2003). These same processes occur
with Malawi’s orphans as evidenced by the volunteer tourist quoted earlier and by the case of 
Pilarani previously mentioned. The depictions of context, when they exist, situate children within
deplorable conditions and often tie them to the suffering of AIDS. Madonna’s documentary on 
orphans presents stories of witchcraft and traditional healing, including an attack on a young boy

116 

whose genitals were cut off, purportedly for purposes of occult practices. While this may occur
in Malawi, it is not as prevalent as her documentary suggests. She is presenting Malawian culture
and practices as heathen and harmful to the lives of children, which I will argue invokes a
response of abhorrence by western donors who then want to “save” children to a better life 
imagined within a western modern paradigm.
These children are not simply displayed on web sites, handouts, or videos without their
context, but we are also told explicitly that death has isolated them. For example, a July 5th CNN
report included an interview with Madonna about her Malawi project. When discussing her
reason for adopting David Banda, she said that when she visited Malawi it was like a death camp
because of HIV/AIDS. She said she felt the need to save Malawi’s children, including saving 
David from certain death. She also noted that the adoption saved her by helping her see what
resilience and courage were about and allowed her to feel more appreciative for what she has.
These acultural, apolitical, and emptied subjects allow donors to “think of the wholesale 
‘gift’ of modernist structures as the ‘solution’” (Ruddick 2003:342). This process, which is often
unknowingly framed by a sense of paternalism, serves to reify certain inequalities as programs
attempt to modernize Malawian orphans.
From “Backwards” and AIDS to “Developed” and “Modern”
Upon returning from a research trip to Malawi, I went to visit family and neighbors in
Montana. Many were interested in my travels and inquired about my study. I explained that my
research was exploring different models of orphan care in relation to human rights,
humanitarianism, and development with a focus on both state involvement and the role of
transnational organizations in caring for children. A typical response was that, although such
work was noble, I was wasting my time because HIV/AIDS is a Malthusian response to

117 

overpopulation in Africa. Another related and more frightening response was that if Africans
would control themselves sexually, there would not be a problem; as it stands, they are getting
what they deserve. These opinions reinvigorate a modernity ideology that assumes the west is
best and all other forms of humanity are less evolved and thus less than human or backward.
These ideologies aid in situating orphans within a moral framework that obscures other
factors related to the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa. Instead, HIV/AIDS is depicted as due to
immorality, specifically hedonistic and barbaric sexual appetites, traditional backward practices
of scarification, polygamy, female circumcision, virgin and widow cleansing myths, and
prostitution (Fassin 2007; Packard and Epstein 1991; Schoepf 2004; see Rushing 1995 for an
example of these stereotypes). There were early reports that African heathen sexuality is what
drew HIV into humans from apes (Fassin 2007). Africans thus are often presented as culpable for
the rampant spread of HIV due to individual risky behaviors and cultural practices.
Madonna, in her video, presents AIDS in this way. She discusses the traditional practice
of widow cleansing, whereby widows have sex with a designated person in the village to cleanse
them after the death of their spouse or child. She argues that AIDS is being spread primarily as a
result of Malawian cultural practices, which all the more justifies western intrusion. These
images and stories, reminiscent of early colonial writings, present Malawi’s culture as backwards 
and morally degraded. The orphans produced are the result of this hedonistic sexuality and
culture.
Women, in particular, are to blame. An example drawn from the Miracles web site is a
health education program targeting girls that solicits international support. The program preaches
abstinence only and conversion to a moral Christian worldview to ensure health and wellbeing.
Girls are depicted as the gatekeepers of promiscuous sexual activity, when in reality they wield

118 

limited power. This discourse on girls’ promiscuity is transmitted to a global audience, as 
potential contributors are encouraged to donate funds to save these African orphans spiritually
and physically.
It is within this discourse of blame that innocent victims emerge—children. Pure,
untainted, and immature children, the focus of many humanitarian interventions, should not be
blamed for the sexual impropriety of their parents, but rather saved and shaped into responsible,
moral, and upstanding adults. Children depicted as tabla rasas or emptied of social, cultural,
political, and religious baggage can be saved, through emergency humanitarian intervention,
from the fate that took their parents.
A well-known example of this practice is again drawn from Madonna’s work in Malawi. 
Her 2006 web site contained a clip from her 2005 Confessions tour, which publicized her
Malawi orphan NGO. In the concert she uses powerful images of orphaned children. She is
dressed in red, wearing a crown of thorns, and standing in front of a cross. In the background, on
either side of the cross, flash images of children’s faces (presumably orphaned children in
Malawi). These pictures are engulfed in red, fiery imagery. The following scriptures appear:
“When I was hungry, you gave me food,” “I was naked, and you gave me clothes,” and 
“Whatever you did for one of the least of my brothers…you did it for me.” She concludes the 
song by falling slowly to the floor, as if sacrificed, laying on her stomach with her arms
outstretched. This imagery suggests that a white Madonna sees herself as a savior for these black
bodies/children, and that she is able to help them escape the hell that is their reality in Malawi. In
her video, “I Am Because We Are,” Madonna tells the story of how she came to Rescue baby 
David. According to her, David was on the verge of death from malaria and tuberculosis, and she
had to heed her own call for a more global engagement and take up the responsibility by saving

119 

this one life. She had to be willing to “stand in the front of the line.” This discourse idealizes the 
west as being the key to a better, happier, and healthier life for a poor, diseased child from Africa
(Sharra 2006). Madonna assumes that baby David, who she adopted, will benefit from her wealth
and fame, thus suggesting that money and a “key to the global North” (Sharra 2006) will assure 
this child a rich, full life not obtainable in Malawi.
As an ironic twist, on October 4, 2007, Slate Magazine ran a satirical article that turned
the tables—its implausibility was meant to elicit western laughter while at the same time
confirming its superiority. The title of the story was “Save the (Celebrity) Children! African 
Family Adopts Brittany’s Kids” (Tarlin 2007). In it, a Malawian couple sought to adopt Brittany 
Spears’ children to protect them from narcissism, scientology, cell phone abuse, and being 
dangled over hotel balcony railings. This article, written in jest, evokes feelings of amusement
and absurdity. Much like the Madonna controversy, these media depictions highlight the
continued racial assumptions of African backwardness that help form many of the web-based
appeals and other humanitarian fundraising efforts.
In sum, I have argued that discourses and iconographies, produced to generate a
compassionate response premised on a child’s suffering, are coupled with a construction of 
orphans that empties them of their social, cultural, and political contexts. This apolitical,
acultural, suffering child is in need of saving. As Abu Lughod argues, there is an implied
directionality in saving another (2002). What is the orphan being saved to? Some of the
programs I studied were either consciously or unconsciously hoping to shape children into
developed, refined, modern subjects. These questions should be taken up by Malawians.
Needless to say, a discontinuity exists between hegemonic orphan discourses premised on
a mythologized Africa and the ways in which Malawians actually conceptualize children,

120 

including their roles, responsibilities, and expectations for the future. In the following chapters I
explore the friction that results when these disjunctive ideologies meet. Projects imagined from a
western modern paradigm and then implemented in a context that ascribes to a different
worldview can accomplish some tasks, but can also create unexpected conflicts. The Miracles
Malawian supervisor, Titani, mentioned these tensions between Malawian program officers and
outside donors:
The negative thing is I feel like most of them [donors] dictate things—how they should
be done. Each and every one—I mean, let’s say in the orphanage or whatsoever, they 
forget sometimes they are taking their own culture, which can not work here because we
are Africans, and forcing us to do things the way that they want them done. So you find
that we are paralyzed, and then [donors] feel like we are abusing them. But yet we want
things to be done the way Africans do things. So in those, they have got their own
negative things.
[ALF] For example?
The [donors from outside Malawi] want the orphans not to be working. [Orphans] should
be staying idle. They should just have some other people to be working for [orphans].
[Donors] are forgetting that we, as Africans, once [the orphans] are out [of the
orphanage] they will have some other problems to cope with, dealing with their own
culture. The way I feel like it would be better for those whites to say that they should just
be sending some money and [the donors] should just come to monitor how we have used
the money, instead of saying that for some years, we will be with you.
Titani works for Miracles and has mostly positive things to say about what Southern
Allied Missions is doing, including the programs they are running. However, he does articulate a
profound cultural divide. US donors and program managers conceptualize childhood within a
particular western framework. It is difficult for those who have limited experience with other
cultures and worldviews to consider alternative ways of being. The result, in the case of the
orphanage, is the production of children who have adopted western worldviews, including
particular expectations of modernity, which may prove to be unrealistic in a context
characterized by endemic poverty (see chapter 4 for a detailed discussion). Finding a feasible

121 

solution—one that will bring together the various and heterogeneous scores of stakeholders
focused on orphans and the children themselves in such a way to dialogue about the difficulties
children are facing and possible programs that are culturally relevant—is proving exceedingly
difficult.
Conclusion

Africans are not really interested in compassion, whatever it means; they ask for one
thing alone—to be seen for what they are: human beings.
Chinua Achebe (1998:113)
International funding continues to pour in for Malawian orphan-care projects sponsored
by a wide assortment of transnational humanitarian organizations. As illustrated earlier, these
organizations, while they differ in many ways from one another, are driven by particular
characteristics. Many of the discourses, web sites, fundraisers, picture galleries, and orphan tours
I examined rely on notions of compassion, suffering, and intimate encounters with the other. The
concern is that these particular discourses and associated iconography serve to further embed the
myth of a diseased and incapable Africa producing hordes of innocent and needy children.
Discourses can be fictitious; especially evident in the fact that the vast majority of
orphans in Africa are not living in isolation and deprivation, but continue to be absorbed into
extended family systems that have proven to be resilient (see chapter 1). Yet these discourses
inform orphan-care programming and shape the missions, goals, and outcomes of orphan
projects. The construction of this orphan demographic is significant, with very real, albeit at
times unintended, outcomes that reproduce systems of power in ways that are more intelligible
when examining program failures or frustrations as opposed to successes. I now turn to the
orphanage, which produces just such unintended outcomes.

122 

C H A PT E R 4: C O M I N G O F A G E I N I NST I T U T I O NS:
EXAMINING MALAWI’S ORPHANAGES
Miracles Village is dramatically carved into the Malawian landscape. It is striking to see
how this institution physically stands apart from the surrounding community, especially knowing
it was created to simulate a Malawian village for the children in residence (see figure 14). The
original structure was not enclosed,
but rather supported the free flow
of people within and beyond the
orphanage. Community members
were encouraged to draw water
from the well located in the center
of the orphanage, and children
from the surrounding community played freely within the orphanage, enjoying a variety of
institutional resources, including the playground, soccer pitch, and innumerable toys.
Unfortunately, a series of security issues arose, leading to the enclosure of the facility.
The physical boundary that was erected around the facility was meant to demarcate and protect
children. Erecting a wall fits more with the ethos of this institution than allowing the integration
of the local community into the facility, as was originally envisioned. The security issue resulted
from situating a resource-rich institution within a region characterized by endemic poverty. A
class system has emerged, with orphans being perceived as wealthier than their neighbors in the
surrounding community. In this scenario, much like that described by Ferguson (1994:20),
“…intentional plans interacted with unacknowledged structures and chance events to produce 
unintended outcomes which turn out to be intelligible not only as the unforeseen effects of an
intended intervention, but also as the unlikely instruments of an unplotted strategy.” I recognize 

123 

the distinction between the original plan of the orphanage founders, funders, and managers and
the unintended outcomes that do have a more relevant intelligibility.
The institution’s intention is to protect children, which is premised on the notion that 
orphaned children in communities face a host of vulnerabilities. Mitigating these vulnerabilities
is what justifies the institutionalization of children. In interviews with Miracles staff and
American volunteers working at the facility, most respondents felt the orphanage was the best
model of orphan care because it could serve the needs of these children and protect them. A clear
line—a wall—is drawn between life in villages and life in the institution. One American
volunteer explained:
These kids never have to worry about eating. They’re always going to eat fine. They have 
snacks even. They have breakfast, they have time for porridge between breakfast and
lunch, they have lunch, and then they get milk, and they get dinner, and then they give
them corn and groundnuts to roast at night. So, they’re definitely fed well. Outside of the 
orphanage they wouldn’t get anything like that. Only what they could work to get, only 
what they can produce, sometimes even only what they could steal.
What the information in this chapter will demonstrate is that just as the institution
physically disrupts the landscape, so too does it ideologically disrupt the Malawian cultural
context. The enclosure of children extends beyond physically walling them off, to disconnecting
them in more discursive ways. Institutionalized children are beginning to conceptualize barriers
between themselves, their communities of origin, their kin, and even their culture. Whether overt
or unintentional, the outcomes described later in the chapter have a political intelligibility—that
of reproducing a “particular constellation of power” that expands capitalist, Christian, and 
neoliberal logic, as well as expectations of modernity.
In this chapter, I focus on children who have been institutionalized. This is a growing
trend in southern Africa, despite the position of various government bodies and children’s rights 
groups that maintain children should remain in communities with extended family members

124 

(GoM 2005; Phiri and Tolfree 2005). The majority of orphanages are initiated, funded, and
directed by transnational organizations, which, as I will demonstrate, influences their approach to
orphan care (Phiri and Tolfree 2005). This chapter reviews the vulnerabilities faced by children
living in poverty who have lost parents. I then examine the diverse and complicated experiences
of children living in orphanages, which were constructed as a means to mitigate these
vulnerabilities. To understand their lives, I draw on ethnographic data collected at Miracles
Village, Rescue Children’s Village, and Hope Children’s Village. While some children’s needs 
are addressed through these organizations, they face unexpected and potentially adverse
outcomes as well. To protect the anonymity and privacy of participants, the names of the
respondents have been changed.
The Vulnerable “Orphan”
I previously problematized the ways in which transnational NGOs often deliberately
construct images of orphaned children that misconstrue and exaggerate their actual
circumstances. Madonna’s contention that there are one million abandoned and isolated 
Malawian orphans living on the streets and being abducted is perhaps the best-known example.
That said, many children in southern Africa do face difficult circumstances. Some of these are
tied to repercussions from the AIDS pandemic. There is emerging literature focused specifically
on orphans that suggests these children face a multitude of vulnerabilities as a result of parental
illness and death (Conroy et al. 2006). The vulnerabilities faced by orphans that are most cited in
the literature include food insecurity (Barnett and Whiteside 2002), school drop-out (Barnett and
Whiteside 2002; Kelly 2005), forced employment in the informal labor market, and a decline in
parental guidance and affection (Ghosh and Kalipeni 2003). Ainsworth and Semali (2000) found
a correlation in southern Africa between maternal mortality and higher child mortality.

125 

Additionally, it is argued that children from AIDS-affected households tend to show high rates of
wasting and stunting (Barnett and Whiteside 2002).
Poor nutrition negatively impacts intellectual growth and functioning, limiting the
educational benefits meant to socially and economically improve the lives of young people. In
addition, increasing truancy or dropping out of school by children from AIDS-affected
households is perceived as particularly detrimental to child wellbeing (Ghosh and Kalipeni 2003;
Kelly 2005). Data suggests children affected by HIV/AIDS leave school for a variety of reasons,
such as hunger or lack of resources to support their continued education (Kelly 2005; Kendall
and O’Gara 2007). Girls, especially, are expected to take on the domestic responsibilities of their 
deceased mothers, impacting school attendance (Barnett and Whiteside 2002). These same
children may enter the labor market to provide for themselves and their ailing parents, drop-out
to care for a sick or dying relative, or take on other responsibilities, including caring for younger
siblings (Barnett and Whiteside 2002; Kendall and O’Gara 2007).
Research also indicates that children from AIDS-affected households experience social
stigma, discrimination, exploitation, physical and sexual abuse, and the loss of property rights
(Ghosh and Kalipeni 2003). Some are exposed to HIV through employing risky sexual behavior
to secure resources (Conroy et al. 2006; GoM 2005). Bauman and Germann (2005) also point to
issues related to psychosocial distress and emotional problems that children confront whose
parents are infected with AIDS, are dying, or are deceased as a result of the disease. Specifically,
depression/unhappiness, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, phobia about attending school,
and disruptive behavioral problems are among the psychosocial disorders these children may
experience (Bauman and Germann 2005).

126 

The research implies that children who are orphaned are in some way more vulnerable
than children simply living in poverty. However, studies indicate that poverty may play a bigger
role than “orphan” status in creating vulnerabilities. The Government of Botswana (2000) stated
in a report of the HIV/AIDS Study Group:
…while there are problems that relate specifically to orphanhood, it is the existence of 
endemic poverty, particularly in rural areas, that is largely responsible for many of the
difficulties faced by orphans as well as other ‘needy children.’
Malawi’s NPA for OPV recognizes that there are children who face a host of
vulnerabilities not necessarily predicated on the loss of a parent. The inclusion of “vulnerable 
children” allows for a response to account for the needs of all children facing adverse
circumstances. The national ECD director in the MoWCD explained:
…HIV/AIDS is affecting every child. Sometimes when you go to some families, other 
children are affected much more than the orphans themselves by the problems they are
experiencing. Some of them are nursing sick parents, some of the parents are very poor,
the parents may not be staying at home, and there are a whole lot of problems. And now
if we have issues to say we want to give to the orphans—that approach has created so
many problems to the children. So, in our approach most of the time we have encouraged
our officers to let us care for the children who are affected by HIV/AIDS and other
problems. When you talk of affected children, you are talking of every child, not just
orphans. So, while this is what we have been encouraging in the communities…In the 
beginning people were just taking orphans saying we want to care for you and give them
early childhood development services and the like, but we said no. We don’t want stigma.
The children should be mixed. If they open up a childcare center, it should just be like a
community preschool where every child is coming in, but maybe ensure that orphans are
taken in. And, as I told you, the way we do social work in Malawi is so much
community-based. You find out that before as a government we bring in resources and
the communities they bring in resources to the centers. They do that on the understanding
that our child is there and those orphans are ours. Now if you separate them (children in a
community) you are some sort of telling the community this is not yours, this is the
government who want to care for the orphans, and it is us who can much better care for
the orphans than you. But, that is not the fact. It is the communities that can do it much
better. So, the approach, in the sense of programming, is a very big issue. And that issue
needs to be taken seriously by the government and with donors. The problem is with
donors, they would say, “we want to care for orphans.” Now if you use this general term, 
they will say “no, where is the orphan?” This is an issue of technocrats—you and me—
how can we circumvent the program. Or, the issue of orphans, it should be on the higher
agenda, but how do we take in the other children? That’s why when you look at our 

127 

policy, which the Government of Malawi developed, it’s talking of national policy of 
orphans and other vulnerable children and these other vulnerable children takes care of
all the other vulnerable children.
This quote recognizes the disjuncture between donor desire to serve orphans perceived of
as more vulnerable and the government of Malawi’s recognition that vulnerability can affect 
children living in a host of difficult circumstances. The acronym OVC (orphans and other
vulnerable children) is used in the majority of government documents in an effort to not only
capture the vulnerabilities that many non-orphaned children face, but also avoid stigma,
discrimination, and jealousy that can result from a targeted response that sets parameters around
aid recipients. In addition, the director places a heavy emphasis on community and the need for
communities to take ownership of orphans and their care. Yet, orphanages are being constructed.
T he O rphanage as a Solution
The number of orphanages in sub-Saharan Africa has increased exponentially predicated
on those vulnerabilities, as well as on the assumption that an orphaned child is abandoned,
isolated, or living on the streets (Phiri and Tolfree 2005). While the research presented here has
shown that children do face numerous challenges as a result of both poverty and AIDS, it is not
always the case that they are alone and without family or kin.
As I have shown in chapter 1 and briefly reviewed here, Malawian children are generally
part of broad, extended family networks. There are a variety of kinship arrangements—
matrilineality, patrilineality, unions in which individuals marry across matrilineal and patrilineal
lines—dictated by customary practices, which ensure that most children who lose parents or
whose parents are unable to care for them do not end up having to fend for themselves (Peters,
Walker, and Kambewa 2008). In fact, as I noted previously, Peters, Walker, and Kambewa
(2008) found no cases in their research in Zomba District, Malawi, where children were

128 

completely isolated or abandoned. While family systems are stressed as a result of HIV and
poverty, they are also proving to be adaptive. For example, grandmothers are taking on more
guardian responsibilities, and children are going to live with kin for different periods of time (Ali
1998; Ansell and Van Blerk 2004; Phiri and Tolfree 2005). It is because of the resiliency of
Malawian kinship systems that the government, under the guidance of UNICEF, has drafted a
policy statement that prioritizes maintaining children in their communities and families (Ghosh
and Kalipeni 2003). Three of the guiding principles are:
1. The extended family system shall remain the primary support structure for the care,
protection, and development of orphans and other vulnerable children.
2. Community participation, empowerment, and ownership shall be emphasized as key
elements in mitigating the social impact of HIV/AIDS on orphans.
3. Community-based approaches to care for orphans and other vulnerable children shall
be emphasized, and institutional care in the form of orphanages shall remain the last
resort.
There is limited empirical research focused on residential care in sub-Saharan Africa, but some
scholars have suggested that potential negative impacts children may face include exposure to
physical and sexual abuse, violation of children’s rights, lack of affection, dependence on the 
institution, problems with children’s temperament, undermining local kinship and family 
systems, and lack of adequate healthcare and food (Phiri and Tolfree 2005). In addition, the high
cost of running an institution as opposed to funding community-based care is a significant
consideration in a context of limited resources (Phiri and Tolfree 2005). With these potential
negative impacts and a clear government mandate to maintain children within their own families,
what makes building and running an orphanage so attractive?
In Phiri and Tolfree’s (2005) critique of institutionalized care in sub-Saharan Africa, they
suggest that orphanages are constructed for several reasons. First, they contend that residential
care has media appeal and, for donors, “it provides a tangible and visible manifestation of their 

129 

investment” (2005:12). This perception was supported by an interview with the former director 
of Rescue Children’s Village, who explained, “Donors would rather see a building or structure 
rather than invest in food programs. Donors want something tangible like a picture of a
borehole.” Madonna expressed this desire, but was advised by the former director of Rescue
against building an orphanage. Instead, she was encouraged to support children in ways that
maintained them in their communities. She was insistent on building some type of physical
structure. In the end she constructed a community center in Nchisi and is currently building a
girl’s school outside of the capital city.
Another perceived advantage is the ability to control and monitor how money is spent,
how children are treated, and what types of resources are being provided or emphasized.
Tracking the way donor money is spent and monitoring how children are treated in communities
and families are difficult undertakings (Phiri and Tolfree 2005). This is a legitimate concern.
Peters, Walker, and Kambewa (2008) describe coming across “phantom” orphan-care projects.
Community members had come together to solicit funds for an orphan feeding program, but
those only existed while the donors were present in the communities. My findings in chapter 6
give similar evidence of these practices. Meintjes and Geise (2006) provide an example of how
community- and family-funded responses can be detrimental in their research on the
“commodification of children in South Africa.” They argue that targeting specific children in 
communities is leading some unscrupulous family members to claim guardianship of children in
order to receive a handout of South African Rand every month. In certain situations, these
children are mistreated and their aid money used for purposes other than providing for the
orphaned children themselves.

130 

Finally, Phiri and Tolfree (2005:12) suggest that, “Residential institutions provide
philanthropic organizations with an opportunity to actively exercise surrogate parenting.” This 
allows particular versions of personhood to be emphasized during crucial times in a child’s 
identity formation. Transnational organizations and western donors assume this surrogate
parenting can reflect western ideals of family, being, and development through their programs.
Chirwa (2002) briefly points out that many of these organizations are religious in nature and
either function to evangelize or to limit the enrollment of recipients to those who already have a
shared religious identity.
Little research has examined the ways in which institutionalized children negotiate their
identities within the facility as well as in the wider society once they graduate. Ferguson’s (1999) 
discussion of men working in the Zambian Copperbelt might provide some frame of reference
for understanding the conundrum faced by individuals who are promised modernity and a
cosmopolitan life, but then face the reality of economic stagnation, high unemployment, and the
lack of social access to these places. In the case of Zambian miners, when the mining industry
collapsed many had to abandon the cosmopolitan accoutrements of urban areas and dejectedly
return to their villages. Miners had to renegotiate rural social systems they had largely neglected.
In the process, they experienced a form of social death. Many faced social isolation upon
returning to villages. They were forced onto marginal lands on the outskirts of homesteads or
settled far away from their natal villages to avoid tension and the potential for witchcraft. Many
marriages dissolved because wives were fearful of witchcraft and potential violence, leading
them to flee to their own natal villages. Miners did report fear of being killed by disgruntled
relatives, and some inexplicable deaths were attributed to nefarious forces called upon by angry
villagers.

131 

A similar situation may be unfolding with children raised in orphanages, which disrupts
family and community relationships (Phiri and Tolfree 2005). All the orphans in the orphanages
said they would not return to their villages to live once they reached adulthood. When probed,
the specific reason given was always fear of witchcraft associated with jealousy. Nearly all
respondents feared being killed. As more children graduate from orphanages, consideration
needs to be given to how some children’s appropriation of a neoliberal logic, which includes a 
more autonomous sense of self, and the accompanying expectations of modernity shape their
interactions and experiences outside of the facility, especially regarding family and community
relations.
Results: E mploying Mothers
One of the central concerns of removing children from extended family systems is the
type of relationship that develops between the children and their new primary caregivers, as well
as the conditions within which they are housed. In all three research sites, children resided with a
single, adult female who they referred to as their housemother, or simply mother. Interviews
were conducted with all of the housemothers at Miracles and Hope, and several critical aspects
of their jobs and the relationships they developed with children emerged.
None of the housemothers at Miracles or Hope had training in orphan care, while Rescue
housemothers were all trained and government certified. At Miracles, the prerequisites for
employment were limited to being single, divorced, or widowed and not having any small
children of their own to care for. The requirements were similar at Hope. All housemothers
interviewed said they wanted training to improve their experience with orphans. Sophia, a fiftyseven-year-old housemother responsible for eighteen children at Miracles, said:
[ALF] What things can they improve upon? What is missing?

132 

If they can send us to the training about orphan care it can improve our orphanage since
we are just working without knowing how to take care of the children.
One reason training may be beneficial is because it can help housemothers learn about
disciplining children. Several housemothers and one of the administrators at Miracles suggested
that the lack of a biological connection between housemothers and the children in their care
could lead to contentious relations. Children misbehave because they do not feel the need to obey
or respect paid employees. The Miracles Managing Partner said:
[DB] I know the older children really give [housemothers] a hard time.
[ALF] Boys, girls, or both?
[DB] Boys. The girls have been good to the mothers. Actually, the girls help the mothers
a lot but the boys have done a lot of back talk. Nothing ever physical, but definitely will
say comments like, ‘you’re getting paid to be here,’ or ‘you’re not the boss of me,
Napoleon [the businessman who owns the property where the orphanage is located] is the
one who gives me my food.’ Really hurtful things like that. And the boys will not do the 
things that [the housemothers] tell them to do.
Conversely, paid employees may not extend the same amount of attention and affection
toward orphans as they would their own biological children (Phiri and Tolfree 2005). Sophia
explained:
[ALF] What is the most frustrating or stressful thing about being a house mom?
I can be frustrated especially when [the children] are supposed to clean in the house and
they don’t. There are a lot of problems. There are other children who are rude; they didn’t 
want to do the work.
Ana, a forty-nine-year-old housemother at Miracles with seventeen children in her care,
answered the same question:
Sometimes children are rude; for example, in the past they were saying, “What kind of
mothers are you who don’t know how to cook?” but we tried to ignore those kinds of 
things.

133 

Prior to this research, disciplinary problems between housemothers and older boys at
Miracles led to a reconfiguring of the residential arrangement. All of the older boys were moved
out of the houses they were originally assigned to and brought together into one house. A
Malawian male in his early twenties became the boys’ overseer, but he did not reside at the 
orphanage. This alleviated some of the tensions that had arisen.
Children also mentioned conflict between themselves and their housemothers, which one
orphan attributed to low salaries. Sam, a twenty-two-year-old double orphan who graduated from
Rescue Village, explained:
…I think it becomes bad when the administration doesn’t treat the [house]mothers well. 
Sometimes they are not treated fairly, and by the end they become harsh on you. They
become harsh on the kids. They are not maybe well paid, something like that. So it
becomes a problem for them to handle the children.
[ALF] You are saying that sometimes the housemothers didn’t treat you as well as your 
real family might have?
Sometimes. It was only in some houses where I heard that the mothers could shout at the
kids and saying, “I’m just working!” You know, and she was not doing [the job] for [the 
sake of] being your mother, but as a job. So that was really bad. And when it was bad
also they remind you that you are an orphan. I didn’t like that word, being labeled.
Housemothers mentioned feeling overworked and undercompensated, partly due to the
ratio of housemothers to children. The Malawian government guidelines state that no more than
ten children can be under the care of a single housemother. At the time of this research, Miracles
averaged fifteen children per housemother, with one housemother being responsible for eighteen
children. Almost every housemother at Miracles and Hope, regardless of the number of children
in their care, said they needed better salaries, and the majority lodged complaints to the
administrators at their respective facilities.

134 

Addressing Stigma
One of the justifications given for targeting children designated as orphans with resources
and assistance is an expectation that they will face stigmatization and discrimination (Ghosh and
Kalipeni 2003). While several orphans mentioned the negative connotation associated with being
called an orphan, there is some question as to whether removing children from communities and
placing them in orphanages, or purposefully targeting a small population within a larger
population living in poverty, exacerbates this stigma. Sam, the twenty-two-year-old double
orphan from Rescue Children’s Village, explained that:
The way that they handle the word ‘orphan’ here in Malawi, it’s really bad. It can make 
even someone cry.
[ALF] So to call someone an orphan, it’s bad?
Yeah! Because the way that the people do it. It’s not a normal thing. Maybe they will say,
“Don’t treat my radio as if it’s an orphan!” You see. So, you will find, you ask yourself 
so, “Is it that disgusting to be an orphan?” Why should somebody say, “You are using my
thing (radio, etc.) as if it is an abandoned child or an orphan”? Something like
that…When someone is talking like that, you ask yourself, “Maybe I am the one who is
in a poor situation on earth.” So you try sometimes maybe to hate yourself just because 
you’re an orphan.
In the same interview Sam described differential treatment that results from being
designated an orphan and his efforts at trying to conceal where he came from:
[ALF] Do people treat you differently when they learn you went to Rescue Children’s 
Village?
I should tell you the truth, that up to now, even where I am schooling I haven’t told 
anyone—maybe the administration, maybe. But as much as I usually can, I try to hide it.
[ALF] Why hide it?
Yeah, because, as I told you, it becomes sort of that people try to embarrass you that you
are under sponsorship or you are maybe an orphan. They will try to do everything to
make fun of you and you will not always be comfortable with the community. A lot of
people will just be talking of your thing as if it is something vile.

135 

Tension with the community is evident in these quotes. Orphans may experience low
self-esteem, social discrimination, and community hostility. One way of coping is for children
designated as orphans to deny their status, even though they have lost one or both parents and are
aware that it is for this reason they have been brought into the orphanage. Often, they do not
consider themselves orphans because they are not poor and hungry. Instead, because they have
access to education, clothing, housing, and food, many believe that despite losing parents they
should not be identified as orphans. This issue came up when I was discussing dating with Sam.
He explained:
[ALF] Even though you are wearing nice clothes, and have a very good education—
women still treat you differently?
Yeah (giggling). I have suffered some because of that. But, by now, because I have my
own papers, I am qualified and I can go out of Rescue. I can work somewhere. I’ve got 
something that can do something for me. So, I don’t believe that I am an orphan 
anymore. Because I believe that you can be an orphan only up to the age of six. This is
what people don’t understand in Malawi, because the orphanage is something to do with 
being dependent. When you can’t have something on your own. Even when you are there
in RESCUE, they don’t have to treat us as orphans because we have got everything. We 
have all the basic needs. We have good food, good schools, we have got almost good
health facilities. So I don’t know why the community just reacts that way. It’s just that
name [orphan/orphanage], it has got a certain impact on someone’s life. It’s like some 
insult. If someone would say, “Ah, you are just an orphan.” You see, if someone who is 
of the same status as me said it, I would be comfortable, but if someone has got parents
and says it then it’s like they are telling me that I killed my parents, or something like 
that. It has got a certain impact—as if you wanted your parents to die.
The idea of the orphanage saving a physical life, but leading to social death is evident in
these interviews. Sam said that dating was difficult, and he did feel he had to hide his orphan
status from potential partners. Marriage in Malawi is highly contingent on kinship ties and social
connections, which may make partnering for these children difficult in the future. Regardless of
how they self-identify, these children said they felt antagonism from the local community. While

136 

Sam explained positive aspects about being at Rescue, which included education, food, clothing,
and shelter, he also discussed how these resources created community tension:
Only that maybe the community and others, what they say, sometimes it just makes you
uncomfortable. What they say about you, because maybe you are doing well, they say
you are selfish. You are too proud. Something like that. But it’s not that Rescue kids are 
too proud of themselves or maybe selfish. It’s not like that. Usually, we interact with [the 
community], we’ve got a playground for everyone.
[ALF] Why do you think they think that?
I don’t know, maybe they are just jealous of what we get because their parents cannot
afford the same things. Maybe they’ve got two of their parents but they cannot afford 
what we get at Rescue.
In addition to highlighting the stigmatized nature of the orphan identity, my research
suggests that specifically targeting orphans may be engendering community and familial hostility
towards these children who are becoming privileged compared to their peers. Other research has
also suggested this process of designating and targeting orphans can lead to tensions within the
community and jealousy over the resources being distributed (Bornstein 2005). The national
ECD director in the MoWCD related the following story in an interview:
[ALF] Do orphans face stigma?
Yes. It is a fact. I have worked in orphan care for over fifteen years now. When we were
starting these programs, targeting [orphans] became an issue…Because if I have some
assistance and I am taking it directly to an orphan at the community level, that’s a 
problem. Because that orphan is not living alone, but is being looked after by somebody
else, a guardian. And that guardian is looking after so many children. I remember when
we went to one of the areas in northern Malawi we brought shoes, blankets, uniforms and
we gave it to this orphan and there were four or five other children living there. And one
of the children came forward and asked the mother, the guardian who was looking after
the orphan, “Mother, when are you going to die so that I could get the good things that 
my friend is getting?” You see? I discovered this is a serious problem. And sometimes we 
have gone into a community to take a blanket to an orphan, and when we go there next
time we find that the orphan is out of the family. Why? Because when you give the
blanket to the orphan, the orphan will say, “This is mine.” But the guardian will say, 
“Share with the others.” But the orphan will say, “No! It was given to me.” It starts 
conflicts where most of these children are displaced. They don’t become part of the 
family because of the targeting.

137 

Bornstein found similar tensions in Zimbabwe, where she studied World Vision child
sponsorship. She recounts the story of a young man who received a significant amount of money
from his sponsor to go to secondary school (US $500). When the boy and his stepmother arrived
in Harare to pick up the money at the central office, there was tension. His stepmother became
upset and incredulous to learn that only the boy was allowed to use the money. She felt it should
be distributed among all the children. His siblings were jealous, and it became an individualizing
force that caused stress in his life. Bornstein (2001) does note that, while there were negative
aspects to this program, the young boy did experience positive outcomes, including accessing a
better education and eventually enrolling in the local university. He traded aspects of his local
identity for that of a more global, humanitarian sense of belonging.

Reconfiguring Kinship
The data shows that being labeled an orphan can be perceived as having some advantages
when resources pour into impoverished communities. At the same time it should be recognized
that desiring orphanhood might lead to community and family tensions. Previously strong
kinship ties are neglected as many children prefer to identify with the orphanage and the more
cosmopolitan way of life it provides. As a result, children in orphanages are becoming
increasingly estranged from their villages. Tikondani explained:
[ALF] What are your fears?
Well, my fear is where will I get the stuff [to start his own business]? Where will I get the
money if [an international charity assisting children] fails to support me and if they
happen to sack me out of this place, where am I going to be staying? How am I going to
start [a business and support himself]? Because there is no way they can take me back to
my original family [in the village].
[ALF] Why not?
I wish I could take you to my family so that you could see my biological relatives. So that
you see what I mean…life is just different. Very different. You would not wish me to 

138 

stay there. I tell you honestly. The way you are seeing me, the way you are looking at me
here you would not wish me to stay there. If I am staying there it means somebody has
just dumped me there because when I am going to see my relatives, my biological
relatives, I feel sorry for them…So, even if [Rescue] may say, “Tikondani, we are taking
you to your biological family,” it means now dumping. Even if I hope to get a job one 
day, then I am just deceiving myself because there I cannot get a job. Maybe just
involving myself in gardening, that kind of stuff. That’s all that happens there. See,
people fully depend on gardening their farms. And those who have cattle and goats are
regarded as rich people [in villages]. My relatives don’t even have ANY! So, that is what 
I am saying. If you happen, if you were to come with me [to my village] I tell you, you
would see for yourself and say, “I think Tikondani was right.” I don’t see myself joining 
them anymore…So, I can say that I cannot go there to say I am staying with them. Oh, I 
tell you I don’t fit in. I don’t! I don’t even dream of joining them anymore.
Village life is cast in a negative light by the institutions and their employees. This may
partially explain the disconnection children are feeling between themselves, their communities,
and extended family members. Tikondani explained how children are encouraged by institutions
and their employees to think of life in rural areas as inferior to their experiences at the
orphanage:
[Being sent to the village] is more or less like a punishment. I have seen this other
[orphan] it’s just that he misbehaved. You know. He went out drinking and he was
coming [to Rescue] drunk. And then [Rescue employees] met him at the gate and said,
“Hey, where are you coming from?” Whilst he was drunk you know. They asked him, 
where are you coming from? He failed to answer because he was drunk. They said,
“Well, get in [your room]. Go and sleep. We’ll see you tomorrow morning.” And the next 
morning they go to him and said, “Today, pack, you are going for a holiday.” His name 
was Peter. Peter said, “Ah, are you telling me to go for holiday because you caught me
yesterday whilst I was drunk?” They said, “Yes. Go for a holiday.” They do this because 
they know that where we are coming from is not a good place because people have failed
to take care of us which is why Rescue went there to pick us up in the first place. They
know that when you get [to your rural village] some way, somehow you still suffer.
The message being transmitted to these children is that being in their villages is
punishment, and it is a privilege to be in the orphanage. However, children in the orphanages are
straddling two worlds without clear access to or membership in either one. Tikondani desires and
was in some ways promised a cosmopolitan lifestyle that he does not actually have access to. At
the same time, he has extended family members, but he expressed a disdain for and even

139 

rejection of village life. The critical processes of becoming an adult, which includes securing a
job, getting married, buying/building a house, and securing land holdings are to a large extent
dependent on kinship ties in Malawi. Without these connections it is hard to be or function as a
full adult.
Tikondani’s dependency on the institution for support may extend long into adulthood, 
which many institutions may not be prepared to provide. Maundeni (2009) notes that children
coming out of Rescue in Botswana remain attached to these facilities longer than the
organization had intended. In part, he argues, because these children feel far removed from their
extended kin it would take a concerted effort on the part of welfare workers to reunite them.
These social workers often do not have the experience, resources, or time to undertake such a
reunification. Many children do not want to be reunited with families in rural areas because they
have become accustomed to a more structured, materially stable environment that is uncommon
in villages. This is similar to Tikondani, who has in some ways exchanged his membership with
extended family and local social systems for the orphanage, especially during times of crisis,
including famine, disease, and periods of unemployment (Mandala 2005).
This is happening partly because Rescue, where Tikondani resides, is explicit about its
attempts at creating a “new” family for orphaned children. Maundeni (2009:97) notes in his
description of an Rescue Children’s Village in Botswana that the “Rescue concept of family is 
based on four principles: the mother; brothers and sisters; the house/family home; and the
village.” This same message was relayed to me by the Rescue Village director in Malawi
(personal communication). Implicit in this artificial construction is a weakening of ties to
extended, biological family members in villages (Maundeni 2009). Chikondi, a twenty-year-old

140 

double orphan from Rescue, who is now studying sociology and social work at a local university,
described the ways in which these kinship ties get reconfigured:
…for someone who has been taken by an extended family you feel part of a family. You 
really feel it. But then Rescue, you stay here let’s say and you’re all people with different 
backgrounds. Your mother (housemother) will say, “Ok, you guys are relatives,” but deep 
down you know that you are not related, you are just there because of Rescue. So, there is
a difference. And the way the community looks at Rescue. They say “Ok, this person is
an orphan.” But when you are living in an extended family you are taken as part of the
family, and only a few people know that this person doesn’t really belong to that family. 
But, you are still staying in that house with that family. It’s really different.
[ALF] Do you think you would have been happier staying in a community with an
extended family?
I think so.
In Botswana, this emergence of fictive kinship ties to the institution is leading to
challenges, especially the unintended consequence of children staying in these facilities longer
than originally proposed because they have lost ties to villages and prefer the institution
(Maundeni 2009). This is also happening in Malawi. Tikondani explained to me that he is going
through the deregistration process at Rescue. He is supposed to have a six-month period of
financial support, during which time he is expected to find a job and begin living independently
from the institution. He expressed fear and anxiety about this process and his job prospects. In
our interview in March of 2008 he estimated that since early 2007 he had applied for close to one
hundred jobs in human resources and was granted just two interviews.
As a way to address the lack of employment opportunities, Rescue in both Malawi and
Botswana (Maundeni 2009) is hiring many of their older orphans into positions within the
facility. Tikondani did his “attachments” (internship) for his diploma degree in the Rescue 
human resources department. His human resources advisor has recommended hiring Tikondani
because he is “good at what he does,” but he is unable to find employment. Unfortunately,

141 

Rescue does not have the resources to hire Tikondani. As of this interview, Tikondani was still
solely dependent on Rescue to meet all of his needs. He refuses to return to his village.
Tikondani and Sam are graduating and facing a strained economic climate. It is difficult
to say whether or not the reconfiguring of their kinships ties in rural areas directly impacts their
ability to access desired jobs in the urban sector. One cannot just apply and get a job. When
seeking employment, Malawians need to know someone, be recommended by someone, be
socially located in ways that people understand, such as going to certain schools or being
members of churches. If these children in the orphanage come from poor families living in
villages, they might not have the proper connections to secure employment in cities. That being
said, many families do have kin who live in urban areas and often do assist poor children from
rural areas in finding jobs or going to urban schools. The loss of ties can prove detrimental if
these young people are unable to stay at Rescue, Miracles, or Hope yet refuse to move back to
their rural communities. Sam discussed this issue, as well as how the community might perceive
his lack of economic success:
[ALF] Are Rescue graduates more successful than the majority of young people in
Malawi?
I can’t say no and I can’t say yes. It depends. Sometimes, maybe Rescue usually helps us 
with looking for a job. They are a well-wishing organization. I think sometimes they can
employ [you, personally] because they are wishing you better—maybe that you would
succeed. But sometimes it’s not like that, and they will just connect you because you are 
an orphan. Because here in Malawi, I think it’s everywhere, the working capacity is more 
like tribalism, like, if it’s not tribalism than it’s like regionalism, if it’s not regionalism 
then it’s like family. If you are from the same roots—the same background, if your
parents were known to someone. If your parents are working for someone in the same
company you are working for, then you always get through if you’ve got good friends 
there. But with the Rescue kids it’s not like that! It’s not easy for us to penetrate into 
organizations because maybe our relatives didn’t work there—like on my mother’s side.
They are not educated. I don’t expect them to be known by some of the managers in the 
company, you see. So it’s really hard when it comes to that. When someone looks at your 
name they’ll just throw it away because you are just not in the society. It’s only when like
Rescue would introduce you to something, but it’s also hard because sometimes at the 

142 

working place people will treat you differently and say, “Oh, I heard you got this job
through connections and not because of qualifications.” I want my qualifications to get a
job for me not because Rescue is begging a place for me. So, in ten years time I can say
that if you can’t succeed right now, if you can’t get a good job, then life will be miserable 
because you were raised in a good environment, and by that time you will be in a bad
environment in terms of maybe you will not be living in a good house, maybe it will
affect you psychologically because people will be laughing at you. The image, which the
outside community always has for us, is like maybe we are too proud. They will still say,
“Ah, these [orphans] are selfish and now they are living like this.” So, they will talk a lot. 
It will give room for others maybe to laugh at you, something like that. So, I don’t want 
that to happen to me.
This highlights a paradox. Although Rescue tries to take on some of this responsibility
for making connections for these children, it is the orphanage that in some ways is rupturing
social ties. To be without social and familial connections in Malawi is a form of social death or
bare life. This is not a traditional or rural attitude, but rather a modern contemporary one that
responds to the uncertainties of life in Malawi today. An individual cannot predict what
hardships may befall them, and social ties and relations that provide are the only definite safety
net.
The lack of belonging that children feel toward their rural villages may also be related to
a loss of culture as children appropriate western ways of being. Chikondi described the potential
loss of this identity:
One of the hardest things about living here [Rescue] is the issue that most children do not
know their background. They are not knowing their culture, their ethnic group, their
families very well. They don’t understand life in a typical community or life in a typical
village in Malawi because this orphanage, the life it gives is an artificial life.
Chikondi does not maintain strong ties to any relatives and considered Rescue her new
family when she moved into the institution in 1994. She has one uncle who has only recently
attempted to contact her, but she has avoided communication and visits with him because she
perceives his actions as selfish; she reported feeling “used” because he “never set foot here to see 
me before.” She believes he is trying to contact her to ask for money, food, or other resources.

143 

While she knows where she is from, she does not relate to or desire to maintain a connection
with her biological family. Interestingly, Chikondi relates more to her international sponsors than
to her biological family, even though they have never met each other or even spoken on the
phone. She says that they “are quite close” and the nature of their correspondence is as if “I am 
part of them.” She considers the daughter of her sponsors a sister and had just been granted a
visa to visit them in Denmark.
The former director of Rescue noted that orphans who were not necessarily abandoned or
isolated prior to coming into the institution may end up alone as a result of their time in the
orphanage:
The Rescue kids are so disconnected and don’t know their place. They have lost their 
connection to their villages. Imagine, everyone here has a home in a village, a place in a
rural area they return to. It is at that place they will be buried. Here, where you are buried
is a very big deal. Kids from Rescue have no place to be buried because they no longer
have any ties to their rural communities. They are sent to the Lilongwe Morgue.
This is yet another example of social death. It is important to note that when the former
director of Rescue says children do not “know their place,” he is not suggesting they are unaware 
of what village they come from or where their extended family members reside. He is alluding to
the fact that, like Chikondi, they do not identify with these areas or recognize them as a place
where they belong. Along these same lines, the national ECD director in the MoWCD stated:
Children are removed from their traditional culture and traditions, which the community
values. I am saying that Malawi upholds those community values—the “we” feeling, 
“IFE” you know? That’s a community value. The children are removed, and orphanages 
are isolated from the communities. It is just that institution caring for the children. And
the child is looked upon as a special child. There has been research that has been
conducted that shows that a child who has grown up in an orphanage, even when he has
PhD, he has a certain social, emotional problem that manifests most of the times. People
have got to work in the community. That is why in Malawi we are encouraging
community-based approaches, but you still see people opening orphanages. So, our
feeling is yes, the orphanages we can open as a last resort for children who have nowhere
to go… And orphanages—resources that go to orphanages completely forget about the
community. Communities are isolated and they are removed from the orphanages and the

144 

orphanages remove them (children) from the communities. So there is that separation
between the community and the orphanages and, well, there are so many issues that I
would say, well, we don’t like them, but what we encourage in Malawi if possible, 
orphanages should be only temporary for children to live there if they need medical
attention, medical or whatsoever, but afterwards they should be reunited with the
community.
In this quote, the director is referring to issues of social location and place as they relate
to identity. He is recognizing the difference between the Malawian worldview of “we” to that of 
a more singular identity that results from the removal of children from communities. Whether
intentional or not, it can be inferred that this shift away from a “we” mentality is resulting in a 
more autonomous identity—an identity more befitting a western, capitalist paradigm. This
process is part and parcel of the process of modernity and cosmopolitanism that children develop
and fits into the neoliberal, global capitalist, consumer logic common among westerners who run
these facilities. When I asked Tikondani about jealousy he experienced from the community
because he was affiliated with Rescue, his answer reflected an emphasis on the autonomous self,
as well as the friction his institutionalization and adoption of a particular way of being has
created:
…we are still actually trying our best even being an orphan. Maybe like myself, where I
am I don’t count myself an orphan because given the chance, given the opportunity to get 
a job, given the chance to run a business, I’ll be able to support myself. I’ll be able to 
stand on my own. I’ll be able to do all things on my own. So, to be called an orphan is 
history, for me, the way I look at myself. So, whenever people are trying to discriminate
and say, “Well, those are orphans,” you know I still say, “I’m not an orphan. I’m just like
you!” So, those are some of the things, some of the challenges we are actually meeting 
there [at the external youth Rescue house].
The institutions in this sample recognized the potential loss of connection orphans
experienced as a result of being in the orphanages. In an attempt to alleviate this, many
orphanages have instituted “holiday” breaks in which children are sent to their home villages for 
a short period of time (from a few days up to one month). Many of the children said they were

145 

able to “play well with others” in their village, yet most described some form of jealousy. In the 
end, not a single child was willing to return permanently to life in the village, and nearly all cited
community jealousy as the reason. Ipiyana, a fourteen-year-old double orphan who was living
with his older brother prior to coming to Miracles, said:
I prefer staying at Miracles than in our village because the community is jealous. When I
go home for holiday [the community and extended family members] always say don’t 
buy new clothes for him because he has already received a lot of things from Miracles. I
don’t want to live in our village because people in our village are jealous and so they can 
kill me, they will not be happy to see me working.
In some ways, the orphan identity is becoming privileged because resources are being
funneled to this particular demographic in a resource-poor environment. This has the potential to
lead to the abandonment of children at the doorsteps of orphanages, as parents perceive life
within the institutions as somehow better or more secure than life in the village (Maundeni
2009). The national ECD director in the MoWCD expressed his concern about child
abandonment:
The orphanages, we accepted them as government as a last resort, because they provide
support to children who don’t have anywhere, they cannot fit in the community, they 
cannot fit in anywhere. But what I have noted sometimes, people have taken the easy
way. To say, “Anyway, we don’t want to care for this child, just send it to an orphanage.” 
And sometimes, sometimes I’ve come across certain cases where someone has tried to 
send his own child to an orphanage because they think they will get a better education, or
a better life.
Improved material conditions and access to education and playtime are significantly
greater in the orphanages than in the rural villages where most of the children were born. It is not
surprising that all of the children in the sample said they preferred to be in the orphanage than in
the village, indicating the positive environment of the institution. The director of Rescue alluded
to the privileging of children in orphanages, joking that he wanted to claim an orphan identity
today in order to gain access to the material resources available within Rescue. On a more

146 

serious note, he said that they did have cases where children were being abandoned at the
doorstep of Rescue. It is unclear why these children are being abandoned, but there is the
potential that the individuals giving them up are assuming a better future somewhere other than
in their custody and possibly within an institution like Rescue or Miracles.

Orphanages for Personal Gain
Government officials and policy makers were particularly concerned about the potential
for abuse and manipulation by orphanage directors. The national ECD director in the MoWCD
expressed concern about the potential for child trafficking. He stated:
But some people are just using [orphans] as a means to get resources for their own
families and their own use. Some people have used these to take children outside the
families and outside Malawi and these are the things that do not have to be condoned and
I look on this as a negative aspect.
There were few reported cases of child trafficking outside Malawi while I was there,
although there was some discussion of the practice of moving children for purposes of forced
labor within the country. Whether these children serving as laborers are orphans or come from
orphanages was never clear. It does raise a disturbing issue that should be investigated further.
UNICEF has initiated a children’s rights campaign that suggests child trafficking and child abuse 
are pervasive issues. The STOP CHILD ABUSE CAMPAIGN began in 2007. A UNICEF report
states that the purpose is to, “…provide opportunities for open discussions on issues such as 
child labour, sexual abuse, child trafficking, early marriages and harmful cultural practices that
continue to deny children their rights to a healthy childhood” (Kariuki 2007).
The director also mentioned the desire for personal gain that motivates some individuals
to establish orphan-care facilities. This is a practice I described in the previous chapter. Miriam
Kalua, a policy officer at NAC who manages the Global Fund Money used to fund OVC
projects, mentioned this concern, as well as that of adoption:

147 

But the government is also discouraging that system of keeping children in orphanages,
that should be the last resort. That’s what even the policy says, but what you find is that 
people are using orphanages as income-generating activities because they want somebody
from the US or somebody from wherever to give them money. They go behind the
children as if they are supporting them, yet they have their own motives. Others are even
using the orphanages as adoption centers. They want to make sure that maybe they have
developed relationships with international families so that maybe they should give them
something and they adopt the child. And so the government is very much against the
issue of establishing orphanages much as they are so it all trickles down the Ministry of
Women and Child Development—it has not been strong enough because it is supposed to
regulate the establishment of orphanages and it’s in such cases where maybe a mommy 
has lost a baby, or maybe she has died and maybe left a one-year-old baby behind and if
there is nobody to check up on that baby that’s the one that has to go into an orphanage,
but after a certain time then it goes back to the family; but what you find, what is
happening is like it’s an income-generating activity—people are happy to keep orphans,
they don’t care about the other effects that the orphanage is bringing to children.
The lack of government capacity is often given as a reason for the increase in residential
facilities in Malawi. There is very little regulation, and organizations often work around the state,
as demonstrated with Miracles Village. This holds the potential for abusive and fraudulent
activities to occur, which makes children vulnerable to adverse outcomes. I heard a story of an
orphanage opening and then being shut down because of abuse and lack of resources. The
national ECD director in the MoWCD alluded to this potential when he said:
But you know a child has less protection. You know? Whilst in there. Sometimes the
children are abused. They may not get the right food, sometimes they are mistreated, I’ve 
heard certain cases where that has happened. Sometimes the orphanage may not have
resources to support the children. I know of one orphanage that was closed and the
children were destitute. So, we are asking why was this guy opening when he didn’t have 
the resources, you know? We tell the people, orphanages are a last resort.
A ddressing V ulnerabilities
I’m very happy because I live in Miracles.
Mphatso, sixteen-year-old, storyboard drawing
Mphatso is a sixteen-year-old who has resided in Miracles for three years. In the first
panel of her storyboard drawing about life in her village, she included a house without electricity

148 

or running water and with a dirt floor (figure 15). The drawing is a self-portrait. She explained
that in that picture she is sad and her clothes are worn out, which is indicated by the dress she is

wearing with holes in it. Mphatso said she was abused by her stepmother and forced to work
more than others in the house. She said they also lacked food. The second panel is of Mphatso at
the orphanage. She appears happy and has better clothing. She is smiling and stresses the
importance of school—“I am go[ing] to school, very happy” is written under her picture. She 
explained, “Nothing is missing at Miracles.” Her house is brightly colored and surrounded by 
flowers, which is dramatically different from the drawing of her village. In general, her drawing
is similar to those done by her peers reflecting common situations faced by these children. The
children also stress similar positive aspects of orphanage life.
Like Mphatso, nearly all of the orphans in the sample recognized the value of education
and the way in which the orphanage emphasized schooling. Children in all three orphanages
have access to education from primary school through the end of secondary school. In all
locations those children who score well on the national exams have the opportunity to go to one

149 

of several universities. In contrast, the majority of children in rural areas cannot attend school
every day and many prefer not to attend due to the poor quality of schooling (Chimombo 2005).
Similar to Emond’s (2009) findings in Cambodia, nearly all orphans in the sample 
stressed schooling as one of the most important benefits of residing in the orphanage. John, a
seventeen-year-old boy at Hope, who lost his father in 2001 but whose mother is still alive,
explained how his education had improved since being supported at the orphanage:
Since I came here nothing is missing here, but when I was at home I was missing food
and clothes. Here I go to school everyday, but at home I was going twice or three times
per week. Sometimes I was absent because the school was far away from our village and
I was supposed to cross the rivers [to get there], so during the rainy seasons the rivers
were full so I was failing to cross them. I was just going back home instead of to school.
Another dimension my work shares with Emond’s (2009:9) is the notion that children in 
orphanages are freed from “a disadvantaged and difficult present,” and given the opportunity to 
both imagine and take steps that will build a brighter, more economically viable future. That
could be considered a particularly western and naïve way of thinking. These children, it could be
argued, are also “freed” of their social and cultural contexts. This may prove to be a high price to
pay for western dreams that are difficult if not impossible to fulfill.
As a component of the storyboard drawings, children in the orphanages were instructed to
draw how they imagined or hoped their lives would be once they graduated from the facility.
These children recognized that they are freed from a disadvantaged and destitute past. Because
of residence within orphanages, they are now able to dream about careers, acquiring material
possessions, and improving their social status in ways that are out of reach for the majority of
Malawi’s youth. For children in orphanages, the most common occupation they desired was 
being a pilot, which may have to do with Miracles’ close proximity to the airport. Other 
commonly cited careers included nurse/doctor, teachers, businessmen, and drivers. Many

150 

drawings depicted material possessions commonly associated with higher social status and
usually not common in villages. Children drew homes with electricity, bikes, cars, metal roofs,
beds, sofas, and nice clothes. Generally speaking, children in villages who also participated in
the storyboard drawing exercises do not conceptualize their future occupations or hopes for
material possessions along the same lines as children in orphanages, in large part because of the
urgency of dealing with endemic poverty in their present lives.
Tiyamike’s story captures the conceptual shift that happens for children who become 
institutionalized. He moves from coping with and fixating on a difficult and destitute present to
that of imagining and pursuing a more hopeful future because of the orphanage. He now lives at
the Hope Children’s Home. He is a twelve-year-old paternal orphan. When his father died, his
uncle (father’s younger brother) took over the property. Tiyamike explained, “…my uncle was
abusing me. He was beating me almost every day without real reasons. I was not allowed to
sleep in my late father’s house, and that is when my mother left for her village in Rumphi. It was 
too hard to stay in my father’s house.” He explained that his father had sold most of his
possessions when he was sick, and there was no inheritance left for him because his uncle took
everything. When his father was alive his needs were being met. After the death of his father, he
said he suffered from hunger and lack of proper clothing. He also complained of having to work
more than the other children in his uncle’s house. He missed school regularly in order to feed and 
water the cattle. That is when he came to Hope. He told me that at Hope “nothing is missing.” 
Today, Tiyamike’s basic needs are met, including access to food, clothing, shelter, education, 
and free time to play basketball and soccer. He says he dreams about a very different future than
the one he was confronting before moving into Hope. He told me that he hopes to be a doctor
and live in Lilongwe, far away from his aunt and uncle (see figure 16). He wants a house with

151 

piped-in water, a television, a car, and a bicycle.
In his house he wants a nice sofa set and a
basketball pitch in the yard to exercise.
Aside from education and imagining a
more economically viable future, all of the
orphans mentioned the material resources they
received at the orphanage as being beneficial and
significantly beyond what they had access to
prior to coming to the orphanage. All children in
the sample complained about shortage of food in
their villages. It is not uncommon for villagers to eat only one meal a day during the rainy season
(December through May) (Mandala 2005). This is in contrast to the orphanages they were in,
which all provide a minimum of three meals per day, often supplemented with nutritional
porridge, milk, or snacks. These orphanages would be considered resource rich compared to
some others and to what is available in most villages, so the nutritional status of the children is
higher than it was in their communities. However, at Miracles, I was told by the American
managing partner that at one point the children were being fed one meal per day because the
proprietor of the property said, “That is what life is like in their villages.” She was distraught 
about this situation and told me that one of the reasons she came to Malawi was to make sure
that the orphanage was being run according to her and her father-in-law’s standards.
Children’s nutritional experiences will vary depending on each institution’s financial 
security. In a study conducted in Blantyre, Malawi, with three different orphanages, it was
concluded that young orphanage children (less than five years of age) are more likely to be

152 

undernourished and more stunted than village children, but older orphanage children who were
institutionalized for at least a year seem to have better nutrition than village orphans (Panpanich
et al. 1999). What I found surprising with this study was that there was no significant difference
in nutritional status between village orphans and non-orphans (Panpanich et al. 1999).
Other benefits to living in the orphanage noted by the children included having more
leisure time and less work, as well as access
to better bedding, blankets, shoes, and
clothing. Watwesa is a thirteen-year-old
orphan who lost her mother and whose
father remarried, leading to her move into
Hope. She explained in her drawing (figure
17, depicting life at Hope) how the
orphanage has improved her circumstances:
I have drawn a ball, a house, boys
playing soccer, flowers around our
house here, I like playing netball,
when we are playing netball boys
are also playing football. I have drawn our housemother who is giving us clothes and
milk. When I am back from school I do my homework, play with my friends, clean
plates, and sometimes wash our clothes and mop in the house. Nothing is missing here. I
go to school everyday, I receive clothes, and we eat well. I came here because my mother
passed away and she left the baby so I stopped going to school to take care of my young
sister. So Sister B [the orphanage director] said we should come here with my sister so
that people will assist me looking after her and I should also go to school.

Preventing Abuse
As discussed in both Mphato’s and Tiyamike’s stories and reiterated in the following 
quote, some children face abusive situations after the loss of a parent. Many times it is after the
widower remarries and a stepparent is introduced into the household that abuse against children

153 

occurs, but it is not isolated to these cases. Even biological relatives can abuse children, as a
fourteen-year-old female orphan from Hope explained:
I once stayed with my aunt (my mom’s sister) but she was ill treating me, she was always 
telling me that I should dig my mom’s grave so that I should be staying with her not with 
them. During that time, my father was alive so I came back to my father and he told me
that I should not go back again… I will never go there again because [my aunt] was 
abusing me like beating me without any reason.
None of the orphans mentioned sexual abuse, which may have to do with the sensitive
nature of the subject. However, newspaper articles regularly printed stories about stepfathers
sexually abusing their stepdaughters, some as young as four years old (Chapulapula 2010;
Chenjezi 2010; Singini 2010).

Social Networks: Improved?
Many of these children develop a new social network amongst themselves based on their
shared experiences within the orphanage. In Cambodia, it was noted that children would protect
each other outside of the orphanage when faced with confrontation by peers (Emond 2009). My
data did not reveal such incidents, but one volunteer working at Miracles noted:
It’s another good thing that I have found is that it’s VERY family oriented. I was talking
about this earlier today. I was watching the kids yesterday when we were passing out new
clothes to them. They may not have ever gotten the love that they needed to grow up
anywhere else, so when they come here and they love on each other instead, it almost
breaks my heart. To watch them love each other so much. To watch the older boys take
care of the little boys and run over to them when they’re crying and pick them up and 
make sure that the little ones get to go first in everything and then enjoy playing with
each other. It’s just wonderful to see that kind of love for each other at the orphanage. I 
don’t know if that’s true other places, but I know that it’s very strong here. The bonds are 
very strong between each of the kids. I guess because, like I said, they may not have had
real family before.
The respondent’s assessment of the tight bond between children is actually a village 
ethic, and not necessarily something being engendered just in the orphanage. There probably is
some projection on the part of the volunteer, who likely thinks about orphans within the spirit of

154 

Oliver Twist, as being isolated, abandoned, and completely disconnected from humanity. What is
questionable is how this emerging social network will work to protect and guide these children
once they graduate. Future research needs to explore to what extent these fictive kinship ties will
provide access to economic, political, social, and cultural capital. At this point it is too soon to
tell. Older Rescue orphans state that they perceive their relationships with fellow orphans as
familial, but there is not yet evidence of any kind of support being extended between these
children.
Conclusion
Being designated an orphan is becoming a valued identity for some, while it is a source
of vulnerability and exploitation for others. Some children are removed from abusive situations
and afforded a secure place to live and access to essential material resources. Children who
would otherwise struggle to complete school may be graduating at the top of their class. Children
who would otherwise die of malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, TB, or malaria now have access to
healthcare. Children in these orphanages are not cold at night because they have bed sheets and
blankets. These children eat daily. All of the children were thankful for the opportunity to be in
the orphanages and recognized their perceived privileged position in society that is directly
linked to the loss of one or both parents. No child would give up his/her place in the orphanage
to return to the village.
Conversely, there are negative repercussions faced by Malawian children who become
institutionalized as a result of being labeled an orphan. Being cared for by uneducated and
inexperienced housemothers who feel overworked and undercompensated can lead to tensions. It
could be argued that one housemother caring for eighteen children may not have the capacity to
provide these children with appropriate amounts of affection and the proper psychosocial support

155 

they need, especially considering the circumstances from which these children come.
Additionally, children brought into these institutions are often alienated from extended families
and places of origin, despite the efforts of the orphanage directors to maintain ties with their
communities. Social and cultural ties to place and kin are essential to the Malawian sense of
personhood, especially as children transition into adulthood. Marriage, accessing employment,
and land rights are just a few of the issues wrapped up in kinship systems. Children who neglect
these systems may face a precarious future (Ferguson 1999). Another alarming trend is that,
despite being stigmatized, some children desire orphanhood. The orphan identity is becoming
privileged at the expense of traditional Malawian kinship systems as more and more resources
are focused on this particular demographic.
Finally, preliminary data on children graduating from resource-abundant orphanages
suggests that many have adopted western ideals of personhood as well as capitalist expectations
of modernity. These include autonomy (especially from familial responsibility), wage labor jobs,
and material wealth in the form of electricity, running water, good homes, and proper clothes and
shoes. Unfortunately, children in orphanages who have received an education often struggle in
Malawi’s economic and social environment to find employment. This results in anger and 
resentment as a result of failed expectations. It is ironic that part of their failure to access these
cosmopolitan spaces is a lack of family connections, which many voluntarily or forcibly cut off
when moving into the orphanage. As a result, most of these children refuse to return to villages.
It is unclear what will happen to them, but what is of concern is their potential to occupy
subaltern spaces in urban areas and engage in delinquent behaviors or acquiesce to various forms
of exploitation in order to survive (see Lancy 2008 for a discussion on the rise of child soldiers).

156 

The vicissitudes of being designated an orphan in Malawi are just now becoming
apparent. This chapter has highlighted the effects of directing projects and resources to a targeted
population that exists within a complex milieu, which includes cultural expectations, economic
constraints, political limitations, and social norms. I do not wish to romanticize village life or
rural areas as homogenous and harmonious places that are more nurturing for children. I have
already discussed some of the dissent and jealousy evident at the village level. In chapter 6 I will
explore additional challenges village communities are facing as orphan-care projects make their
way into these local spaces.
In the next chapter I examine Malawian constructions of and responses to orphans from
the perspective of the state. Just as with transnational NGOs, there is a deliberate maneuvering to
make children labeled orphans more visible to certain Malawian ministries and government
officials, including Malawi’s president. However, the intentions of these different stakeholders
and the modes of producing orphans are different. The state is attempting to turn what the NGO
industry imagines to be an apolitical response to children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS into a
state-building exercise. They accomplish this by drawing on UNICEF definitions and depictions
of orphans, engaging with children’s rights discourses, and promoting a decentralized response 
that requires a fully functioning local-level government infrastructure. I show how the state’s 
obvious lack of capacity justifies significant expenditure of globally generated orphan-earmarked
funds in order to ensure children’s rights, as well as monitor and evaluate transnational 
organizations attempting to serve children.

157 

C H A PT E R 5: T H E ST A T E : PO L I T I C I Z I N G O RPH A NS
In this chapter and elsewhere, I highlight the friction that arises when a transnational,
west-inspired aid category is injected into a complex political, social, and cultural milieu. Tsing
called for anthropology to focus more rigorous attention on engaged universals, referencing
human rights, and the interconnection between the global and local. The premise of her argument
rests in the fact that globalization and the compression of time and space have not led to a
homogenized world order. Instead, we bear witness to increasing disjuncture and difference
(Appadurai 1990). Global power does not function like a “well-oiled machine” operating 
smoothly and uninterrupted (Tsing 2005:6). Tsing wrote, “A wheel turns because of its 
encounter with the surface of the road; spinning in the air it goes nowhere. Rubbing two sticks
together produces heat and light; one stick alone is just a stick” (2005:5). It is in the encounter 
between global flows, which are injected with a significant amount of power and resources, and
local political, social, and cultural arrangements that I explore here. Transnational discourses and
responses to orphans get reinterpreted at the state, community, family, and even individual
levels. Projects imagined in the United States can be unrecognizable on the ground.
In chapter 3 I explored the process through which a western homogenous aid category
meant for social intervention is being discursively constructed at the transnational level. In this
chapter, I examine Malawian conceptualizations and active constructions of orphans from the
perspective of interested state ministries. I also explore the interplay of these ministries with the
transnational orphan-care organizations I studied. Transnational organizations do not simply
conceptualize and then implement their programs. Their definitions, discourses, projects, and
goals get refracted, reflected, and reconfigured at multiple levels, including at the level of the
state. The very notion of what constitutes an orphan is subject to debate. I will demonstrate that

158 

there is dissonance between transnational and state ideologies concerning orphans. Yet both
purposefully draw on the orphan demographic and actively construct their own definitions and
responses for their own purposes.
I focus on those state ministries central to and actively engaging with orphan-earmarked
resources, which includes the MoWCD (including the Social Welfare offices), the Ministry of
Health, the Ministry of Education, and the Department of Nutrition, HIV and AIDS, which is
located within the president’s cabinet.

20

I examine both the definition of orphans and children’s 

rights as “engaged universals” that are being used and at times modified by the Malawian 
ministries in an attempt to capture transnational orphan-focused resources for their own capacity
building. These disjunctive conceptualizations of orphans and approaches to orphan care lead to
unexpected outcomes, which impact children in tangible ways. The following scenario highlights
the interplay between the State Welfare Office and transnational NGOs working with orphans.
Rescue and District Social W elfare Connections
Rescue Children’s Village began in 1949 and has grown into a global network of 
orphanages with established orphan-care facilities in 132 countries and territories. Rescue set up
its first orphanage in Malawi in 1994 in Lilongwe. Two subsequent facilities have been
constructed, and all three house approximately 150 children each. The majority of their funding
comes in the form of private donations. Child sponsorship is a central component. It costs
approximately US $30 a month to sponsor a child. The following is an excerpt and photo (figure
18) from the Rescue Children’s Village Malawi web site:

                                                 
20
These are the primary ministries and government agencies that I had contact with. There are
undoubtedly other government entities attempting to access orphan resources, such as the
Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and the Ministry of Development Planning and
Cooperation.
159 

Mavis has already finished her first
term at the Rescue Nursery School; she is a
lively little girl, the sunshine of her family.
She loves babies and regularly stops by
house No. 4 where recently Mary, a onemonth-old girl, has found a new home.
Mavis herself was hardly two or three weeks
old when she was among the first children
who came to Rescue Children’s Village
Lilongwe in Malawi five years ago.
She shares her sad fate with
thousands of children, but at the same time it
was a stroke of good fortune that gave her a
new home at the Rescue Children’s Village. 
A wicker basket is the only relic recalling
her past. A local woman found Mavis hidden behind a pile of firewood, so she put her into a
wicker basket and took her to the local hospital. She then came to live at the Rescue Children’s 
Village. Enquiries made by the social authorities about the child’s family led to a village near
Lilongwe, where it turned out that both parents had died, probably of AIDS.
In the meantime, Mavis is developing in a marvelous way. The little bundle whose
provisional home had once been a basket, has turned into a happy five-year-old girl who loves
walking around the Village with her friend Thokozani. She knows already a few words in
English, and every Saturday, she helps her mother clean and tidy up. There is only one thing she
does not like at all: beans.
I used the example of Tikondani in chapter 4 because in many ways it exemplifies the
nature of the relationship of the state to NGOs. The person asking for Tikondani to be accepted
into Rescue was a government social welfare worker. The Social Welfare Office was unable to
provide for the child in the same way Rescue could. The lack of state capacity coupled with the
neoliberal policy of decentralization and privatization leads to an explicit reliance on
international organizations for providing social services, which is reflected in the national
policies that I review in subsequent sections.
In addition, this vignette constructs the image of a Malawian orphan as abandoned and
without family as a result of the AIDS pandemic (see chapter 3). When I was given a tour of
Rescue during the summer of 2006 the in-country director told me similar stories. Children are
left to die in latrines, gutters, or literally on the footsteps of the orphanage. He said that

160 

policemen and social welfare officers bring these children to Rescue in hopes that they can
accommodate them. While this may be true in some cases, as I have shown in chapter 4 the
majority of children labeled orphans, including those institutionalized, are not abandoned. Most
orphaned children in villages actually remained under the care of a biological parent, a
grandparent, or other close relative. I learned about the existence and extensive documentation of
extended family members through interviews with orphans from Rescue and Miracles, as well as
through access to their intake files. The following example—a request submitted by the regional
social welfare officer, C. E. Chisala, in 1995 to request a child’s admittance into Rescue—is
indicative of what I read in Rescue files:
Tikondani comes from Chawo village, T. A. Kaphuka in Dedza District. His late father
was Peter Kawu who passed away in 1993 after a long illness, and was a client for
AFROB [which was described to me as an NGO “helping beggars”] since he was 
disabled. His mother passed away in February 1994 after falling from a mango tree at
Chawo Village. Tikondani has 5 sisters and a brother but are not from the same father.
His other siblings are with his late mother’s brother. Tikondani has a grandfather, a Mr. 
Precious Sefasi (maternal side), who is now 75 years old and has a leg problem due to a
road accident in 1960. He used to work as a roads foreman. He now does some
subsistence farming in order to earn a living. Mr. Sefasi’s wife passed away in 1998, and 
he has 4 sons and a daughter all of them married and do not care for their aged father.
Tikondani’s first born step-brother, Steve, is reported to be married with 2 children and
stays in Dowa, but does not take care of the other siblings. However, through AFROB’S 
care and assistance Tikondani has been going to school at Lilongwe Boys Primary School
and is now going into Standard 3. He was staying at Mchesi location under AFROB.
After making a visit to Tikodani’s village, I found him to be a suitable client for 
admission at Rescue, hence my recommendation that Tikondani be admitted at Rescue to
make a date when I could take Tikondani and his friend Patrick to the village in readiness
for the new school session beginning on 18th September, 1995. The two boys are
Catholics.
The social welfare officer who made this request is suggesting that Tikondani, who has
family members, be institutionalized because of poverty and not isolation or social exclusion.
The focus is less about the loss of a parent and more about the economic circumstances facing

161 

children. Tikondani was admitted to Rescue because he was poor, not because he was
abandoned.
My own confusion in understanding how orphans were defined led me to ask how the
government, communities, families, and children themselves conceptualize orphans. This issue is
explored in this and subsequent chapters because it is the needs and vulnerabilities of the
circumscribed orphan population that has mobilized a significant amount of resources and led to
the development and implementation of orphan-care projects throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
This particular demarcated population has proven to be complex and at times contradictory.
Becoming “Orphans”: Constructing a New Demographic
As reviewed in the previous chapters, Ferguson (1994, 2006a) presents the case that the
development apparatus constructs or misconstrues Lesotho in a deliberate way that allows for a
targeted, technical, and perceived apolitical response. This resonates with my own work, only
instead of the deliberate construction of a geo-political space to be targeted with economic
development projects mine is the study of bodies and subjectivities and the ways in which they
get constituted and then targeted by lay humanitarians, certain state ministries, Malawian
communities, and families. However, Ferguson (1994) does not spend a significant amount of
time demonstrating the ways in which the state constitutes itself. He simply argues that the state
has to appear neutral and governable so as to be malleable to the development apparatus’ goals 
and missions. In contrast, here I examine the ways in which certain ministries are implicated in
the process of producing orphans in order to capitalize on the burgeoning global response, and
therefore produce itself.
In chapter 3 I explained why and how the transnational, layperson orphan-aid community
presents children in a particular way. I will juxtapose their definitions and discourses with those

162 

of the Malawian state, which encompasses the office of the president, the MoWCD (including
the Social Welfare Office), the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Health. Just as with
transnational NGOs, there is a deliberate maneuvering to make children labeled orphans more
visible by various state actors. However, the intentions of these different stakeholders and the
modes of producing orphans are different. In this chapter I argue that these ministries and
governing bodies are attempting, albeit with limited success, to turn what the NGO industry
posits to be an apolitical response to children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS into a statebuilding exercise. They accomplish this by drawing on transnational (including UNICEF)
definitions and depictions of orphans, engaging with children’s rights discourses, and promoting 
a decentralized response that requires a fully functioning local-level government infrastructure. I
show how these ministries demonstrate an obvious lack of capacity that justifies significant
expenditure, which draws on orphan funds.
The State’s Position within a Neoliberal Framework
Dr. Bingu Wa Mutharika, President of Malawi, wrote the foreword to Malawi’s NPA for 
OVC. He begins:
The children of Malawi are under threat. Today’s HIV/AIDS pandemic and severe 
poverty have put at risk the nation and in particular its children. With the increase in
parental deaths due to HIV/AIDS, the number of orphans has risen dramatically,
subjecting these children to emotional and physical neglect, such as a lack of love, care
and protection. They are all too frequently denied access to essential services including
education, health, water and sanitation, nutrition and psychosocial support. Many live
with the additional effects of stigmatization, social exclusion, deprivation and
discrimination, and are subjected to increased risks of economic and sexual exploitation.
Now is the time for collaboration, the time for all sectors of society including family, the
children themselves, community, government, NGOs, FBOs, CBOs and the international
community to work together towards mitigating the daily hardships faced by orphans and
other vulnerable children. This National Plan of Action for Orphans and Other
Vulnerable Children (OVC) marks a recognized need for practical steps of cooperation
that will ensure the rights of all OVC are fully met within the country…

163 

In this statement, Bingu draws on some of the same discourses used by the transnational
aid community meant to elicit a compassionate response. Words such as risk, severe poverty,
under threat, neglect, and social exclusion are meant to raise alarm bells and suggest a state of
emergency. In addition, he recognizes that social services are unavailable, introduces the idea
that rights are being challenged, and indicates that a global response is necessary. The document
then provides statistics on orphans.
The more orphans produced, the greater the ability to justify increasing government
capacity. This process allows the Malawian state to tap into the proliferation of resources being
allocated to AIDS and AIDS-associated effects. One way this is accomplished is by adopting the
UN definition of an orphan, despite the fact that this does not necessarily resonate with
Malawian conceptualizations. The Government of Malawi—in its original Orphans and Other
Vulnerable Children Policy Guidelines (1992), which was updated in their 2005 National OVC
Policy—defines an orphan as: A child who has lost one or both parents because of death and is
under the age of eighteen.
This definition is based on the UN assumption that children are situated primarily within
the biological family and thus made vulnerable with the loss of one of their parents. Under this
definition, in 2005 Malawi estimated the number of orphans to be 1,008,000 with a total of
610,000 maternal orphans, 660,000 paternal orphans, and 240,000 double orphans

21

(GoM

2005).
A vulnerable child, according to the NPA for OVC, is:
A child who has no able parents or guardians, staying alone or with elderly grandparents
or lives in a sibling headed household or has no fixed place of abode and lacks access to
healthcare, material, psychological care, education and has no shelter.
                                                 
21
The NPA for OVC presents these figures as estimates, which accounts for any discrepancies.
164 

No actual numbers of vulnerable children are reported, but it can be assumed that the
majority of Malawi’s under-eighteen population (n=7,900,000) would be considered vulnerable
because of high poverty levels (74 percent of the population lives on less than US $1.25/day),
limited access to education, healthcare, and material support. Conflating orphans and other
vulnerable children into the OVC category produces a large number of children in need of
assistance. These definitions do not necessarily reflect the experiences of children in Malawi,
especially the orphan population, and they assume a particular type of vulnerability premised on
the presence/absence or able-bodiedness of a biological parent. The complex web of social
relations is erased by these definitions, which can lead to the production of inappropriate
responses. Needless to say, the MoWCD and Social Welfare Office’s ability to report such
numbers lays the foundation for soliciting donor support from a variety of sources.
Another means of tapping into orphan-designated funds is through a deliberate emphasis
on children’s rights. In 1991, the Malawian government ratified the UNCRC, and in 1992 it
published its first orphan-care policy (GoM 2005; UN 2000; UNICEF 2006). This policy was
updated in 2005 with the guidance of UNICEF, UNAIDS, USAID, and WFP, and renamed the
National Plan of Action for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children. The document reflects the
human rights- and children’s rights-based discourses espoused by UNICEF and other large donor
organizations. The NPA for OVC states explicitly in its introduction:
The National Plan of Action for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children (NPA for OVC)
is a historic document, reinforcing the Government of Malawi’s continued commitment
to mitigate the effects of the country’s OVC crisis. The NPA is to serve as a common 
reference tool for Government and all stakeholders in guiding their efforts towards
improving the lives of OVC and promoting the rights of all children (emphasis mine).
The NPA for OVC has been developed in respect of global goals and commitments in
line with international and national human rights instruments, policies, and other guiding
principles.

165 

[Listed and described are the Millennium Development Goals, the UNGASS Goals
further to the United Nations Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, the Malawi
Constitution, and the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child].
In recognition of their lack of government infrastructure to directly protect or promote the
rights of OVCs, this document paves the way for other organizations to fulfill this role, while
simultaneously facilitating government expansion for monitoring and evaluation purposes.
Specifically, the NPA for OVC outlines five key issues:
1. Provision of assistance including,
a. To set standards and guidelines for all the stakeholders designing and
implementing care programmes that will create a conducive environment for the
care, support, and protection of OVC.
2. Coordination, to “facilitate the coordination, integration and harmonization of
activities for care, protection and support of OVC at all levels in order to maximize
resources, avoid duplication and guide the various OVC service providers. Structures
for improving coordination are already being established.”
3. Institutional and Legal Framework, “the Department of Social Welfare…will take a 
leading role to oversee that ‘an institutional and legal framework is being provided 
within which services for the care and protection of OVC shall be organized and
managed.’”
4. Transparency and Accountability – “Transparency and accountability are 
interdependent, representing two major pillars of good governance. The sharing of
information (transparency) amongst all stakeholders fosters greater responsibility
(accountability) by the beneficiaries and donors for all resources utilized.”
5. Monitoring and Evaluation – “To minimize duplication of effort and ensure the 
optimal use of resources, the Ministry of Women and Child Development (formerly
the Ministry of Gender, Child Welfare, and Community Service) will assume a
leading role in monitoring and evaluating the situation of orphans…to continuously 
monitor and assess the magnitude of the programme of OVC, effectiveness of various
care interventions and quality of care in line with the CRC.”
I have included these objectives to highlight the way in which the state frames its
responsibilities to OVCs, which has the underlying tenor of protecting children’s rights and 
implicitly incorporates a neoliberal logic of decentralization and privatization.
State emphasis is not on what types of social services they will actually provide because
of their adoption of neoliberal reforms (see Introduction). The government’s withdrawal of
public expenditure is a result of the austerity measures it adopted due to its precarious financial

166 

situation, both internal and external, during the late 1970s and early 1980s (Chinsinga 2002). The
government was forced to solicit loans from the World Bank and the IMF (Chinsinga 2002). As
a result, beginning in 1981, the government implemented SAPs that were contingencies for the
loans it received. Central to these policies was a decrease in government public expenditure or
“state roll back,” especially for social services (Ferguson 2006b). The poor, women and children
in particular, have been the hardest hit by these reforms.
As a consequence, the state is expected to create an environment that encourages the
private sector, NGOs, and civil society to take up the responsibilities of providing social
services, including healthcare and education, for their citizens. Ferguson (2006b:96) argues that
in the neoliberal global order the emphasis is on “getting the state out of the way” in an effort to 
bolster civil society at the grassroots level and encourage “a dynamic non-state sector.” This 
logic dichotomizes the state, imagined to exist primarily at the national level, with that of civil
society or the local level (Ferguson 2006b). In this topography, according to Ferguson
(2006b:96), the state is viewed as “corrupt, patrimonial, stagnant, out of date, and holding back
needed change.” I demonstrate later that this perception is held by the organizations I studied. 
They explicitly avoid the state.
Under the auspices of these neoliberal policies and in line with decentralization and the
transfer of social services away from the state, the government focuses on encouraging the
development of oversight structures that can monitor, evaluate, coordinate, foster transparency
and accountability, develop a legal framework, and design and guide the various orphan-care
providers, presumably NGOs. This imagined coordinated and efficient government structure,
which is currently not in existence, requires significant investment. Later I demonstrate that at
the local district level there appears to be very little funding to carry out these responsibilities.

167 

This is also the way in which the government officials I interviewed interpreted the NPA for
OVC. The national ECD director in the MoWCD explained:
When you look at the policy, the primary function of the ministry is to put mechanisms in
place for proper implementation for orphan-care and childcare programs. And looking at
the minimal resources that are available really we have got to look at areas that will really
keep the system moving and actually children being cared for. So, one of the areas is
coordination and collaboration and putting up structures, strengthening structures that
should facilitate the care of the children. And the coordination is very necessary because
we have got to identify partnerships and work with those partnerships, putting in place
structures that will enable us to interact with the partners that will enable us to support the
children. So, the resources that are made available, mostly first of all is to look at our
capacity to make sure the system is still running…
The partners referred to in this exerpt include a host of NGOs, from the larger, more established
organizations such as UNICEF and World Vision to the smaller, newer organizations like the
ones I studied.
At the district level, the district social welfare officer (DSWO) explained his role as
training CBOs (which are essentially civil society groups), such as DOS and Hope, to deal with
OVC issues. The DSWO is specifically focused on training CBOs in management, various OVC
activities that they are expected to run, and how to provide psychosocial support, and also to
facilitate trainings on various income-generating activities. In addition, the DSWO is meant to
serve as a mediary between local civil society groups (i.e., CBOs) and potential funding agents.
The DSWO in Dowa District stated, “It is our job to link CBOs with these organizations
(UNICEF, World Vision, NAC, OSA, etc.) to get them funds. We facilitate the linkage.” At the 
district level, the government is providing minimal if any resources directly to children. Instead,
its responsibilities are geared toward building local capacity of families and communities to
provide for children and connecting local groups to resources. As I demonstrate later, the districtlevel capacity to monitor, evaluate, and train local groups is limited, promulgating the active

168 

search for external funds. There is a clear tension between the central government and local
districts as they grapple over the orphan-earmarked money that flows into Malawi.
To develop the ministry’s capacity, the NPA for OVC lists the following as essential
funding sources: NAC (supported by the Global Fund), the UK’s Department for International
Development, World Bank, the Canadian International Development Agency, the Norwegian
Agency for Development Cooperation, UNICEF, USAID, the United Nations Policy Fund, WFP,
the European Union, the Hope for African Children Initiative, Germany’s Gesellschaft für 
Internationale Zusammenarbeit, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the US Centers for
Disease Control, and “other international and national NGOs, foundations, and private sector.” 
The government recognizes its only real ability to contribute being that of manpower, stating,
“Another potential source of funding is from MASAF [the Malawi Social Action Fund], and the
Government Treasury but more in terms of providing human resource capacity.” In reality, at the 
district level there are limited numbers of government workers, especially qualified ones, even
though there is a pool of unemployed workers willing to be trained and hired if the resources to
do so were made available by these funding agencies.
Another component of this policy that would encourage funding government expansion,
especially at the district/local level, is the emphasis on community-based responses. Throughout
this document, and in keeping with the data collected from interviews, it was continuously
emphasized that the priority and overarching approach to caring for OVCs is maintaining
children in their communities. The ministry’s position, as stated in the NPA for OVC (GoM 
2005:19), is that, “…more must be done to strengthen the traditional social care systems and 
develop new interventions to accommodate children deprived of parental care in order to avoid
institutionalization.” Their first guiding principle states: “The extended family system shall 

169 

remain the primary support structure for the care, protection, and development of orphans and
other vulnerable children” (GoM 2005:26). They draw directly on the UNCRC preamble,
paragraph 5, which reads, “…the family, as the fundamental group of society and the natural 
environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children, should
be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibility
within the community” (GoM 2005:25).
The state has adopted a discourse of decentralization in keeping with the spirit of SAPs
previously implemented. In order to direct OVC activities, the policy identifies a system of
resource distribution, and monitoring and evaluation practices situated primarily at the district
level. All CBOs should register with and solicit funds through the district assemblies and the
DSW offices. All funders—ranging from larger transnational donors such as the Global Fund to
small scale organizations like those I studied—are meant to work directly with the state to ensure
that the disbursement of resources is done efficiently and effectively. Implementation of this
policy requires significan local-level government infrastructure. What did I encounter in my
research?

Dowa and Zomba Districts: Government Offices
Interviews with social workers in Zomba District, southern Malawi, revealed that
officials in the MoWCD were unable to monitor or regulate NGOs providing care in their area
for multiple reasons. Part of the reason for their failure to function efficienty and effectively is
their lack of human resources. In most districts there is only one DSWO and an assistant. This
makes oversight of NGOs difficult when they are proliferating so rapidly. Moreover, HIV is
proving to be another barrier to effective local governance. For example, the DSWO in Zomba
was unable to meet with me during my stay because she had to travel to Blantyre, the industrial

170 

capital, for her cousin’s funeral. She said she was unsure when she would return, because
funerals last several days, and that I should interview her assistant. The DSW office was
essentially immobilized in her absence. High mortality and required attendance at funerals of
family members, co-workers, and neighbors has been documented (Bollinger and Stover 1999)
as interfering with the economy and the functioning of local and national governments in subSaharan Africa.
The inefficiency and lack of resources at the Zomba District office, the third-largest
district in Malawi, was apparent. While I was waiting for an interview, a woman came to the
offices asking for the names and locations of the CBCCs in the area surrounding Zomba (CBCCs
are managed by CBOs). CBCCs are childcare facilities established in communities, by
community members, which attempt to collectively pool resources and care for the growing
number of orphans in their communities. This is one of the most common forms of childcare for
orphans in Malawi. The secretary in the district office pointed to a minimum of forty, five-inch
thick, three-ring, dust-covered binders that lined the bookshelves and spilled onto tables, saying
that these were the only records they have access to and that she could go through them and look
for whatever information she wanted. There were no computers, printers, or electronic resources
in the offices. When I asked how they monitored NGOs that run orphanages or the CBCCs, I was
told they relied on these organizations to send reports, because there was no gas for their vehicles
and they were therefore unable to visit the various facilities.
Dowa District social welfare workers were likewise overburdened and lacked the
necessary resources to monitor the various organizations attempting to serve OVCs in their area.
There are 189 registered CBOs in the district, but just one DSWO and two assistants for a region
that is 3,041 square kilometers with an estimated population of 566,678 people. The DSWO had

171 

a motorcycle for transportation, but the two assistants relied on public transportation or bicycles
to reach the communities within the district. Fuel costs were high, and many times the DSWO
was unable to pay for petrol. For these reasons, the DSW offices rely on CBOs to come to them
and register independently. Funds don’t reach the districts to allow them to carry out their
functions, since they do not have what is required to monitor or coordinate the burgeoning OVC
community responses. It is difficult to track where these resources are being captured or if they
even exist. It may be that the central government is able to gain control of this funding (in the
form of stipends for OVC “trainings” as suggested later in this discussion).
DOS, the organization I was working with in Dowa District, had incentive to register
with the DSW office because they wanted to submit a proposal to World Vision, which was
handling Global Fund money. Otherwise, the district may never have known about its existence
or activities. Mr. Banda, the DSWO in Dowa, expressed approval of DOS but frustration with
AIC. AIC was receiving and funding proposals from CBOs such as DOS, but they had no
relationship with the government. Banda saw this as problematic because it could lead to CBOs
getting double-funded. If the DSW office was made aware of the CBOs that AIC was supporting,
they theoretically could monitor the various projects and funds being allocated within the district.
They could then prevent unscrupulous activities, which is a common critique of CBOs. As I will
discuss in chapter 6, DOS was funded by AIC as well as World Vision, UNICEF, and OSA for
similar activities, while other CBOs were struggling to secure funding from a single source.
Banda explained:
[ALF] Do you have problems of double funding?
It happens because of the very same funders who work in their own private ways. Any
funding from NGOs should go through the district. AIC has not come to the district to do
things in a proper way. We only hear about them because of DOS. DOS just says they
come there. Orphan Support Africa was different. They actually came through our office.

172 

I was directly involved in that process. I don’t know why they (AIC) don’t want to work 
with the district social welfare officer. It’s strange. It’s really strange because our role is 
to coordinate the CBOs in the district. But, here I am and I don’t have any information on 
AIC and what they are doing. I have told the folks at DOS to tell AIC to come here and
formalize their involvement in the district. It’s been a year since I made that request and I 
still have not heard from them.
[ALF] What types of repercussions can AIC face for not following protocol and going
through the district?
We as a district, as of now, I can say the only mechanism is to put a stop on their
activities and funding. But, we don’t really want to do that because I have been told that 
people are just being helped because of them and so we don’t want to stop that. What we 
want is for AIC to come straight to us, but we have only gone to DOS with this matter
asking them to tell AIC to come to us. We don’t even have the AIC phone number to call 
them ourselves.
The other thing is that I am told AIC works in other areas of the country as well and that
they are a registered NGO. So I am surprised that they aren’t following the procedures 
because as an NGO they should know they are supposed to work through us. That way
we can identify the communities in our district who are really in need and direct AIC how
to proceed.
As suggested by this quote and affirmed through interviews and observations, these
smaller-scale, lay humanitarian organizations now involved in orphan care may ignore
government policies, practices, and laws. The lack of resources at the district level prevents
monitoring and evaluation of these organizations. The lack of capacity for monitoring can and
does lead to fraudulent activity. As I demonstrate later, another complicating factor is that AIC
and Southern Allied Missions do not want the government directly involved in their work. They
have been convinced that the government is corrupt and parasitic. Therefore, they purposefully
work around the government. Paradoxically, as the government is demonized in the eyes of these
NGOs, their own work is naturalized as good and honest charity. I demonstrate in chapter 6 that
AIC’s work inadvertently opens up the door for corruption and manipulation.
Interviews and participant observation at the MoWCD offices also demonstrate the lack
of capacity. While there are numerous task forces and steering committees that develop policy

173 

guidelines meant to direct the activities of various stakeholders, especially the NGOs providing
services, there is no direct way to monitor NGO activities or hold NGOs accountable for their
actions. One senior official in the MoWCD explained:
We need a permanent coordinating structure to monitor the efforts of various
stakeholders, because there are gaps as organizations do things differently, and there were
observations that some children were not benefiting… 
[AF]: If an organization, say an NGO, comes in and decides to run its own program that
goes against the policy of the government, is there a mechanism to control or punish
them?
Yes and no. No because the government hasn’t delegated this kind of responsibility
across the structures. This is because of the centralized nature of our government, so there
are many issues that go unattended. This is also because when activities are reported,
action by the government is often not forthcoming.
Yes, because the communities use the traditional leaders to intervene because the
children belong to them.
There is currently no mechanism in place to discipline organizations that do not comply
with national policy guidelines, and local traditional leaders are left to deal with problems that
arise independent of the national or district government. Interestingly, when asked about what
services they directly supply to orphans, the senior ministry officer mentioned workshops for
communities to help CBOs solicit money and support from some of the very NGOs they critique
for working around them.
There is now some recognition by the World Bank and economic theorists and policy
makers that the severe cutbacks in government budgets associated with neoliberal reforms have
had a negative impact on those countries targeted with SAPs. Malawian ministries connected
with child-related issues purposefully draw on their obvious incapability to provide services or
even monitor other providers to try and leverage transnational resources. Orphans make this
easier. By producing large numbers of OVCs and then failing state capacity assessments

174 

conducted by potential lenders/donors, such as UNICEF and USAID, it can be argued that
orphan-care resource allocation should be directed toward state-building projects. This is
precisely what has happened. In a draft copy of UNICEF’s capacity assessment of Malawi, the 
author states (Parry-Williams 2007):
13.6 Service Delivery
The department is overburdened with tasks while at the same time being grossly
understaffed and lacking in proven technical skills. The shortage of professional staff
needs to be corrected and salaries increased so they receive a living wage. Ministry of
Women and Child Development (MoWCD) could involve donors, UN bodies, influential
Malawi agencies, eg MHRC, International NGOs (INGOs) and others in pressing for
those improvements so as to better address the million plus OVCs. If the MoWCD wants
to push forward an alternative care strategy based on prevention through family support
then it should consider the establishing of a Care & Protection unit at HQ to promote best
practice in family support, fostering, adoption and in Children’s Homes. For this there 
would need to be some well qualified staff as resource persons who would also advocate
best practice in the use of these interventions. The districts would benefit if there were
staff trained in these areas in the districts.
A problem is that family support, fostering, adoption and homes are if well monitored
and organised intensive users of staff time. If such a strategy is to work there will need to
be greater defining of staff roles in some form of rationalisation at district level.
Alternatively the off-loading of some work could be investigated but that too would
require monitoring. The constraints on the department’s human resources are likely to 
grow with the scaling up of the cash transfer scheme so some protection of family
support and alternative care strategies seems essential.
The Director of DCD suggested that the department draw up a 5 Year Work Plan to
establish a C & P Unit at HQ and District C & P specialists with guidelines and set
targets.
This lack of state capacity, which is leading to an increased presence of NGOs providing
social services to orphans, coupled with the government’s commitment to a rights-based
approach to OVCs, justifies funneling OVC resources toward state-building activities. While the
intention of the organizations I studied was to work around what they perceived to be a corrupt
or defunct state, their very presence inadvertently justifies building up the state. This is best
illustrated with the solicitation and allocation of Global Fund money coming into Malawi. NAC

175 

solicited and in 2006 received US $19 million from the Global Fund.

22

Table 12 is a breakdown

of how this money was spent.
All of these objectives are directed at increasing government capacity. In theory, this
might lead to a more efficient and effective provision of social services to orphans, but according
to my observations there seems to be little capacity growth to date. For example, Bridget Mwali,
my research assistant, was one of the social welfare assistants trained through the
aforementioned grant. Her training at the Magomero School was funded by NAC, with the
expectation that the government of Malawi would then hire her at the district level. She did her
attachments—the equivalent of an unpaid internship—in Dowa District, expecting government
placement within months of the end of her program. I hired her at the end of January 2008. She
accepted my offer of employment, but made it clear that when the government called her with
her permanent placement as a district-level social welfare assistant she would have to cease
employment on my project. She was not placed at a district site until early December of 2008
Her first paycheck wasn’t received until almost a year later in January 2010. It is unclear why her 
placement took so long. I do not have any direct evidence to draw conclusions, but it is possible
that the MoWCD assured the Global Fund grantors that they would budget money to take up
Bridget’s salaries once she was trained and no such money materialized. It is unclear if the 
money was siphoned off elsewhere or if it simply did not exist within the ministry’s coffers.
The money that is actually being spent on state-building or capacity-building programs
may be allocated in ineffective ways. For example, I repeatedly showed up for interviews with a
government employee, only to be turned away because he or she had gone to a training funded
and managed by an NGO. These trainings could last anywhere from one day to over a week.
                                                 
22
As of late 2009, the Global Fund had disbursed a total of US $233 million to Malawi through
the NAC to fight various elements of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
176 

177 

Among the expatriot development community, I regularly heard complaints about the cost of
running workshops or implementing development programs because all state employees
expected per diems. The child protection officer for UNICEF bemoaned this process, saying that
nobody would attend their trainings if high stipends were not used as an incentive.
Moreover, these payments to current employees did not necessarily contribute to capacity
building. Instead, they often served to divert the attention of employees from their governmental
responsibilities toward supplemental and highly lucrative income-generating activities not

178 

always relevant to their position. For example, the American managing partner for Miracles
needed to train her housemothers for the orphanage to be able to register with the government. In
an effort to set up this training, the partner met with the national ECD programme officer who is
positioned within the central government. He said he was the person who would train Miracles
housemothers for a fee, which turned out to be cost prohibitive. The managing partner expressed
frustration to me, suggesting this was a corrupt official attempting to profit from orphaned
children. I do not know if this was the case or if the ECD programme officer regularly
participates in these types of trainings, but it does seem like training a group of ten housemothers
should be done by a lower-level employee.
Bridget, like many other government employees or trainees, spent the time between
December of 2008, when my project ended, and early 2010 working on various nongovernmental development projects, primarily collecting data. This is a common practice for the
majority of local government workers. Salaries are so low that many government employees in
nearly all ministries with access to development dollars take state jobs with the intention of
positioning themselves to get contracted by larger development organizations to assist in
research projects or the facilitation of workshops and seminars. Bridget regularly expressed her
desire to be placed in a district that was known for receiving significant resources from larger
NGOs (preferably in the central or southern regions). She explained that most government
workers relied on international organizations for the majority of their salaries at the expense of
fulfilling their actual government responsibilities. She said that NGOs actively sought
government workers, because there is a lack of trained, bilingual, and computer literate
Malawians available to participate on their projects. While minimal strides are being made in
growing the government’s district-level capacity, it could be argued that resources are actually

179 

strengthening the donor development apparatus. More significantly, this raises questions as to
whether or not the nineteen million Global Fund dollars are serving OVCs.
Thus far I have examined the ways in which various government ministries and workers
have deliberately drawn on orphan discourses that make visible and discursively create an aid
category for the purpose of attempting to capture some of the influx of orphan-earmarked
resources. They attempt to justify expenditures for state building by emphasizing the desire to
protect children’s rights. In the next section, I examine the emergence of humanitarian 
organizations that are proliferating to meet the social service needs of people living in places like
Malawi that are impacted by SAPs.
Countries like Malawi have been unable to invest in social-service infrastructure. The
result is an increase in dependence on outside organizations and countries to provide healthcare,
food security, education, and disaster relief. I explore the development of the humanitarian
apparatus and its relationship to the state, as well as the place of rights in the organizations that
are now caring for children. I explained in the Introduction that the adoption of a neoliberal logic
focused on decentralization and privatization has legitimated the presence of NGOs to begin
offering services necessary to provide for children’s rights. But that does not mean these 
organizations necessarily engage in a rights-based discourse, nor are they particularly cognizant
of what rights children have.
H umanitarianism: E merging O rphan Responses
At the end of the 19th century, understandings of humanitarian responses were most
commonly tied to the rise of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies (IFRC) (Aeberhard 1996). The IFRC embraced the central tenets of impartiality,
neutrality, and confidentiality to provide a framework for their responses to human crisis

180 

situations (Allen and Styan 2000; Macrae 2000). Impartiality refers to the “provision of relief on 
the basis of need and regardless of political affiliation, race, nationality or creed” (Macrae
2000:89). The IFRC was also committed to remaining neutral in political conflicts (Macrae
2000). In fact, it was IFRC policy not to intervene in any way during a humanitarian crisis
without the permission and support of both sides engaged in conflict. Confidentiality was
important in maintaining this neutral position. It was IFRC policy to not report human rights
abuses or the atrocities committed on civilians in the hopes of retaining access and providing
care to these vulnerable populations (Allen and Styan 2000).
These policies and practices were predicated on the idea of “respect for sovereignty” 
(Macrae 2000). At their inception, humanitarian organizations recognized the power and
legitimacy of states. They did not want to become enmeshed in internal affairs. In fact, the
majority of IFRC resources were distributed through state actors and not independent contractors
or international channels operating on the ground (Macrae 2000). Critics have pointed out that in
many cases the state itself is guilty of fueling or directly committing human rights abuses. The
power of the state to commit these atrocities is evident today in the Sudan, Zimbabwe, Myanmar,
and China. However, it was the crisis in Biafra that challenged and changed the nature of
humanitarian interventions and called into question the central tenets of impartiality,
confidentiality, and neutrality (Allen and Styan 2000).
Bernard Koucher, a volunteer for the Red Cross during the Biafran conflict, was outraged
at the human rights atrocities he witnessed that were committed by the Nigerian state against
innocent civilians (Allen and Styan 2000). He was even more upset that the humanitarian
organizations did not make the genocide known to the global community, viewing this silence as
akin to complicity, and even responsibility for the continued massacre (Macrae 2000). Koucher

181 

spoke out and engaged the media to engender international pressure on the Nigerian state. The
purposeful use of the media plays a pivotal role today in reporting on humanitarian crisis
situations in order to bring awareness, provoke a response from a global audience, apply pressure
to nation-states, and also legitimize humanitarian organizations’ involvement in relief endeavors 
(Moeller 1999). The media also may spin situations in ways that do not necessarily reflect what
is happening on the ground.
By 1971, Koucher founded Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, or Doctors Without
Borders), an organization that was not framed by the principles of neutrality and confidentiality,
but rather embraced a universal morality or an ethics of humanity. The need to recognize,
publicize, and address human rights abuses was at the crux of MSF’s emergence. At this time, 
numerous private voluntary organizations (PVOs) sprang up, and a much more extensive
humanitarian complex materialized. Nguyen asserts that MSF and the Biafran conflict marked
the “birth of modern medical humanitarians” and Africa has become the “global hub” of these 
efforts (2009:199). The right to interfere emerged, and state sovereignty could legitimately be
challenged, opening the door to new transnational regimes of governance (Pandolfi 2003).
Humanitarianism, as epitomized by MSF, is characterized by the acceptance and incorporation of
human rights (Fox 2001; Manzo 2008; Pandolfi 2003; Slim 2000), purposefully engaging in
peace building (Fox 2001), and “ending the distinction between development and humanitarian 
aid” (Fox 2001:276).
In sum, scholars suggest that humanitarianism has evolved from a focus on relief of
suffering to a longer-term endeavor that is increasingly framed by human rights ideals, is
politically engaged, and incorporates development into overall project design and objectives
(Fox 2001). Questions have been raised regarding the inclusion of human rights, political

182 

agendas, and development into humanitarian activities, particularly whether or not this is an
appropriate shift in direction. These are ongoing debates and areas of study. Today the focus of
researchers is primarily on well-established, larger organizations extending humanitarian
assistance, such as MSF, the Red Cross, and UNICEF. This focus overlooks the smaller-scale
PVOs (which include lay humanitarian groups), which are increasingly involved in humanitarian
action/aid, as I have described in Malawi. In the next section I show that the lay humanitarian
organizations I studied are unaware of rights discourses and amendments. At times, they even
infringe on the rights of the children in their care.
O rphan-C are N G Os: W hat about Rights?
The scholarly community has engaged with and published extensively on children’s 
rights ideologies and the need for the global humanitarian community to address situations
whereby children’s rights are being abused, especially in the areas of child labor,
trafficking/slavery, or land inheritance, or when situated within violent geopolitical struggles.
Additionally, the United Nations and the majority of states have created and ratified children’s
rights amendments that are meant to guide any organization or entity working with children.
Large transnational humanitarian NGOs, such as Save the Children and UNICEF, have
incorporated some components of children’s rights into their projects (Manzo 2008). There are
fifty-four articles laid out in the UNCRC. The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the
Child reiterates similar—at times identical—components in their forty-eight-article document.
The ten guiding principles that I briefly summarize, found in both the UNCRC and the African
Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, include:
(1)
(2)
(3)

Right to non-discrimination.
Best interests of the child will be first and foremost. The child has a right to
survival/life and development in a healthy and normal manner.
Right to a name and nationality.

183 

(4)

Freedom of expression, association, conscience, religion. The right to leisure,
cultural activities, health and health services, adequate housing, and social security.
(5) Special protection is to be extended to the disabled.
(6) Children are to be protected against labor and exploitation, abuse, torture, and all
forms of cruelty.
(7) Parental care and the protection of the family are prioritized. Only under
exceptional circumstances is a child to be separated from his/her mother.
(8) Free education.
(9) The child will be the first to be given protection and relief.
(10) “The child shall be protected from racial, religious and other forms of 
discrimination. He/she shall be brought up in a spirit of understanding, tolerance
and friendship among peoples, peace and universal brotherhood” (as quoted in 
Achilihu 2010:23).
According to Achilihu (2010:32), “The CRC recognizes four categories of substantive 
rights: survival, development, protection, and participation rights of children.” Some of these 
rights, whether explicit or not, are being provided by the organizations I studied. Other rights are
being infringed upon. I found few references to rights-based agendas in the organizations I
studied, despite literature that points to an emergence of human rights-based humanitarianism
(Fox 2001; Slim 2000). This may be due to the proliferation within these organizations of lay
people who are often motivated by immediate emotional responses and the sense of urgency such
emotions may invoke. When the founder of one organization was asked about the roles of
children’s rights in Malawi and in his organization he said:
Rights are a huge topic and it is a little bit blurry. I am blurry on it…to talk about rights 
you have to think about enforcement. I don’t see that happening, but I’m quick to say I 
am not an expert. Orphans need them, but I don’t see public philosophical thinking on 
that and at present I don’t see the political will to respond to these social issues.
An influential donor to the same organization said:
[Rights] have become a big issue in the United States and there are whole organizations
… and they lobby in Congress and you know all kinds of things, that’s not the issue over
here at all, in my opinion…I mean there are so many issues ahead of that one here, you
know, surviving and eating halfway well. Having somebody look after you if you are kid,
and if it’s an auntie or grandmother or whatnot is so much more important than any 
children’s rights concept, but you know we’re in a different spot completely in the United
States. I think it’s somewhat beyond [the organization’s] role (emphasis mine).

184 

When asked which rights of the child were protected in her orphanage, the manger of one
of the orphanages was puzzled, as she did not know what children’s rights were. One of the
reasons rights are avoided in humanitarian and development circles is because of the lack of
infrastructure, either perceived or real, of states, especially in southern Africa, to uphold them.
As the former director Rescue Children’s Village said:
There are so many things you have to do for a child before you can even get to rights.
There are the basics—food, water, and shelter. There are so many children in the villages
just running around and needing things. Basic things have to happen. For that reason,
people don’t think in terms of human rights or child’s rights because so many other 
things have to happen. In order to enforce human rights amendments you have to have a
legal framework. There isn’t one here. Those with money can bypass it and the poor
cannot access it. Here, stealing a goat gets more severe punishment than raping a girl
child. It is just impossible to think that way [about rights].
What is evident in the quote is that the former director is unaware of what rights actually
are. Food, water, and shelter are explicit rights laid out in the UNCRC. It was not uncommon to
find lay humanitarians and volunteer tourists uneducated about these doctrines, therefore
assuming they either were not responsible for or actually providing rights to children. Many
believed rights were the sole responsibility of the state. This potentially creates tension, as the
organizations I studied avoided the state in many ways, which may account for their lack of
understanding about children’s rights.
The founder of AIC, Steve Cross, explained why they avoid becoming too closely
affiliated with the government and its children’s rights-based philosophy:
If one starts from the initial premise that we are doing worthwhile work in this country
and you can say “It’s better to do business than to leave” then you can’t convey the 
appearance that you’re leaping into bed with politicians…So, we don’t have ties to 
politicians so we can stay here long term. Maybe we should have a relationship with the
government, but we want to survive…

185 

Two of the NGOs I studied have registered with the state, as required by law, while the
third was out of compliance with state health and other standards and without state sanction for a
number of years before beginning the registration process in 2008. Even though one of the
organizations I studied is registered with the state, they regularly work around local governing
bodies. While some claims about limited state capacity or the potential for corruption at the state
or judicial level may be true, the constant maneuvering by NGOs around government does not
encourage the development of a more cohesive, transparent, and established governing system.
Because the NGOs I studied do not frame their work within a children’s rights-based
matrix, they are thus able to conceptualize and implement projects that are technical and viewed
as immediate fixes to circumscribed problems. Lay humanitarians may become fixated on a
particular problem that they identify or define (Hefferan, Adkins, and Occhipinti 2009). The
problem is imagined to be the fault of the local communities within which they are manifest, and
the macro-level or structural factors that help shape the local context are ignored, dismissed, or
never considered (Hefferan, Adkins, and Occhipinti 2009). As I have shown, orphans are
imagined to be a problem produced by Malawians; they are the result of the misdeeds of their
parents. In this scenario, the west provides the solution, replicating unequal and paternalistic
power dimensions reminiscent of the colonial era. Lay humanitarians create and implement a
solution to the problem, premised on ideas of modernity, which is often disconnected from local
customs, ideas, and desires, as well as being ineffective in producing any real change. Rights get
ignored or infringed upon when easing suffering is the singular priority.
Framing the situation within a children’s rights-based rubric might alleviate some of the
problematic outcomes discussed throughout this dissertation. A rights-based approach, if “rooted 
and legitimized within the local cultures of African societies” (An-Na’im 2002:8) can ensure 

186 

self-determination, as Malawians would be afforded the freedom to define their own priorities
instead of working with the priorities and objectives of the lay humanitarians and their donors.
Additionally, a rights-based approach can lead to the extension of the protection of human
welfare and dignity (An-Na’im 2002:8) beyond the minimalist easing of suffering. Structural 
barriers to ensuring human rights and dignity can be brought to light and better addressed.
Finally, and of significance to my discussion in chapter 3 on images and discourses
around children, several larger child-centered NGOs have become signatories to codes of ethical
conduct regulating the use of images to generate funding and support (Manzo 2008). Save the
Children, Oxfam, and the British NGO, Make Poverty History, have adopted polices framed by
children’s rights conventions meant to protect the dignity of children as it relates to their images 
and the discourses produced about them. These guidelines prohibit the use of images that depict
children’s suffering in ways that portray them as “pathetic,” passive and “helpless victims” 
(Manzo 2008:638). The policies were put into place in an effort to combat the perpetuation of the
paternalistic logic that “reproduces colonial visions of a superior north and an inferior south” 
(Manzo 2008:636). The organizations I studied were not aware these codes existed. In fact, as I
have shown, most of them purposefully draw on images of dying or sick children to foster a
humanitarian response as well as reinforce their own legitimacy (see Manzo 2008 for a
discussion on how these images become logos for NGOs).
Incorporating these rights-based codes of conduct could have positive consequences for
the organizations producing them and the children being targeted with both resources and a
camera lens. They hold the potential to end some of the paternalistic notions that in many ways
frame humanitarian responses. In addition, they may open a space for a more sophisticated

187 

discussion that highlights those factors—global, local, and everywhere in between—that actually
shape the HIV pandemic, endemic poverty, and human rights abuses.
Here I have presented some potentially positive impacts a rights-based framework could
bring to orphan-focused humanitarian responses in Malawi. I should point out that, while the
philosophical thinking might be there, putting these ideas into practice is proving difficult. For
example, even the larger signatories to the codes of conduct structuring the use of images
actually continue to rely on the very images they purport infringe on children’s rights to dignity. 
Moreover, as the proliferation of lay humanitarians continues, we are likely to see a continued
trend of seeking out or defining simplistic problems that can easily be targeted with westinspired technical fixes. Proponents of a human rights-based approach to development and
humanitarianism need to imagine a way to capture the minds of compassionate donors—much
like images of suffering children do—in order to create a paradigm shift that moves beyond
theoretical discussions.
Conclusion
I have argued here that the Malawian state is purposefully making visible orphans and
other vulnerable children. They suggest that in the wake of the HIV/AIDS pandemic children’s 
rights are being impacted, which justifies the attempts by certain government ministries to
expand the state apparatus to protect children. In this way, the orphan-care craze meant to
support vulnerable, innocent, and apolitical beings becomes political. Similar to Ferguson’s 
(1994) findings in Lesotho, the government of Malawi is capturing a significant amount of
orphan-earmarked resources in an effort to benefit its own evolution and not necessarily that of

188 

orphans.

23

As noted in chapter 3, the de-professionalized humanitarians I studied did not engage

in a rights discourse and often perceived their work as apolitical. However, the very fact of their
presence is used to justify the expansion of the government dealing with child welfare, and it is
thus implicated directly in this larger political project. However, I have tried to demonstrate here,
especially in the case of Bridget, that even though resources are being spent on state capacity
building and infrastructure development, presumably at the district level, there does not seem to
be any significant or visible signs of improved state infrastructure at this time. Whatever
resources are getting diverted to government bodies associated with orphan care seem to be
getting captured at the central government level. Districts and the orphans they are meant to
serve do not seem to be benefiting from these expenditures that are predicated on the presence
and needs of orphans.
Meanwhile, the state continues to rely on outside humanitarians and a variety of orphancare stakeholders to meet the needs of OVCs. Interviews—at the MoWCD, the Ministry of
HIV/AIDS and Nutrition, and DSW offices in Zomba, Dowa, and Karonga—all reveal that
national and local governments are struggling to monitor orphan-care activities, and transnational
NGOs are able to exercise their own will in local communities. Appadurai (1990) argues that the
rise of globalization and global cultural flows is leading to new complex and disjunctive models
and forms of governance and that NGOs are playing an increasing role in directing economies,
social services, and activism in this new globalized world. Specifically, he speaks of the need to

                                                 
23
For the most part, it seems that these resources are getting trapped at the national level, as
evidenced by the lack of any real growth in local districts. However, Bridget and her fellow
trainees did eventually get hired, which essentially doubled the district-level social welfare
personnel across the board. It is too early to tell what type of impact this will have in the lives of
orphaned children.
189 

“recognize that nongovernmental actors are here to stay and somehow need to be made part of 
the new models of global governance and local democracy” (emphasis mine).
This is not unique to Malawi; in many poor countries it is the inability of the state to
provide for its citizens that justifies the intrusion of outside, transnational, and humanitarian
regimes of power. I suggest that while there are now new spaces—especially due to increased
technologies and border flows—as Appadurai argues, the same power structure that determines
the haves from the have-nots is being reproduced. Planners, including larger NGOs like UNICEF
and Save the Children, as well as lay humanitarian groups, such as AIC and Miracles, may not
intend for these global capitalist systems to be reinforced, but in actuality they are deliberately
importing a neoliberal ideology that does little to impact poverty, bolster children’s rights, or 
improve the capacity of the state. In fact, money spent on state infrastructure may be
strengthening the development apparatus itself. This is exemplified by the production of new
government employees who are actively seeking outside development work at the expense of
their government responsibilities, because it is more lucrative or because they simply cannot earn
a living wage in their capacity as lower-level government officials.

24

Moreover, poverty is not being significantly reduced, and I will show how children,
especially those raised in institutions, are ascribing to western, capitalist expectations of
modernity and cosmopolitanism that are somewhat antithetical to the more dominant Malawian
ethos and unrealistic in Malawi’s current economic climate (chapter 4). In many ways, this
reaffirmation of the dominant, inequitable power structure is an unplanned outcome. As
Ferguson (1994:20) writes, “…intentional plans are always important, but never in quite the way 
the planners imagined.”
                                                 
24
This refers to people like Bridget, who get trained for government service yet are never hired,
or who are partially hired (underpaid) and then have to look for supplemental incomes.
190 

The state and transnational organizations are not the only ones purposefully producing
orphans. Malawian families have a stake in being able to claim orphans due to the proliferation
of resources targeting this demographic. Children are also deliberately drawing on the orphan
status to gain access to these incoming resources. In the next chapter I focus on the situation of
orphan-care projects as they materialize in Malawian rural communities. There are unanticipated
outcomes associated with the construction and adoption of a universal, normalizing, homogenous
aid category, such as that created by UNICEF and adopted within Malawi’s NPA for OVC. 
Returning to Tsing (2005), it is within the “sticky materiality” between these definitions and 
local realities that I bore witness to disjuncture as the universal and the local get played out in the
lives of children in Malawi. As the state promotes the injection of orphan-focused resources into
villages, they also recognize emerging problems, including discrimination, fraudulent activity,
the misuse of funds, and the privileging of the orphan identity. The director of early childhood
education in the MoWCD touched on all three of these issues explaining:
Yes. It is bad to call someone ana amasiye. The issue is that orphans belong to the
community and the household. Traditionally, [orphans] have been supported by relatives,
and most children never even knew if they were orphaned because they were shuffled
around and raised by various relatives. So, there was nothing negative since their status
wasn’t emphasized, it wasn’t even known. But, things are changing now because of the 
socioeconomic situation.
Also, people are producing orphans in order to get resources. It has become a source of
income for some families. They take in a few children and all of a sudden they have an
orphanage. This is what is creating discrimination.
Also, orphans become happy to be orphans. They receive so many resources that children
are happy to be identified as OVC. In Malawi, there are some children who have both
parents and are significantly poorer than orphans. We have to try and find a balance. That
is why we tell people who want to support orphans that “no,” they should support 
children.
In the following chapter I examine outcomes associated with the mobility, or lack
thereof, of transnational and state-inspired orphan discourses and the associated capital as they

191 

make their way into Malawian communities and families. I argue that the ideal “African village,” 
as mythologized by westerners as a harmonious geo-spatial unit working for the good of the
whole, is actually proving to be a place of increasing stratification, fragmentation, anxiety, and
spiritual insecurity.

192 

CHAPTER 6: “MONEY HAS JUST COME, FALLEN FROM THE HEAVENS”: 
C O M M U N I T Y-B ASE D O RPH A N C A R E A N D SPI R I T U A L I NSE C U R I T Y
Despite depictions of orphans as socially isolated, the majority of Malawi’s orphans are 
under the care and guidance of either a single parent or other extended family member in rural
villages (Peters, Walker, and Kambewa 2008). Few children actually fall through these social
safety nets and end up in the streets or orphanages. For this reason, some organizations, such as
AIC, funnel the majority of their resources toward community-based projects. However, many of
these projects fail to deliver substantive resources to children (Peters, Walker, and Kambewa
2008). I argue here that the idea of “community” as understood by western donors and project 
designers may not reflect the ways in which Malawians conceptualize and negotiate their social
relations and places in villages. Instead of a harmonious and homogenous spatial unit working
for the good of the whole, Malawian villages reflect heterogeneity and stratification. Modernity,
AIDS, colonialism, capitalism, globalization, and development are implicated in the process of
creating stratification and inequality within villages. Growing disparities may lead to community
discontent. Witchcraft, an idiom gauging social stability (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999), is
taking on new and more pervasive forms, indicating stress and anxiety within Malawian
communities.
In this chapter I focus on the work of AIC, which targets children in their communities. I
have already examined the disjuncture between lay humanitarian orphan discourses and
Malawian perspectives (chapters 1 and 3). Equally relevant is the imagined idea these
organizations have of community being a tightly woven, socially cohesive geo-spatial unit and
thus an appropriate focus for their projects. Later I explore concepts of community as they relate
to development. I also demonstrate through ethnographic examples of AIC’s work that 
communities are proving to be deeply stratified places of unequal development, where certain

193 

individuals are achieving new levels of advancement and autonomy. Orphans’ bodies have
become a site of contestation, as certain community members benefit from registering orphans
and reporting their numbers to funders without necessarily meeting the needs of these children.
This handling of orphans is leading to jealousy, anxiety, and spiritual insecurity, which is not
what AIC intended. In fact, AIC’s goal is to build upon community structures and encourage 
cooperation and cohesion, not create friction and social differentiation. In this chapter I also
discuss witchcraft and the emerging trend of involving children in these occult activities. I argue
that the nature of witchcraft accusation signals community distress and anxiety tied to growing
inequalities. A focus on orphans at the community level, which includes the injection of
significant amounts of resources that are not equally distributed, is leading to increasing spiritual
insecurity.
A I C and D OS: General C haracteristics
AIC has always focused its work at the community level, adopting a holistic approach to
addressing issues associated with HIV/AIDS (see chapter 2). The focus on orphans is only one
part of their overall program, which includes providing nursing scholarships, funding mobile
clinics, training home-based care volunteers to visit HIV-positive patients, and supporting
voluntary testing and counseling services. AIC is especially vocal about promoting and funding
income-generating activities for women. Orphans are one piece of the larger program.
The majority of AIC resources are distributed to CBOs scattered throughout the country.
These organizations can submit proposals for any of the listed activities. It is common for CBOs
in Malawi to receive their funding by submitted proposals to a variety of transnational and
parastatal organizations, such as UNICEF, NAC, and World Vision. The goal is to foster civic
engagement and local empowerment by having communities devise their own solutions to the

194 

problems they are facing. They propose their solutions through typed, often electronically
submitted, grant applications. In theory, this encourages community ownership and solidarity as
individuals come together to tackle issues such as poverty, orphans, and HIV/AIDS.
DOS is the AIC site I worked in because it was one of the AIC-supported CBOs focused
primarily on orphans. It is located in Dowa District (central region) approximately sixty
kilometers from Lilongwe. The catchment area includes several adjacent villages within the TA
Mesu, but the majority of resource distribution is focused on families and children in close
proximity to Chinsisi Village. I focused on three villages within TA Mseu, including Chinsisi
Village, Mtsika Village, and Mwenda Village.
DOS has a small board, which includes both men and women from the community, most
of whom are related. The chairperson is a young man in his mid-twenties named Noah Banda.
The secretary, also a young man in his twenties, is named Levinson Mwalimu. These two
officers were the most active members of the committee and the ones who began DOS and
submitted all of the organization’s orphan proposals. They submitted their first proposal to AIC 
in 2006 and began receiving funding later that year. They have subsequently submitted and
received funding from a variety of other organizations.
Today, DOS receives orphan funds to carry out a variety of projects, including paying
school fees for orphans, transporting children who are HIV positive to the pediatric AIDS
program in Lilongwe, and providing food and other incidentals to both orphans and children who
come from poor families. DOS has also received agricultural inputs meant to support a
communal garden. The harvest is supposed to be used to support poor children and orphans in
the community. The organization also received a pig, which is meant to be raised and sold as an
income-generating activity for women. The profits, it is assumed, will be used to support orphans

195 

and poor children. They also have an ambulance bicycle that is supposed to transport sick
villagers to the local health clinic, although I never saw it used.
AIC’s emphasis on supporting children in communities, promoting civic engagement,
and fostering indigenously generated solutions to the problems created by HIV/AIDS makes
them a more culturally sensitive organization. This is especially evident when comparing their
work to that of Miracles and Southern Allied Missions. On the other hand, I will demonstrate
how they also fall victim to unanticipated outcomes associated with a naivety about what
constitutes a community and the complicated relations that play out within their targeted villages.
W hat Is “Community”?
Guijt and Shah (1998) analyze the notion of community as it relates to and has emerged
as a preferable approach among development workers focused on participation, community
action, and empowerment, with a special emphasis on gender relations. The ways in which they
problematize certain aspects of how community is often oversimplified and idealized resonates
with my own work on orphan-care projects focused at the community level. Specifically, they
question the assumptions that communities are small, isolated spatial units with a homogenous
social structure and shared norms and values (Cornwall 1998; Guijt and Shah 1998). It is
common for westerners to imagine communities in southern Africa as those places that contain,
in a fairly isolated and demarcated manner, a certain “tribe” or population that is homogenous 
and harmonious—maintaining an automatic solidarity of sorts. Volunteer tourists and
development workers believed that everyone is looking out for everyone else—“Malawians 
helping Malawians.”
Lay humanitarians and development workers are envisioning communities in a way that
misconstrues Malawian social organization. While a “village” denotes territoriality, within a 

196 

village there is often a multiplicity of communities. For example, Cornwall (1998) notes that
community programs focused on gender empowerment often essentialize the categories of
women and men. In reality, she argues, within the category of gender itself there are a host of
differences and power differentials tied to religion, ethnicity, class, race, age, and so forth. As I
demonstrate subsequently, there are important power differentials in Malawian villages, which
lead to an unequal distribution of orphan funds. Even in their relative poverty, the better-off in
these communities are benefiting and the poor, many of whom have orphans, go hungry.
The conflation of community and village is also problematic. These terms are often used
interchangeably in development/humanitarian discourse, including in AIC’s. Bhattacharyya
(2004) noted that a community should transcend place and space to be understood as a signifier
of social cohesion or shared interests and circumstances. Modernity (and/or capitalism), she
argues, has created a shift from place-centered communities to the recognition of less intrinsic
constellations premised on solidarity. Malawians, as demonstrated in the Introduction, have not
been tied to circumscribed spatial areas for some time. Today, 85 percent of the population live
in rural areas and are dependent on small-scale farming. At the same time, there is regular
migration by young people to other rural and urban areas.
For this reason, community-based projects centered on circumscribed villages may be
focused on the wrong unit for intervention—the communities they target are assumed to be
contained within territorially discrete spaces. The premise is that solving village problems
associated with HIV/AIDS can restore social relations or cohesion, support local institutions,
engage and reinvigorate civil society, and foster a more viable and productive landscape. This
view does not account for the ways in which Malawian villages, communities, and solidarities
were shifting and changing long before HIV/AIDS. An imagined, harmonious, rural village and

197 

related subsequent livelihoods that are place-centered may not be working because the village as
a community as we know it may be an antiquated concept. As discussed in the Introduction,
colonization, migration, globalization, capitalism, neoliberalism, poverty, and AIDS are just a
few of the processes that impact and shape the ways in which individuals situate themselves and
create meaningful relationships with others. There has been a long history of labor migration
tying Malawi into broader economic networks (Crush 2000; Phiri 1983).
Malawian social systems are resilient, but they are also strained. This can and does lead
to reconfigurations. The state of flux and community apprehension felt by people is realized in
increasing accounts of witchcraft. Malawians have continually had to adjust to anxiety and stress
associated with clashing ontologies and unpredictable social, economic, and health
transformations. Occult beliefs are one means of making sense of these situations. The emerging
trend of children as perpetrators of witchcraft is becoming visible through local newspaper
stories, radio pronouncements, and community gossip. This may signal increasing community
tension and anxiety.
W itchcraft: H istoric and Contemporary M anifestations
The southern African worldview considers the spiritual and physical realms to be deeply
interconnected. They work within and for each other to structure people’s daily lives. Witchcraft 
is not an extraordinary belief or simply a metaphor, but is rather an existential reality at work to
structure everyday, lived experiences (Ellis and ter Harr 1998; Moore and Sanders 2001; van
Dijk 2001; West 2008). The occult, not unlike politics, provides a way to order and distribute the
power inherent in society (Ellis and ter Haar 1998:195). Evans-Pritchard’s (1937) classic work 
among the Azande shows that witchcraft is logical and follows structured rules (Moore and
Sanders 2001). It is an epistemological system aimed at understanding, explaining, and bringing

198 

coherence to an unpredictable and volatile world. The Azande know granaries often collapse
because of termites. However, if someone was standing under the granary and subsequently
killed, then it was the work of the occult, as the Azande believe that there must be a logical
explanation for that person to have been standing under the granary at that particular time.
Witchcraft does continue to function as a system of social control. Anthropologists note
that malevolent occult forces become most visible during periods of intense social change and
instability (Ashforth 2005; Auslander 1993; Moore and Sanders 2001). For Moore and Sanders
(2001:20), witchcraft and the occult are a “social diagnostics,” “a set of discourses on morality, 
sociality, and humanity: on human frailty.” When social and other systems in southern Africa 
become imbalanced, the occult becomes more observable.
In addition, the domain of the occult is a “moral geography” focused on mapping 
production, redistribution, and consumption patterns within society (Auslander 1993; Moore and
Sanders 2001:15). Witchcraft provides a moral framework that prevents the immoral
accumulation of resources and power (Ashforth 2005; Moore and Sanders 2001). Those who
amass wealth without adequately redistributing it within their social networks are often accused
of having manipulated evil powers for economic gain (Auslander 1993). Additionally, those who
are the most socially and materially vulnerable may be blamed for the misfortunes that befall the
community (Auslander 1993). In the recent past, it was childless women, widows, the diseased,
and social outcasts who were targeted with witchcraft accusations (Ashforth 2005; Auslander
1993). These individuals are on the fringes of social networks and therefore often overlooked by
redistribution mechanisms (Auslander 1993).
In southern Africa, witchcraft accusations have tended to track disproportionately along
generational lines (Auslander 1993). Examples from Zambia (Auslander 1993), South Africa

199 

(Ashforth 2005), and Malawi (van Dijk 2001) suggest that young people, especially young men,
are bringing the majority of these accusations against the older population. Elders, according to
young men, are no longer productive, and they are often accused of being jealous of young
people’s vitality and good looks. Jealousy leads to witchcraft. Moreover, the older one gets the
more knowledge he or she accumulates, which includes knowledge of the occult. Here is where I
noted a change in emerging trends that now implicate children and young men (see West 2008
for examples from Mozambique).

Witchcraft Today: Responses to F ailed Modernity?
…contemporary witchcraft, occult practices, magics, and enchantments are neither a 
return to “traditional” practices nor a sign of backwardness or lack of prog ress; they are
instead thoroughly modern manifestations of uncertainties, moral disquiet and unequal
rewards and aspirations in the contemporary moment.
Comaroff and Comaroff 1999 quoted in Moore and Sanders 2001:3)
Comaroff and Comaroff (1999) argued that spiritual insecurity is an explicit reaction
against the failed promises of modernity and capitalism, including wealth accumulation.
Witchcraft flourishes in places of unequal development. It is a social commentary about
malcontents aimed at the increasing inequalities, poverty, and violence evident in southern
Africa (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999). For the Comaroffs (1999), an increase in occult activities
represents a “moral panic.” This panic reflects the uneasy friction that arises between feelings of
hope and hopelessness, as the majority of poor Africans bear witness to, yet are excluded from
material accumulation and global markets. Witchcraft provides a moral idiom to address African
discontent with failed promises of modernity and a means to deal with its defectiveness, as
pockets of affluence emerge amidst masses of poverty (Ashforth 2005).
Englund (1996) argued that it is not a reaction to modernity, but functions within and is
molded by modernity. For example, in Dedza, Malawi, witchcraft is analyzed as a moral

200 

discourse focused on sociality meant to ensure redistribution, reciprocity, and strong social ties
(Englund 1996). According to Englund (1996), modernity, especially the domain of capitalism,
is not the focus of witchcraft narratives. Capitalism itself is not a bad, evil, or threatening system.
The target of nefarious activities is capital accumulation and increasing inequalities amongst
people without proper redistribution. It is morally acceptable to engage in markets and make
money, but hoarding resources and not supporting extended kin networks is unacceptable
(Englund 1996).
One component that is new to occult beliefs and evident in Malawian newspapers and
gossip is the disconcerting increase of children in occult accusations and activities. The use of
children in occult activities is regularly featured in Malawian newspapers. In May of this year,
the Nyasa Times ran a newspaper article titled, “Malawi Police Ask for Assistance on 
Witchcraft.” The following is an excerpt from the article by Ruby Suzgika:
During recent weeks, Malawi media has been awash with news of witchcraft just like
those of defilement. The pinnacle of the reports has been a sharp increase in the number
of young kids being taught the wicked rite and in some extreme cases some of these kids
have died…
However, the law enforcers and the courts have faced a lot of challenges when dealing
with cases of sorcerers. They have been incapacitated to successfully execute their duties
due to prohibiting and obsolete laws.
This has forced the police to join the Malawian child rights groups to demand an
immediate recognition of witchcraft existence by revising the current Witchcraft Act and
put it in line with present practices.
In February, Malawi child rights groups issued a communiqué demanding government’s 
immediate action by way of recognizing witchcraft so as to salvage the country’s child 
victims.
The connection between witchcraft and AIDS is evident and certain to remain relevant in
the coming years. Rising HIV/AIDS deaths are inverting the demographic profile, which may be
complicating witchcraft accusations, especially those targeting children. Additionally, it has been

201 

suggested that the failure of modern biomedicine to treat HIV/AIDS reifies belief in the occult
(Lwanda 2003). Many Africans fluctuate between traditional and biomedical healers looking for
answers. Some hospitals send AIDS patients to traditional healers if they feel they cannot help
the patient (Yamba 1997). The occult is a system meant to explain and order the lives of people.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the specter of AIDS is invigorating traditional and occult
practices and beliefs. HIV/AIDS is a mysterious disease with a somewhat unpredictable etiology.
It fits in occult and traditional healers’ experiences with disease, health, and wellness. These 
explanations still leave unanswered the question: Why children?
In southern Africa, those who are supposed to be the most productive (between the ages
of twenty-four and fifty) have ended up succumbing to AIDS faster than any other segment of
the population. The result has been a proliferation of orphaned children (Guest 2001). The vast
majority of these children are being taken in by extended family systems (Chirwa 2002).
However, as more and more children are being orphaned, these social safety nets are being
stretched thin, leading to an increased demand for the redistribution of resources (Chirwa 2002).
It is with varying degrees of resentment that family members agree to support these orphans
(Verhoef and Morelli 2007). Peters, Kambewa, and Walker (2008) found, in their Zomba District
sites, families who begrudgingly took in orphans because “nobody else would.”
The rise in the visibility of needy vulnerable (poor) children, not just orphans, coupled
with the persistence of modernity ideology focused on capital accumulation and individual
25

sovereignty, may increase the spiritual insecurity of children and their guardians.

As extended

families take in more children, their social marginalization is likely to increase. During my
                                                 
25
It may not be the case that there are increasing numbers of vulnerable and needy children.
Instead, a deliberate emphasis by transnational donors, children’s rights groups, and 
organizations, such as UNICEF, World Vision, and Save the Children, on the needs of poor and
vulnerable children may be making them more vulnerable.
202 

research, I interviewed a grandmother who was responsible for twenty-four orphans. Her
husband worked in the Ministry of Transportation. Although they were middle-class, their
financial obligations—including feeding, educating, and clothing these children—prevented
them from accumulating any financial security. This caused resentment. The woman mentioned
the fact that these young people, once they graduated and had their own careers, maintained only
minimal ties with her. While there were no witchcraft accusations around this woman or her
family, the impact of the crisis and the increased pressure on social networks is obvious.
It is possible that the increase in international adoptions, especially the sensational
coverage afforded to Madonna, may also be implicated in occult accusations focused on
children. The threat, now, is that children have become commodities and integrated into global
capitalist markets. There is a consumptive element to these adoptions, as children’s bodies are
bought, sold, or bargained for. Children, flying about at night and being transported to far-off
places such as the UK and South Africa under the influences of witchcraft, might be a moral
idiom articulating frustration, anxiety, and anger at the social cleavages that are dislocating these
children from their families.
There are also reports of children’s body parts becoming commodities on the black 
market. Madonna’s film, “I Am Because We Are,” tells the horrific story of Luka. Luka, a young 
boy approximately ten years old, was given money by a neighbor to go to the local market and
buy paraffin. If he ran this errand he could keep the change. On his way to the market he was
dragged into a maize field and castrated. Some local children found him and reported the event.
He was rushed to the local clinic where he received an operation. In the video, we are assured
that this is only happening in “pockets of Malawi.” Nonetheless, it is happening. I read similar 
reports in the newspapers. It was not only children who were attacked. Reporters speculate that

203 

people who want to get rich use these genitals in occult activities. They are essentially “selling 
their souls to the devil,” as Father Boucher at Mua Mission explained. The commodification of 
body parts, the increasing social stratification associated with capitalism, and the growing orphan
population—including the demands of caring for them—are interwoven. Children in my research
sites reported they feared witchcraft in villages; it was a primary reason they wanted to live in
urban areas. The sense of security children believed was afforded to them by living behind gated
walls in urban areas as opposed to living “in community” in villages is noteworthy.
In addition to trading in body parts, reports of child defiling peppered Malawian
newspapers and radio broadcasts. There were two prominent reasons given. The first was the
belief by some people that if they had sex with a virgin they would be cured of AIDS. Men
would then have sex with young girls, some less than a year old, to ensure the girl was a virgin.
The other reason was in line with beliefs associated with the trade in body parts. Accused
violators reported that that they had gone to witches and were given “medicines” to take. In order 
to activate these medicines they had to sleep with a young child. This would then make them
rich. I asked the national ECD director in the MoWCD if he felt the trade in body parts and child
defiling were new trends. He thought that on some level there may be an increase in these occult
activities, but also believed it was a combination of increased access to communication, such as
radio, TV, and newspaper, coupled with more visible children’s rights campaigns that was
leading to an increase in accusations and reporting.
This discussion is meant to illustrate the complexity of Malawian village life. It is within
this context that AIC’s interventions get implemented, with mixed results. I now examine the
ethos of AIC and provide ethnographic examples of their planned and unplanned outcomes. I
include descriptions of witchcraft and jealousy to demonstrate the tenor of suspiciousness woven

204 

into Mvera’s social fabric. It is through this trope that an understanding of the changing nature of 
sociality in Mvera can be understood.
It T akes a V illage?
Taken from the AIC web site:
Our approach to halting the spread of HIV revolves around empowering local
communities. Local people create the best solutions to local problems, and Malawians
design, implement, monitor and evaluate to administer our programs on the ground….
With seed money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, AIC created its signature
HIV intervention—AIC Villages, which uses a grass-roots, community-based approach
to preventing and treating HIV/AIDS in Malawi’s rural villages (emphasis mine).
One of AIC’s attractions for outside donors is its holistic approach and emphasis on 
understanding and working through local systems and institutions. Theoretically, AIC embodies
what I hypothesize to be the most effective and appropriate approach to development and
humanitarianism. Their mission statement and project descriptions capture what is now a trend in
development, which is a design characterized as sustainable, empowering, locally imagined and
implemented, and geared toward capacity building (Guijt and Shah 1998). All of these phrases
are evident in AIC discourse. Its program materials read:
At the grass roots level, AIC’s programs are implemented by local village women.
Village women have a unique perspective on village life—they know how many orphans
a family is caring for, whose husband died of HIV, and which girls may be at-risk for the
virus and this intimate knowledge is invaluable to us because we are in the business of
saving lives. When local people work in partnership with our Malawi Staff to implement
critical programs, it improves our efficiency, reduces costs and helps eliminate a
community’s dependence on aid from international organizations and NGOs. Our work
focuses on teaching local people new skills, building local capacity and ensuring positive
and sustainable outcomes that will benefit future generations.

205 

AIC’s emphasis on women is an important part of its discourse and project design.

26

AIC

board members and staffers recognize that in many ways women in Malawi are disempowered,
especially in a context characterized by endemic poverty. For this reason, they purposefully hire
Malawian women to oversee their projects. The central region director, Sister Brenda, is a
middle-aged Malawian woman with a degree in nursing. Mada Banda, a thirty-something
Malawian woman and former government community development officer, is one of their
central area staffers responsible for running trainings for community organizations, as well as
monitoring and evaluating AIC-funded projects. The southern region’s program director is also a
Malawian woman.

27

Later in this section, I present ethnographic data that suggests that

empowering women is not always achieved by AIC projects and that there may be some
gendered animosity, although it does not present itself in predictable ways.
Another central characteristic of AIC is the focus on locally generated ideas for dealing
with the HIV/AIDS situation, which includes orphan care. This idea fits with newer development
and humanitarian trajectories that stress a more culturally relative approach to interventions. The
founder of AIC, Steve Cross, explained the emphasis on local civic engagement and also
reiterated the gendered component that characterizes their projects:
AIC started with a Gates Foundation grant in 2003 and we spent three years in a cluster
of just 25 villages to get our intervention perfected. We used a Malawian design team
with experts as well as village-level people to put together the best program. I fully
recognized that us coming from the US really had no idea what to do so we hired Jones
Laviwa (local Malawian) as part of our Malawian strategy team….What makes AIC 
                                                 
26
Cornwall (1998) argues that “women” or a focus on “gender” does little to capture the 
heterogeneity and unequal power relations present in villages and within these broadly defined
categories. Focusing on women, as a category, does not capture differences in wealth, religion,
ethnicity, status, etc.
27
AIC has a total of thirty-five Malawian staff. I was told that they attempt to keep their
operating expenses at a minimum so that the majority of donations go directly toward funding
projects.
206 

special is the fact that we are making changes right there in the villages. Also, for us,
women and girls are the key. It is fair to say that we have not forgotten women and girls.
Cross makes an overt attempt to understand the Malawian context. He continually
expresses his reliance on local Malawian staffers to guide AIC. I will show that, while he does
attempt to create a feedback loop that provides a platform for Malawians to express their needs
by allowing them to submit their own locally generated proposals, there are some restrictions.
Donor preferences find their way in and shape the kinds of proposals that get funded.
From the onset, AIC has sought to focus its programs at the community level and build
upon already existing structures. When the organization was initially focused solely on
HIV/AIDS prevention it worked through local religious institutions. Cross was told that rural
populations were suffering from the impact of AIDS because they were isolated and unable to
access information, counseling and testing, and ARVs. Therefore, AIC began its work by
channeling resources through churches and mosques in these more rural areas. Its projects have
since expanded. Cross explained that AIC recognized the need to approach HIV/AIDS from a
more holistic perspective. For this reason, it now includes income-generating activities for
women and orphan support services. Sister Brenda, the central region director of AIC, explained:
The main goal of AIC is to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS. So, we line our funding
activities with any project that is trying to mitigate that impact of HIV/AIDS in the
society. And we also like to see the institutions, which we are helping, to be on their own,
to be empowered, sustainability.
AIC garners donor support by emphasizing the sustainable, grassroots approach to
mitigating the impact of HIV/AIDS and bolstering the economies and health of villages. Donors
can imagine supporting a long-term, sustainable program. A volunteer tourist in Malawi
explained her perception of the positive aspects of AIC stressing this idea of local empowerment:
[AIC] is able to give funding to projects that are really going to be self-sustaining and not
just giving out money to random people. They are definitely helping in a way that’s more 

207 

[pause] I keep using the word self-sustaining. I can’t think of another word for it. And I
think definitely the income-generating activities, the farming, Malawian people helping
other Malawian people. I think it’s what’s effective about AIC.
The notion of “Malawian people helping other Malawian people” is the foundation of 
AIC’s community development approach. In some cases this approach has been effective. I will
show that HIV-positive children are receiving ARVs and children’s school fees are getting paid. 
But more often than not AIC workers have found themselves pursuing committees they have
supported in an effort to hold them accountable. AIC staffers have expressed frustration that a
significant percentage of the local committees they have funded have been found “eating the 
money,” which is a Malawian phrase denoting the squandering of resources in a deceitful way,
often using them for personal gain, as I will also demonstrate. Peters, Kambewa, and Walker
(2008) found the same scenario in their Zomba District village sites. People were raising money
for orphans, but those children being counted and documented received minimal, if any, actual
support. An imagined and romanticized idea of community that has been critiqued in
development literature is further contested by scenarios of manipulation and deceit involving
children (Bhattacharyya 2004; Guijt and Shah 1998).
AIC, working at the local level, recognizes some of the complexities inherent in
communities and the ways in which HIV/AIDS has challenged community cohesion. In their
view, HIV/AIDS is wreaking havoc, women are paying the price in inequitable ways, and the
solution is to foster solidarity by empowering women, assisting orphans, and building capacity at
the village level. The spatial unit becomes the site of intervention, with the goal being to foster
cohesion within it. Drawing rural Malawians, especially women, into regional and global
markets to access cash, empowering women to care for their sick and dying family members and
neighbors, distributing ARVs, and educating orphans is the current approach to their
humanitarian efforts.

208 

Is it working? Can AIC’s development paradigm bolster communities and/or villages? 
My ethnographic data on the activities related to OVC suggests that the explicit attempt at
fostering community cohesion creates greater friction. The focus on community development as
a means of mitigating HIV/AIDS, addressing women’s disempowerment, and caring for children 
is having mixed results. AIC does not overly romanticize the complexity of African villages, as
many community development programs planners are often guilty of doing (Guijt and Shah
1998). It is better than many organizations at being cognizant of local particularities and systems
of power. What it struggles with is designing a program that recognizes and addresses
inequalities and suffering while simultaneously strengthening communities and accounting for
the changing nature of society.
AIC spends its funds on projects meant to save lives, empower individuals, and
strengthen communities and social systems. However, I demonstrate that the community-based
orphan-care program I studied was creating community dissent and friction. Funds are reaching
individuals with entrepreneurial spirits who are driven by a desire to tap into global capitalist
systems and access the accoutrements of modernity. AIC’s money in this case is not feeding the
number of orphans they anticipated nor is it building local institutions. In actuality, it supports
the spread of capitalism, modernity, increasing social stratification, spiritual insecurity, and the
emerging emphasis on autonomy and self-actualization. AIDS may be impacting the Malawian
social fabric in profound ways, but change was underway long before the pandemic took hold.
Examining the impact of HIV/AIDS funds that get injected into these villages provides insights
into these social and cultural reconfigurations. In subsequent sections I describe both anticipated
and unanticipated outcomes of AIC’s OVC program in Dowa district.

209 

Planned Outcomes: Combating A I DS and Associated Stigma
On one of my first visits to Chinsisi village, I was given a tour by two of DOS’s 
committee members, Noah and Levinson. They were enthusiastic about showing me their
successes. I was taken to see the pig that was donated and used as an income-generating activity
for orphans. I was shown the communal garden where maize for feeding the orphans was
planted. I was offered a ride on the ambulance bicycle used to transport sick patients to the local
rural clinic. In addition, Noah and Levinson regularly introduced me to children who were
receiving school fees from DOS. Their work seemed impressive and extensive.
I was also surprised at the way they openly introduced HIV-positive villagers. I met
Washington Nyirenda as we walked between Chinsisi and the Military Support Battalion located
nearby. He was wearing a brilliant white shirt and crisp blue jeans. He was approximately forty
years old, 5’10’’ with a robust build, weighing around 190 pounds. He had a cheerful demeanor
and glowing white teeth that showed regularly as he smiled and joked with Noah. He spoke some
broken English. He shook my hand vigorously and said with pride, “I am HIV positive, but look! 
Look at what I can do because I am strong.” He pointed to a freshly dug pit latrine beside his 
house. I was a little surprised at being given a tour of a latrine area, but his sense of
accomplishment was evident. I think at some point he even flexed his biceps in the fashion of
competitive body builders posing for judges. He called over his daughter who was wearing a
sweet-looking pink frilly dress. She didn’t appear to be any older than five or six. She was shy.
He told me that her mother had died of AIDS and that she, too, was HIV positive. He was
grateful to DOS for helping her get tested and subsequently enrolled in the Baylor pediatric
AIDS clinic program in Lilongwe so she could access ARVs.

210 

Steve Cross, AIC’s founder, stressed that part of AIC’s program goals is to stop the 
spread of AIDS, which includes addressing issues of stigma and discrimination, especially in
rural areas. He said that AIC’s emphasis on training community health workers to assist in
palliative care for AIDS patients is meant to bring people out of their homes to die surrounded
with love and support—not cast aside or shunned behind closed doors. Their HIV/AIDS
education and youth outreach programs were also meant to address stigma. In Mvera, HIV did
not seem particularly stigmatized. People were aware of who was positive. Msautsa, an HIVpositive eleven-year-old girl, did not report any feelings of isolation or stigma associated with
her status. She said, “When I am playing I don’t see any difference between my friends and me.” 
I regularly witnessed her running and playing with other children from the community.
It is hard to assess whether or not the openness surrounding HIV/AIDS discussions and
the acceptance of HIV positive villagers as part of the regular social fabric of life is a direct
result of AIC’s efforts, but I would speculate that Noah and Levinson would say that is the case. 
Peters, Walker, and Kambewa (2008) report that stigma in Zomba District has never been a
significant issue, even prior to the AIDS pandemic. They draw on the example of a young girl
with a visible growth on her face, who reports feeling well-acclimated to her community.
Similarly, they found that the majority of orphans did not face stigma. The few cases that
suggested some mistreatment often involved relationships within homes and between stepparents
and children. The same can be said for my field site. AIC may be doing its part, or it may be that
stigma and discrimination in rural areas are not as significant an issue as is often portrayed.
Washington’s daughter is one of over twenty children in Mvera who has tested positive 
for HIV. AIC funds DOS to provide regular, free transportation to the Baylor clinic in Lilongwe
for these children to access ARV drugs and receive regular check-ups by physicians. This is no

211 

small feat. Noah and Levinson have to track all HIV-positive children and their scheduled
appointments to ensure they make it to the clinic on time. They visit the children regularly to
check in on their health. If a child seems to be deteriorating they take him/her to the clinic on the
next available truck.
DOS does not provide ARVs directly to adults because there is an ARV distribution
program run out of the military support battalion for those living with the disease in the area.
Twice a week a military lorry carries patients to the district (boma) hospital. Children can be
enrolled in this program, but the Baylor pediatric program is considered more specialized and
thus more effective. AIC has, in the past, provided ARVs for those who were unable to access
the drugs from government clinics. Keeping people alive, both children and their parents, is a
noteworthy success for AIC and the first step in fighting AIDS.

Resource Distribution
Nearly all respondents in my study said that things were better for children today because
of organizations, such as DOS, that are reportedly distributing school uniforms, blankets, and
soap for washing uniforms (see figures 19 and 20). Many organizations are also paying school
fees for orphans to attend secondary schools.
DOS was paying school fees for over twenty
orphans. I went with Noah and Levinson to
the local secondary school that most of the
supported orphans attended to pick up their
progress reports. AIC requires school
documentation of the sponsored children in an
effort to track their progress. Not a single one was passing his/her classes. In my interviews it

212 

was evident that this was a common trend throughout the country. Why are so many children,
especially those supported by donor funds in similar situations, failing? None of those I
questioned, including people in the MoWCD, the Red Cross, AIC, and UNICEF, could provide
an answer.
Kendall (2007) examined the impact of the free primary education policy in Malawi on
educational outcomes for children. She found that teachers felt overwhelmed by the large
numbers of enrolled students. Standard 7 and Standard 8 students she interviewed said they did
not believe that getting an education or attending school regularly was particularly beneficial in
terms of improving their livelihoods. For this reason, many dropped out or only attended school
sporadically so they could be freed to pursue economic activities. She also noted that caring for
sick and dying relatives regularly inhibited the success of students. Kendall’s sample was not 
restricted to children having their school fees paid and school uniforms provided by NGOs;
therefore, any connections between orphan status, sponsorship, and school success would have to
be made with some hesitation. Ultimately, the effectiveness of this AIC program is questionable
with so many children failing.
These community-supported
organizations were also funded to provide
meals for all children deemed vulnerable. In
Dowa District, DOS was supported to feed
children five times a week during the rainy
season (December–May). This did not occur
with any regularity, and community members
expressed frustration over this lack of consistency. DOS members told other villagers that the

213 

pots and utensils needed to prepare nsima (a maize-based porridge eaten at every meal) had gone
missing. This reason was unsatisfactory to the majority of community members. I did witness
food distribution once, which took place on the same occasion as a blanket and school uniform
distribution overseen by AIC staffers and an influential donor (see figure 19).
Tifinesi, the mother of a child who receives support from DOS because her husband and
his father are board members, saw DOS in a positive light even if the organization was heavily
critiqued by others. Tifinesi explained:
In the past there were no organizations helping orphans, but now there is DOS in this
village. Most of the children are being helped by the organization. They receive soap,
clothes, as well as school fees. DOS is doing their best helping the orphans. In the past,
orphans were more vulnerable because there were not any organizations like there are
nowadays.
My findings differ from the findings reported by Peters, Walker, and Kambewa (2008) in
Zomba District. They suggest that very little, if any, resources were actually making it to
orphans. While it is true that DOS orphans were not receiving the resources AIC might expect,
some children received benefits like soap, blankets, and school fees. One of my research
participants, Alinafe, who is the mother of a child who is not an orphan, discussed this
phenomenon and her mixed feelings about DOS:
We are happy that the organization is helping our orphans in this village including doing
activities like playing with children so that the children can forget that they are orphans.
Also, they receive soap, blankets, sometimes food and school fees if the child is in
secondary school. I am happy with everything they provide to orphans. It is just that
people are jealous and they gossip a lot in a way that makes the committee look bad. To
me, [the committee/DOS] is trying, but they cannot provide everything to everyone.
Alinafe highlights one aspect that was discussed only in passing by a few of the
villagers—alleviating psychosocial distress. For her, DOS is good because it addresses some of
the sadness children may experience as a result of their orphanhood. On one occasion, after
UNICEF trained Noah and Levinson, they organized a sports day for children to play netball and

214 

soccer. Everyone was invited. All the children seemed to enjoy the activities. DOS can and on
occasion does facilitate community activities that bring together all children, thus fostering a
sense of connection.

Building Cohesion through Inclusivity?
It was common to find DOS committee members who were not personally taking care of
orphans or who were not widowed heavily involved with DOS. Overall, activities tended toward
an inclusive approach to providing for children, not only orphans. I should note here that Noah
and Levinson, the two most active DOS members and officers, were both young adults
(approximately thirty years of age) with wives and young children. Neither directly cared for
orphans, but they were the most capable members in the community able to write grant proposals
and submit them for funding. They also became more capable as a result of the training sessions
they attended.
This inclusivity became evident when Bridget and I asked Noah for a list of the enrolled
orphans they were serving. Upon receipt of the orphan list, Bridget and I picked a random
sample and then ventured off to begin our data collection. We started our first storyboard
drawing with a child on the list and quickly realized the child was living with both her mother
and father. We ended the discussion and went onto the next name on the list; again we found that
the child was living with both parents. We went to the third child and found the same thing.
Puzzled, we asked Noah and Levinson about the orphan list. They explained that all of these
children were vulnerable and therefore just as needy as those children who had lost a parent. It
became clear that nearly everyone in the community who had a child was included on the list.
What differed was the amount of resources that they regularly received. This can be interpreted
as a sign that the Malawian sense of community and cohesiveness within the village remains

215 

strong, as they are looking out for all of the children. Another interpretation for this behavior is
that the fear of witchcraft is so pervasive that DOS organizers include children from all families,
albeit some more peripherally than others, to protect themselves against nefarious activities.
A moral obligation to address social injustice by protecting orphans, promoting women’s 
empowerment, and fostering capacity building at the community level drives the majority of
those involved in AIC. At the local level people are motivated more by the need for resources
and security. In some circumstances this leads to suspicious and fraudulent activities. AIC
dollars do not only feed hungry children. Research participants expressed mixed emotions about
DOS, as demonstrated in Alinafe’s quote. In the next section I show that villagers recognized
that DOS committee members were bringing in support that was much appreciated, but they felt
not all of it was reaching the children who needed it the most.

Unplanned Outcomes: Misuse of F unds and Community Dissent
In these Dowa sites, the misuse of funds was commonly discussed within the community.
Noah and Levinson, the chairperson and secretary of DOS, were significantly wealthier than
other community members. It was suspected that they had siphoned off money meant to feed
children, provide clothing, and buy fertilizer for communal gardens. The grandmother of
Msautsa, the HIV-positive girl living in Chinsisi who was mentioned earlier, complained about
the misuse of funds:
The DOS committee members are trying to assist orphans, but the problem is that if they
receive money to help orphans then the committee takes a lot the money for their own
benefit. For example, they said they grow maize for orphans, but when the donors came
to supervise the garden the committee showed them a garden that belonged to someone
else just to please the donor.
I was unable to verify if this was the same scenario that unfolded around my tour of the
orphan garden. Noah did tell me that the maize yield of the garden for orphans was too small and

216 

they would need to write grants for supplemental foodstuffs. This suggests a lack of access to
fertilizer for DOS projects, even though Noah clearly had purchased fertilizer for his own fields.
Noah may very well have used DOS money to fertilize his own fields instead of the communal
garden set aside for DOS’s feeding program.
CBO leaders were the only members of the village who had multiple cell phones, TVs,
new clothes and shoes, and a maize harvest significantly greater than their neighbors. I returned
to Mvera in late November for a visit before I left Malawi. Noah had moved into a house made
of bricks, as opposed to the mud-walled home he had previously occupied. He was the only one
in the village with this type of improved home. The villagers complained that the leaders of the
organization were “eating the money” but that they felt helpless to change anything. Many 
believed that, if they complained, even the minimal assistance they received would be taken
away. Dissension, fragmentation, and anger were present, if somewhat suppressed.
Meanwhile, children identified as orphans reported that they were not being fed regularly
and did not always receive soap or clothes. When asked about how the local CBO could be
improved, one of the community members said:
The organization has problems. To me, I think it is better to choose another committee.
[ALF] Do you have a person from this village on the committee?
Yes, there is one person, but they don’t involve him in many things, especially about
money activities like buying things, because they are afraid that he will be telling people
what they are doing. Sometimes I think when the donors send things they should also
send them with a person to witness if the children have received the things. For example,
children are supposed to go to the community-based organization (CBO) every week to
eat, but they have gone two months without eating. They just go and play. When we
asked the CBO they said they have a “problem” that they are needing to discuss.
It seemed the further, geo-spatially, aid recipients were from the central village
(Chinsisi), the less likely they were to receive regular resources from the organization.

217 

It is difficult to discern if all the accusations made about committee members are
justified. Clearly, Noah and Levinson both possess an entrepreneurial spirit. Is their perceived
economic success a result of their ingenuity in other areas or is it the misuse of orphan funds?
Either way, there is a sense of jealousy and suspicion within the community, which leads to
feelings of animosity.
Another community member whose son receives school fees complained about the fact
that the board was made up primarily of members of the same family, which led to accusations
of fraud and dishonesty. This respondent said:
There are rumors all over the village DOS used to receive secondhand clothes. The DOS
members said that the clothes were too small so they sold them and kept the money for
themselves. The community is complaining about DOS, especially the executive board,
and saying that it needs to be changed because the board is eating the money themselves
and even the chief is aware of it. The difficulty is that all of the board members come
from the same family.
Noah, in particular, has included his relatives in all DOS activities, an action which many
community members reported finding problematic. The CBO’s committee is comprised of 
Noah’s close family members, and the children who are targeted with resources are also
relatives—many of them have working parents at the local military support battalion, suggesting
they may not be as needy as some of the other children in the village. Previously I discussed the
inclusivity of DOS programs, but this may not stem from meeting the needs of all children, but
rather justifying the inclusion of a particular population that is related to those individuals in
positions of power. The children of DOS committee members who are not orphans get labeled
vulnerable and are enrolled in the OVC program to receive school fees and so minimal food and
resource handouts are justified.
The idea of cohesiveness at the village and extended-family levels may be shifting, which
the previous quote suggests, but this does not mean that extended family systems are failing. The

218 

lack of orphans in the abandoned and isolated sense is an indication that this is the case. Other
literature also highlights the strength of familial ties (Chirwa 2002; Mandala 2005; Peters,
Walker, and Kambewa 2008). It is possible, though, that these systems are being reconfigured in
more exclusive ways. Charity, thirty four years old, who is a widow and the mother of one of my
child participants complained about the exclusivity associated with DOS:
Sometimes I think that the organization should call a meeting with all the guardians to
listen to our views so we could be helping one another. But the problem with the
committee is that they don’t involve guardians in their discussions. The committee is just 
receiving things and giving them to a small number of orphans and the rest are those who
have both parents and are related to committee members. And yet, [the committee] says
they don’t receive a lot of things. In this village, nobody received a blanket, but in Mtsika 
village most of the children received blankets because there was a person from there on
the committee. The volunteers give things to those people who are related to them, and
not necessarily to orphans. There are other children who have received three blankets at
different times, but to us they have not given any blankets.
Mandala’s (2005) work on the end of communal eating in the Tchiri Valley may help 
inform the tensions these participants are discussing and lends credence to the notion of an
inward turning of social and familial arrangements. This, if it is occurring, is due in part to AIC
and other such organizations’ work in communities. Mandala (2005) draws on the example of 
communal eating, or chidyero, which was previously undertaken in times of both famine and
abundance for purposes of sharing and solidarity building, as a means of strengthening
community cohesion and ensuring the viability of community members. Over time (1860–2004)
this tradition has ended, as people are now eating with their nuclear families behind closed doors.
This was also the case in Dowa. There was little or no communal eating, and the sharing of food
was never observable. In the Tchiri Valley, communal eating may have ended because of
scarcity and food insecurity, an emphasis on the market for accessing food, and suspicion about
what was being hoarded and what was being generously provided. Mandala (2005) does say that
food is still shared, but it tends to be guarded more fiercely within the bloodline and redistributed

219 

in private to certain relatives. In Dowa, the reported jealousy and suspicion was always targeted
at Noah’s family, which was accused of hoarding resources and distributing them amongst
themselves.

Professionalization of the Rural Poor and Reifying Gender Inequalities
Theoretically, women and children are a targeted demographic in AIC program design. In
reality, the structure of AIC leads to increased internal stratification that tends to follow gendered
lines. For example, as previously described, the project proposals have to be typed in English and
e-mailed to the AIC office in Lilongwe. They can then be vetted and passed on to the US
committee that makes final decisions about which proposals to fund. More often than not support
staff is going to be Malawian men, especially young men, who are able to negotiate this process.
Men are typing proposals, submitting them via the Internet, and handling the funds when they
are awarded grants. In addition, every penny spent has to be accounted for in a grant. Women are
trained how to balance budgets, but in my research sites it was always men who took over this
responsibility. Another trend worth noting is the presence of men on all orphan-care committees
or directing orphan-care projects. This was evident in my sites in Dowa and Karonga, but also in
other areas, such as Dzama (central region) and Kanengo (near Lilongwe). This is noteworthy
because men have very little to do with rearing children on a daily basis.
Men take up these positions to acquire not only material resources, but also skills they
believe will be marketable outside the village. Gender inequalities are reproduced as men take
control of CBOs, resources, and eventually access to professional development opportunities.
Peters, Kambewa, and Walker (2007) report a similar phenomenon, referring to the process as
the “professionalization of the rural poor.” This includes the process whereby orphan-support
projects’ resources are being diverted by a handful of community members who use the money 

220 

to gain skills, such as computer training, grant writing, and English language lessons, which have
utility well beyond support for orphaned children.
At my site, the idea of professionalization funded via AIC was beginning to take root,
and it was Noah and Levinson that were benefiting. This became evident when Noah asked me
to get quotes for training from three different computer schools in the capital city. AIC approved
his proposal to learn computer skills premised on the belief that computer competency would
permit him to write grants to other foundations or agencies for DOS orphan projects. In reality,
both Noah and Levinson are hoping to gain access to wage labor jobs that provide more security
than farming.
The orphan-care industry that is supported by transnational donor resources is complicit
in this process. UNICEF paid a stipend (which is common practice in Malawi to encourage
community participation and attendance) to one of the committee members to attend a workshop.
He received US $120 for a ten-day training program on orphans. The children in the community
received a soccer ball. These payouts are significant in a country were the GDP per capita PPP is
US $855. Noah and Levinson attended a five-day training program with the Malawi Center for
Human Rights and Rehabilitation. They received US $175 for the training and certification on
women and children’s rights. The community has not yet received any benefit. Several of the 
committee members have been double-funded and trained twice on raising pigs as a community
income-generating activity to support orphans. For each training program they were given
stipends. After coming back from a shopping spree in the city, Noah exclaimed that he was
hoping to go to another training soon so that he could get money to buy fertilizer for his garden.
One other practice that is regularly reported is the issue of double funding, whereby a
single grant gets funded by different organizations and the awardees pocket the extra money. In

221 

chapter 5, I discussed the lack of government capacity to monitor the now ubiquitous CBOs
serving orphans in Malawi. As a result, many of these organizations are getting the same grants
supported by different funders. I became aware of this problem when Julie, one of the Malawian
women working for AIC and previously a community development worker for the government,
asked me to take her to visit an AIC project in Kanengo. I agreed. During the car ride she told me
that the AIC office was suspicious of the CBO. The founder, Elias, was heard on the radio
describing his orphan-care center. He attributed his success to the support he received from
UNICEF. There was no mention of AIC. AIC staffers believed Elias was “eating the money.” 
One young female staffer said he would come to the
office to pick up his funds, and he tried to hide the fact
that he had bought a vehicle by parking it around the
back of the office building. When asked about his
income, he was always elusive. When we arrived at the
CBO, there were no children being fed (see figure 21).
The same female AIC staffer asked the neighbors how often the CBO was open and caring for
children. She seemed displeased with the answer. In our interview, we discussed her experiences
working for the government in Ntcheu. She described this issue of corruption:
[ALF] Of the CBOs you were working with in Ntcheu, how many do you think were
really working well?
It should be one out of ten.
[ALF] Do you think if you go back a year from now that one will still be doing well?
I hope so. It depends with the management. The committee, how it [the committee] is
running.
[ALF] What do you think makes this one stand out as successful?

222 

It’s leadership. The difference is leadership. Someone who is mature is able to run a 
CBO. Somebody who is not mature is just after the money. Looking for the monies.
Because you know, it’s like money has just come, fallen from heaven all these monies!
So, it’s like, people think they are in control. Like what Elias is doing. All these monies, 
UNICEF is doing this. NAC is doing this. AIC is doing this. ALL! So, people say to
themselves, I think we have got a lot of money, what if I ate part of it? It’s like, you 
know, selfishness and greed. Yeah, there is a lot of selfishness and greed with these
coordinators. It’s greed.
He is on crucial point, because that guy is eating, no doubt about it! He is squandering the
money. You can easily tell by the way he looks, by the way he responds when you visit
him. It’s like he’s busy [referring to the fact that he would never schedule an appointment 
to meet with her and show her his receipts], he doesn’t want to explain exactly what he’s 
doing out there. It’s very common here.
The same critiques could be made of DOS. At the time of this research it was being
funding by AIC, UNICEF, World Vision (Global Fund money administered by NAC), and OSA.
It was difficult to discern if the funding DOS received was going to the activities it proposed to
undertake or if it was receiving money from various sources to support the same projects and
pocketing the remainder. Funders are aware of this situation and spend resources and time
attempting to monitor their programs and prevent this fraudulent activity from taking place.
In Dowa, I witnessed an example of this fraudulent activity. OSA held a meeting with the
DOS committee to oversee the income-generating activity they were supporting. OSA had given
DOS money to buy a pig, which was meant to be reared then sold to buy maize meal for orphans.
We sat for about an hour and discussed the situation of children, and DOS was lectured on issues
of accountability. As a group we then went to see the pig. OSA representatives seemed satisfied.
A few months later, after I had completed data collection, I returned to Mvera with a volunteer
tourist group. We had a brief meeting, and then we were escorted to see the same pig. This
animal was presented as one of the AIC-funded initiatives.
In Dowa, DOS reflects the complex and heterogeneous nature of the village, as multiple
interests, internal differences, and various players emerge around the influx of orphan-earmarked

223 

resources. Certain individuals are capable of exercising power through decision-making
processes that do not represent the needs and desires of those being targeted with aid. In this
process, fostering the collective or improving social cohesion to care for neighbors is not always
being realized.

Reaching Children
Thus far I have focused on DOS and the ways in which it manages AIC funds. What
about the children it serves? All of the children receiving school fees were grateful to DOS and
AIC. While there were complaints by community members about not receiving enough
resources, many were grateful for receiving food, blankets, soap, or other resources when they
were made available. They genuinely felt appreciative for whatever support they received. The
few cases where there was abuse of children, it tended to be children complaining about the
situation within the home. Some reported that stepparents favored their own biological children
and withheld food, clothes, or other resources from them. A couple of children said they felt they
were asked to work more than the non-orphaned children. These complaints were rare. None of
the children expressed feelings of discrimination by other villagers.
One possibility for the low rate of reported discrimination in the community is that many
children did not experience life that much differently than their peers. Most families reported
similar levels of food insecurity (aside from DOS committee members, although some did report
scarcity), school attendance and enrollment, and access to soap, books, and shoes. Moreover, it
may be the failure to get resources to this population that is protecting them from issues of
jealousy and community dissent. One AIC staffer, describing a successful program in a different
district, believes that providing for children can lead to community anger, resentment, and even
death:

224 

The government is pouring out money, the NGOs are pouring out the monies, but
communities do not seem to be satisfied. They just want to keep receiving and receiving.
When I was in Ntcheu there was a program funded by George Bush, the Ambassador’s 
Girl’s Program. It was only sponsoring girls at schools who were doing well and were 
also orphans. Every term we were giving them a blanket, two pairs of school shoes,
socks, notebooks, and even a mosquito net. But the community just started killing those
children. I’m telling you. They were like, “Why are they receiving all those things?” You 
see a child is an orphan. She’s got nobody to look after her, and now the US says, “Ok, 
I’ll pay fees for this girl. I’ll buy clothes for this girl. I’ll buy all the basic needs for this 
girl.” But the community now responds, “Why? Why her?” Those kids were being 
chosen on merit, but the community says, “Why her?” You go there to say, “Ok, I will go 
to monitor the kid,” and you find the girl is dead.
[ALF] Because the community wanted the resources?
They wanted the resources saying, “Why that girl and not mine?” And yet they are 
saying, “Why that girl, and not mine?” But she (the mother) is alive. The father is alive. 
The girl is on the safe side. Instead, we want to help this orphan who is working hard at
school, but you find in two, three days the girl is dead. So, the community seems not to
appreciate what the government is doing. That is why the problem arises at the
community. You see they (community) will start telling the media, “You see? The 
government is not helping us! They have failed to do this, they have failed to do that.” 
But you look at it. What have they (the community) done? They have no sense of
ownership. They want people to come and just help. Now for them to utilize the
resources they fail to do that. I would say now that the government is trying, but the
community now has a problem. To some extent, it has a problem.
[ALF] If orphans are targets of donor resources, does that change the way the community
sees the children?
Yeah. They see them differently and in a bad way. That’s why they end up killing them. 
In a bad way! They are being selfish, they are being greedy! Why that child [the orphan]?
It’s jealousy.
[ALF] It seems counterintuitive that someone would be jealous of an orphan.
You know it happens. Because you know in today’s life orphans are being favored. You 
know like I will take you to Miracles. You will see how they are enjoying. They’ve got 
bicycles. They eat well. They sleep good. Now somebody who has got a father and
mother just within that community, how do they expect to look at those orphans? It will
be jealousy. Why that child? Why that child? How about mine? For him, to explain to
him that, “No! You are alive and your child at least is under your care. But this one 
doesn’t have any care!” They say, “NO! This is just too much [what is being provided to 
the orphan].”
[ALF] Is it bad to target orphans with resources?

225 

It’s not bad.
[ALF] Seems like a fine line?
If you give them too much they kill them and if you don’t give them enough they [the 
community] is just complaining saying, “The government is not doing anything for us. 
The NGOs are not assisting us.” If they get no assistance the community cannot take care
of them, they cannot. They cannot afford it. They are afraid of having the responsibility
of being the guardians. Now if a stranger comes and says, “Ok, I’ll be a mother. I’ll take 
care of these people.” They (the community) says, “Why? Do you even know who you 
are helping?” They will ask all sorts of questions. Or they will say, “These children, their 
parents are witches, they have killed the whole village.”
I did not experience this phenomena of children targeted with resources being murdered.
However, I did hear, repeatedly, that orphaned children are not worth investment. Jealousy was a
common theme, although not geared toward children who remain in villages to the same extent
as those in institutions. It is removing children from villages and sending them to resourceabundant institutions that seem to fuel the most community dissatisfaction and friction (see
chapter 4).
Directing aid to a particular population can also lead to the emergence of a desire to be
labeled marginal or vulnerable so as to capture resources. In Malawi, some orphans are
considered privileged, leading other children to want to belong to this particular population. Lois
Silo, program director for Madonna’s project, Raising Malawi, explains how this process is
occurring:
Here you hear so much on the radio about ana am asiye (orphan). All the time, ana
amasiye, orphan this, orphan that. And it’s hard. In our programs I know OVCs (orphans 
and vulnerable children) have to be identified, labeled as such, but once you do that, if we
are labeling children like that and then giving them a lot of things, the children start to
say, “But mom, when are YOU going to die so I can get better shoes and food and
clothes? I am losing out because you and dad are alive. And so, when are you going to
die so I can get better shoes and food like my friend? When are you going to die?”
These quotes highlight the tensions that exist and are fostered by programs directed at
children, especially the ones that are considered successful by donors and actually do materially

226 

support children. In Dowa, children were only minimally served, thus limiting or eliminating the
potential for cases of jealousy. Strangely enough, if DOS was spending its grant money on
orphans the way AIC imagines, it might result in a more precarious spiritual and physical
situation for the children being targeted.

Missing the Point?
Peters, Kambewa, and Walker (2007) argue that the current focus on orphans is myopic
and creates an individualizing force aimed at the wrong target. Instead, families should be
supported. It is this unit, they suggest, that needs support. In addition, there are innumerable
children who are not labeled orphan but are equally or more vulnerable to exploitation,
malnutrition, sexual abuse, and discrimination. In two of my field sites, the majority of guardians
and children recognized that those labeled orphans and those who were not suffered the same
lack of resources. Respondents blamed unemployment, divorce and remarriage, and beer
drinking for causing non-orphaned children to face high levels of vulnerability, especially to
poverty, hunger, and abuse.
Participants in all of the research sites also stressed that it was the pervasive cycle of
poverty—not necessarily orphans—that was problematic. Most guardians said factors such as
unemployment, environmental degradation (as a result of degrading soils and cutting down
trees), shifts to crops that were sold rather than consumed locally, limitations of fertilizer
subsidies, school fees, and the price of food made caring for all children difficult. User fees at
healthcare facilities, rising inflation, and increasing fuel prices making transport of goods to
markets exceedingly expensive also affected households’ abilities to provide for children. In
such a context, a narrow focus on orphans may not address the circumstances that promote
poverty.

227 

Focusing on community development did very little to meet the needs of orphaned
children. The same was reported in Zomba District (Peters, Kambewa, and Walker 2007). Is it
possible that AIC may be taking as its premise the wrong unit of intervention? Communities can
exist beyond physical spaces, and an intervention that imagines a different type of community
might be more appropriate. Salvaging a romanticized ideal of cohesion and solidarity is having
mixed outcomes. There is much to be learned from the failures, frustrations, and resistances
witnessed in Dowa. HIV/AIDS is undoubtedly impacting Malawian social systems in profound
ways, but the shifting nature of Malawian ideas of community and sociality has roots that go
deeper than the pandemic. While there is evidence that speaks to the resilience of these systems
(Peters, Walker, and Kambewa 2008), there is also research pointing to an evolution into new
forms (Mandala 2005). My research suggests that these systems are changing in unpredictable
ways, causing imbalance, distress, and anxiety. Aside from exploring the outcomes of orphan
programs as a means for understanding Malawian social systems, the proliferation of witchcraft
accusations involving children, the defiling of children, and the trade in body parts provide yet
another layer of insights. Something is amiss, and it is significant.
Witchcraft and “Community” in Dowa District
One of my research participants, a thirteen-year-old boy named Ypiana, was always off
playing soccer or working the fields when I would go with Bridget to interview him. His mother,
probably tired of always entertaining us, eventually told us she would send Ypiana to my house
when he got home. Later that same day he arrived at my house. We conducted the storyboard
drawing, interviewed him, and then he was on his way. Only a few minutes had passed when
Jimmy, the young man who owns the house, called Bridget over to discuss what seemed to be a
serious matter. I was not privy to their conversation. Later that night, Bridget told me that Ypiana

228 

is a known witch, and Jimmy forbade us to invite him over again. He was accused of flying an
airplane (winnowing basket) to far-off places in the middle of the night. Apparently, one night he
had a passenger who was an older neighbor woman from Chinsisi. He spun the plane around too
fast. This older grandmother fell out and died. It was believed a non-family member trained him
(someone living in the military support barracks). Ypiana is one of my non-orphan participants
(control group). He came from one of the more food-secure families in the area, and his father
was an assistant to the TA. He was seen as more privileged in the community. This is just one of
numerous stories concerning witchcraft that I was told while in Chinsisi. I decided to explore the
issue more directly.
I proceeded to ask all of my research participants about witchcraft. I, like West (2008),
was looking for trends concerning the accused and accusers. Was it older women? Orphans?
Wealthy or poor individuals? Similar to West (2008), it was difficult to identify any concrete
patterns, which is a pattern in and of itself. Children, both orphans and non-orphans, had been
accused and done the accusing. Older women continued to be implicated, but so did middle-aged
and younger men and women. There seemed to be a lot of accusations swirling around the
military support battalion. I asked if it was officers and higher-ranking individuals or poorer
residents in the battalion—it was both.
Aside from the widening scope and scale of witchcraft accusations, there were two
patterns that emerged. The first was the increasing use of children, and the second was the
process of training witches. In the past, it was believed that witchcraft was restricted within
certain families. Today, the majority of accused child witches say non-family members train
them. I asked what accounted for this trend, and I was told that children are gullible and witches

229 

see them as easy prey to teach about their activities and to get them to “work for them” during 
the night.
Witchcraft, it would appear, is becoming more pervasive. Nowadays, anyone can be
accused. Nobody is safe. This creates immense suspicion in the village. There is a legitimate
reason to create boundaries between families in villages. There is even a reason to create
boundaries within families. I was told of another witchcraft case in Chinsisi involving a child and
his mother. A witch, again at the military support barracks, instructed a child to kill his mother,
who was pregnant. Apparently, the witch wanted the unborn child, and was willing to kill the
pregnant woman to get the baby. At first, the child refused, saying that he could not kill his
mother just to get the unborn child. The boy eventually took a knife from the witch and operated
on his sleeping mother, resulting in a miscarriage. The boy revealed a month later that he was
responsible for the miscarriage. He explained that he was instructed to do so by those teaching
him witchcraft in the barracks. Military personnel have been fired as a result of these
accusations.
Witchcraft was not my central research question, but an issue that repeatedly emerged. I
am hesitant to make any definitive statements about some of the new trends associated with the
occult practices described by my participants. But as Evans-Pritchard (1937:513) once said,
“New situations demand new magic…” There is “new magic” occurring in Mvera, which 
suggests a new situation and one that I believe extends beyond the issue of HIV. What does seem
evident is an increasing suspiciousness that results in villagers drawing new and possibly tighter
boundaries. The Malawian community is reacting to political, economic, religious, health, and
social upheavals as evidenced by these trends. In many ways, orphan projects are both indicators
of and implicated in new forms of sociality and the associated disquiet that result.

230 

Conclusion
The goals to feed the poor, provide ARVs to HIV-positive children, empower women,
and make a difference one person at a time are not as easy to achieve as they may appear to
AIC’s founder and donors. Resources and associated ideologies are being injected into a 
complicated terrain that does not easily open itself up to direct interventions. AIC’s ideology and 
material responses are refracted at multiple levels as they make their way into the Malawian
milieu.
I am left with more questions than answers. Is the rise in witchcraft, especially aimed a
children, to be interpreted as a reaction against the failed promises of modernity? Or is it a way
to gain access to modernity’s promises? Is it meant to reinforce social obligations? Does it signal 
a moral crisis associated with AIDS and the rising orphan population? Or is it about a turning
inward and renegotiation of social ties? This chapter, much like these questions, has attempted to
highlight the complex intersections of modernity, belief in the occult, community development,
and orphanhood. These forces shape a complex physical and ideological landscape that
structures and orders people’s lives. A thick ethnographic description affords anthropologists the 
ability to understand the ways in which Malawians negotiate, conceptualize, and experience this
terrain, one that I am still in the process of negotiating.

231 

C H A PT E R 7: C O N C L USI O N
Orphans have become the latest trend to capture transnational attention, in part due to
celebrities such as Madonna and Angelina Jolie, who have visibly taken up their cause. This has
led to the mobilization of a variety of organizations and interested parties attempting to meet the
needs of children. Traditionally, larger-scale humanitarian, human rights, and development
organizations—including UNICEF, Save the Children, and World Vision—as well as local
government agencies, have focused on serving children and ensuring their welfare. It is within
the current preoccupation with orphans that an emerging population of compassionate people, or
lay humanitarians, wanting to make a difference in these children’s lives is becoming 
increasingly engaged in orphan issues, despite having limited or no training in development,
humanitarianism, or childcare.
This dissertation has explored the programs of lay humanitarians associated with two
different orphan-care organizations in Malawi, including an analysis of their discourses,
practices, and program outcomes. AIC and Southern Allied Missions, the central orphan-care
organizations I studied, were initiated, funded, and designed by caring individuals with limited or
no experience in Malawi prior to their program development. While they may share roots in their
compassionate desire to help others, they also demonstrate the complexity and heterogeneity of
these lay humanitarian responses. AIC, with its holistic approach, attempts to account for local
perspectives and cultural arrangements by supporting children in communities. In contrast,
Southern Allied Missions with its lack of focus on the local context, has sought to extract
children from their villages, placing them behind west-constructed walls, separated both
physically and ontologically from the Malawian social context.

232 

I have demonstrated that central to the production and perpetuation of orphan projects by
these compassionate westerners is a particular type of imagined orphanhood captured in their
orphan narratives and iconography. Malawian orphanhood is conceptualized as a state of social
isolation and complete destitution, which spurs individuals and donors to action. Program
organizers, volunteers, and donors regularly refer to Oliver Twist-like orphans in their
descriptions of Malawi’s orphans. Orphan narratives characterize children as abandoned, 
suffering, exploited, and living in the streets with no family to care for them. They are
constructed as a homogenous aid category, generating a compassionate response from donors
and humanitarians.
Lay humanitarians also situate the production of an imagined orphanhood within a
broader discourse of what an idealized western childhood ought to be, which is characterized as a
sacred space for children to be nurtured and invested in with an eye toward their future economic
productivity. This is juxtaposed against many Third World childhoods, especially those of
orphans, which are deemed deviant (Stephens 1995), thus opening a place for westerners to
export their ideal childhoods through orphan-care projects that seek to develop a particular type
of subjectivity. This is encapsulated in the ethos of Southern Allied Missions, which extracts
children from the Malawian context and attempts to raise children in such a way that fits the
western idealized paradigm.
I argue that western imaginations of orphans are problematic for several reasons. Central
to my argument is that they fail to capture the actual circumstances of these children’s lives and 
thus do not always resonate with local desires and cultural understandings. In Malawi, children
exist within broad extended family systems that have deep historical roots. Traditionally among
the Ngoni, children were believed to belong to the village and were socialized into extensive

233 

family systems. Rituals and rites of passage involved heavy investment from different
community and family members, which created bonds that oriented children to a world beyond
the conjugal family. The Chewa show commonalities in their emphasis on the broader social
network. Uncles and aunts are regularly referred to as mothers and fathers. Cousins are
considered siblings. These arrangements expand the social orientation of children, creating a
wider sense of family and the associated feelings of attachment to those beyond the biological
family unit. There is only one account of children truly being abandoned, which was during an
extreme event, the famine of 1949. Even amidst the HIV/AIDS pandemic, desertion of children
has not been common.
Today, despite pressures of poverty and HIV/AIDS, children are being retained within
extended family systems. They regularly migrate between different households for a variety of
reasons, including accessing better education, providing assistance to families with sick relatives,
acting as surrogate children to families that are childless, and assisting in domestic and family
labor needs. They also rely on material and psychosocial support from various kinship ties. The
western idea that children are maintained and primarily dependent upon the nuclear family is
inconsistent with local practices. A socially abandoned child is an anomaly. In fact, I found few
children who would fit the description of an Oliver Twist-like orphan in my research sites. Even
street children had identifiable and active family members.
I have argued that there is an obvious dissonance between the lay humanitarian orphan
narratives and the Malawian reality. In addition, I have demonstrated that these discourses, while
produced by vastly different lay humanitarian organizations, maintain certain characteristics that
are problematic, including: (1) the moral imperative to bring relief to the suffering; (2) the
creation of apolitical and acultural subjects as targets of intervention; and (3) an inherent

234 

paternalism that reinforces current power constellations and continues to disempower those
already living on the margins.
Lay humanitarian responses rely on and are ultimately supported by compassion. One’s 
suffering must be palpable enough for an international response to spur action. Action requires
compassionate funders and volunteers. I argue that compassion is most effective in intimate
interactions between those who suffer and those who do not (Arendt 1990). This is wellillustrated by the lay humanitarian donor materials, web sites, and videos, which contain pictures
of individual children and stories of their suffering. Children talk about hunger, illness, exposure
to the suffering of dying parents, abuse, sadness, and lack—lack of education, healthcare, and
love. These appeals are constructed to draw potential contributors into face-to-face virtual
encounters with children.
I have shown that, in addition to exposure to the circulating orphan narratives in the
media and through donor campaigns, some Americans come face-to-face with the suffering of
children in extremely impoverished circumstances. Both AIC and Southern Allied Missions
bring volunteer tourists to Malawi to visit and volunteer with orphan-care projects. These
voluntourists act as liaisons between Malawian children and transnational capital. They are
encouraged to “hold the babies” and take many pictures. These images are powerful fundraising 
tools in their home communities in the United States and are sometimes included in web site
picture galleries and used at fundraising events. The purpose of this documentation of suffering
is to raise support by creating relationships based on empathy; the structural dimensions that lead
to such suffering are largely overlooked by this compassionate gaze. As discussed later, this
emphasis on compassion and morality may result in discrimination and stigmatization against
those targeted by humanitarian efforts.

235 

In these orphan narratives, children become depoliticizing agents who are a site of
benevolent humanitarianism whereby capital can be redistributed and western consciousness
about structural violence, global inequalities, and health inhumanity eased. The morality of
humanitarianism, based as it is on a politics of compassion, gives rise to images of circumscribed
lives focused on suffering and potential alleviation via western assistance. As I noted, bare life is
a life abstracted from the political and social circumstances that distinguish humanity from other
types of life (Ticktin 2006:34–35). Orphan narratives and the iconography that lay humanitarians
produce illustrate the idea by presenting orphaned children as existing in a social and political
vacuum.
Finally, I show that there is an inherent paternalism in the discourse of wanting to save
somebody, which is evident in many lay humanitarian narratives. As Abu-Lughod (2002:788–
789) notes in her critique of US involvement with Afghani women:
We need to be vigilant about the rhetoric of saving people because of what it implies
about our attitudes…when you save someone, you imply that you are saving her from 
something. You are also saving her to something. What violences are entailed in this
transformation; what presumptions are being made about the superiority of that to which
you are saving her? Projects of saving other women depend on and reinforce a sense of
superiority by Westerners, a form of arrogance that deserves to be challenged.
I have drawn on Madonna’s work because it is salient to this discussion. Her videos and
the controversy revolving around the adoption of her son, David Banda, idealize the west as
being the key to a better life. The picture of Malawi that she paints is one of suffering, rampant
disease, and absolute despair. Malawi is placed on the lowest end of the outdated trajectory that
assumes a progression from an uncivilized and backward Africa needing western intervention to
achieve a civilized, developed, west-inspired state of being. This sense of saving assumes the
west is the best. Many orphan-centered interventions predicated on this assumption are designed
and implemented with the goal of shaping children in ways that mimic an idealized western type

236 

of subjectivity neglecting the social and cultural milieu within which these children are situated
and often leading to unanticipated and detrimental outcomes for children.
These west-generated discourses, however naively interpreted and constructed, are
powerful. They garner a response, raise significant amounts of money, and impact the types of
projects that get designed and implemented. Drawing on Tsing (2005), I have argued that these
imagined identities, the resources they generate, and the projects that they inspire get refracted
and reconfigured as they make their way into the Malawian context. Various actors, including
certain Malawian ministries, community leaders, families, and the children themselves, have
emerged around orphan definitions and projects in an effort to capture this influx of resources.
They all have different agendas.
Despite the ways in which lay humanitarians buy into and generate a narrative that is
depoliticizing, I have shown that the bodies of orphans are proving to be political. The
emergence of significant transnational funds coming into Malawi to serve orphans has caught the
attention of poorly funded and underdeveloped state ministries that are responsible for caring for
children. These ministries include, but are not limited to, the DoWCD, the Department of Health,
the Ministry of Education, and the Department of Nutrition, HIV and AIDS. These state
ministries and governing bodies are attempting, albeit with limited success, to turn what lay
humanitarians believe is an apolitical response to children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS into a
state-building exercise. I have argued that they accomplish this by drawing on transnational
(including UNICEF) definitions and depictions of suffering orphans, engaging with children’s 
rights discourses, and promoting a decentralized response that requires a fully functioning locallevel government infrastructure.

237 

The more orphans produced, the greater the ability to justify increasing government
capacity. This is accomplished by adopting the UN definition of an orphan, despite the fact that
this does not necessarily resonate with Malawian conceptualizations. The Government of Malawi
in their 2005 National OVC Policy, defines an orphan as a child who has lost one or both parents
because of death and is under the age of eighteen. This emphasizes the biological conjugal
family as central to the lives of Malawian children, which does not resonate with local
experiences. What this definition does accomplish is “spinning the epidemic” to produce a 
staggering statistic, which is widely disseminated. Malawi, now, has over one million orphans.
This number substantiates the need for government expansion.
I show how these ministries demonstrate an obvious lack of capacity in an effort to
justify significant expenditure, which draws on orphan funds. The MoWCD staff complained
about their inability to monitor the growing numbers of transnational orphan projects, which can
leave children open to exploitation and abuse. I demonstrate how the barely visible state was
evident in my own work at Miracles, a large, highly visible orphanage near the capital city.
Miracles was operating without the approval of the DSW office. They were taking in children
without proper documentation and placing them in overcrowded houses. They were also accused
of infringing on children’s rights to religious freedom by mandating children attend a specific
local church.
These ministries are careful to maintain the neoliberal ideologies of decentralization and
privatization. They ask for funds to bolster capacity building, especially at the local or district
levels,

28

for the explicit purpose of monitoring and evaluating the transnational (often private)

                                                 
28
I note in chapter 5 that, while certain ministries are able to capture some resources, they are
not actually filtering down to the local level. Districts remain underfunded and understaffed
238 

organizations that they have invited in to meet the needs of children. They do not ask for
resources that will be directly spent on orphan-care programs. It is neoliberal logic, the signing
of children’s rights amendments, and a limited state capacity that justifies the presence of 
transnational orphan-care organizations, as well as the funneling of orphan-earmarked resources
to state-building exercises.
I include in this section a discussion of children’s rights. I show how, despite official
endorsement of a human rights-based approach in government documents concerning vulnerable
children, these principles are difficult to put into practice with the state’s limited resources. 
Meanwhile, neither of the transnational humanitarian organizations I studied engaged in rightsbased discourses. They were driven by an ethical code and form of governance involving
benevolence and charity, not rights. The result is the potential infringement upon children’s 
rights, such as the earlier example concerning the right to religious expression.
Southern Allied Missions and the orphanage, Miracles, that they founded and funded
demonstrate two processes I have been discussing. The first is the ability of organizations to
bypass the state because of its lack of capacity, and the second is the disjuncture between
western constructions of orphans and on-the-ground realities children face. I demonstrated how
this leads to friction and unanticipated outcomes associated with projects that lack an
understanding of the Malawian social, political, and economic contexts. There have been few
successes, which I document.
Being designated an orphan has become a valued identity for some and a source of
vulnerability and exploitation for others. Some children are removed from abusive situations and
afforded a secure place to live and access to essential material resources. Children who would
                                                                                                                                                             
despite programs meant to bolster their capacity to monitor community-based orphan
organizations.
239 

otherwise be forced out of school may be graduating at the top of their class. Children who
would otherwise die of malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, TB, or malaria now have access to healthcare.
Children in these orphanages are not cold at night because they have bedsheets and blankets.
These children eat daily. All of the children were thankful for the opportunity to be in the
orphanages and recognized their perceived privileged position in society that is directly linked to
the loss of one or both parents. No child would trade his/her place in the orphanage to return to
the village.
These are some achieved goals, but I have argued that it is in the unanticipated and failed
outcomes or Foucault’s (1979) “instrument effects” that provide insights about Malawian 
culture, poverty, and childhoods, which I have sought to tease out. Malawian children who
become institutionalized face negative repercussions as a result of being labeled an orphan.
Being cared for by uneducated and inexperienced housemothers who feel overworked and
undercompensated can lead to tensions. It could be argued that one housemother caring for
eighteen children may not have the capacity to provide these children with appropriate amounts
of affection and the proper psychosocial support they need, especially considering the
circumstances from which these children come. Additionally, children brought into these
institutions, despite the best efforts of the orphanage directors to maintain ties with communities,
all experienced a disconnect from extended families that is causing rifts in the Malawian social
fabric. One alarming trend is that, despite being stigmatized by communities, some children now
desire orphanhood. The orphan identity is becoming privileged at the expense of traditional
Malawian kinship systems as more and more resources are directed to this particular aid
category.

240 

Preliminary data on graduating orphans highlights this problem. Children coming out of
resource-abundant orphanages have in many ways adopted western ideals of personhood, as well
as capitalist expectations of modernity, including such things as autonomy (especially from
familial responsibility), wage labor jobs, and material wealth in the form of electricity, running
water, good homes, and proper clothes and shoes. Unfortunately, children in orphanages who
have received an education often struggle in Malawi’s economic environment to find 
employment, leading to anger and resentment as a result of failed expectations. It is ironic that
part of their failure to access these cosmopolitan spaces is a lack of family connections, which
many voluntarily or forcibly cut off when moving into the orphanage. As a result, most of these
children refuse to return to villages. It is unclear what will happen to them, but what is of
concern is their potential to occupy subaltern spaces in urban areas and engage in delinquent
behaviors or acquiesce to various forms of exploitation in order to survive (Lancy 2008).
Southern Allied Missions and Miracles represent one end of the lay humanitarian
spectrum. On the other end is AIC, which does attempt to engage directly with local perspectives
and needs. AIC supports Malawian-led projects focused on HIV/AIDS, ranging from orphancare and nutrition projects to subsidizing nursing scholarships and paying school fees. Their
model intervention is focused on empowering local communities. I demonstrate that AIC’s idea 
of community is proving to be problematic, as these programs meant to foster cohesion and serve
children actually create friction because orphan resources and their distribution are implicated in
the process of social differentiation. I posit that the anxiety associated with increasing inequality
has ties to witchcraft accusations focused on children.
Nonetheless, AIC registers successes in its community interventions. Specifically, it is
able to ensure HIV-positive children have access to ARVs at the pediatric AIDS clinic. In

241 

addition, some children are getting fed, although sparingly. More than twenty orphans in Dowa
district continue with their schooling because AIC pays their fees. Finally, discrimination against
AIDS patients does seem to be limited, which is an explicit AIC goal. I was regularly told who
was HIV-positive, and these individuals seemed to blend well with their neighbors and families.
These successes are noteworthy.
I have shown that AIC’s unanticipated outcomes are rooted in the way it misconstrues 
social organization within communities, assuming an egalitarian, undifferentiated social
structure. In reality, there is increasing social stratification, and orphan funds are directly
implicated in the process of differentiation, as some individuals are better strategically positioned
to benefit from the inflow of resources than are others. For example, in Chinsisi in Dowa, the
individuals who had organized and directed DOS were proving to be significantly wealthier than
their neighbors, having cell phones, bikes, TVs, and more substantial maize harvests. In addition,
orphan-earmarked resources went to supporting their own professional development activities,
including computer trainings. AIC’s money is not feeding as many orphans as anticipated, nor is
it building cohesion within local institutions. In this way, orphan projects are responsible for
increasing community discontent and fragmentation.
Community anxiety and disquiet are associated with unpredictable social, economic, and
health transformations, as well as increasing social stratification. Occult beliefs and witchcraft
accusations create an avenue for Malawians to make sense of these situations and function as a
system of social control. While in the field I noted new dimensions associated with occult
activities. Children are said to be increasingly trained as witches, and non-family members are
training them. In the past, witchcraft was purportedly taught by relatives to their kin. These
developments increase suspicion between neighbors, and even within households, as one’s own 

242 

child can be suspected of having malicious intentions. There is some preliminary research
emerging around this new trend of child involvement, but it is an area that merits additional
research.
Contributions to the F ield and F uture Q uestions
This dissertation is meant to contribute to the emerging literature and research associated
with the anthropology of childhood. This emerging sub-field within anthropology seeks to
promote scholarship focused principally on questions of childhood and child wellbeing from a
child-focused perspective. My work contributes to this sub-field because of its emphasis on
children and the various actors who are involved in structuring their lives. I consider the children
in my sample to be active cultural agents able to discuss past experiences, their present
situations, and their future goals. I do not consider children to be tabla rasas in process, but
rather research participants that are valued for the ways in which they impact and shape culture.
My children are approached as participants that are critical to and powerful in cultural
production. I have attempted to capture their own words and provide a place for them to express
how they feel about orphanhood, western involvement in Malawi, family ties, educational goals,
and occupational dreams, among other things.
What is apparent in my work with these children is the friction that arises between westinspired, orphan-centered projects and Malawian ideologies and expectations. Children express
conflicting feelings about being labeled orphans. Institutionalized children appreciate the
resources, including education, food security, clothing, and housing, that are at their disposal.
They also express anxiety about the future and their fear of having to return to village life. Many
children labled orphans face some form of anxiety in their relationships with community
members and extended family members, which takes the form of jealousy and discriminiation.

243 

They also express concern about their futures, especially those who are close to graduating from
orphanages. None of the orphans are willing to return to villages, but finding jobs in urban areas
is proving difficult. This anthropological knowledge is able to inform organizations and
individuals who want to address contemporary problems faced by children in Malawi.
The friction evident in my research sites leads to questions for future research: What are
the long-term impacts of being labled an orphan? How sustainable are these programs? What
happens to children who graduate from institutions? Where do children end up once they
graduate? How do they interpret their positionality? Does gender impact long-term orphan
outcomes?
This dissertation also contributes to the broader field of anthropology. Culture is
powerful, relevant, and yet regularly misunderstood or ignored, as highlighted in this work.
Increasing interconnection across time and space brings individuals from different cultural
contexts into direct and intimate contact with each other. The outcomes of these relationships
that span across cultures are varied. In my work, there are both positive and negative impacts on
Malawians as western donors and aid givers move into Malawi to provide care and resources to
children. There seems to be a correlation between positive project outcomes and respect for and
knowledge of Malawian needs, desires, and cultural mores. Anthropology, as a field focused on
understanding culture and cultural change, is able to inform these emerging interconnections.
My work specifically contributes to the literature on development and humanitarianism. I
focus on a new demographic within the development/humanitarianism matrix: the lay
humanitarian. As globalization contributes to an increasing flow of capital, goods, people, and
ideas, it has also contributed to the emergence of compassionate individuals wanting to make a
difference in places and spaces that were once inaccessible. These individuals, with limited

244 

training, have the power to create discourses on “others,” as well as establish, fund, and 
coordinate projects in cultural places far removed from their own. As I have shown, these
projects result in unanticipated and at times detrimental outcomes for the people and children
they are meant to serve.
This demographic moves anthropologists and social scientists into research beyond
explorations of conventional development and humanitarian work (Bornstein 2005; Henquinet
2007). Is it possible that this population holds the key to a more productive type of development
or global engagement that the established development industry has yet to achieve? Some
questions for future research will contribute to those interested in nontraditional development
and humanitarian work. These questions can also contribute to those who desire to work with
orphans in Malawi. What happens to volunteer tourists in the long run? How does their
experience impact their life choices, career paths, and so forth? How can volunteer tourists and
lay humanitarians be better educated on issues of orphans, AIDS, development, and childcare?
How has their involvement impacted issues of adoption? What role can and should human rights
play in these programs?
What do Malawians see as most problematic in their daily lives? What solutions do
Malawians have to these issues? How can communication between Malawians and westerners be
improved? How do Malawians interpret western depictions of Malawian poverty, AIDS,
orphans? How would Malawians construct their own story for global circulation?

Volunteer Tourists and Applying Anthropology
God has chosen you for this trip. It is up to you what you make of it. It will likely be one
of the most amazing experiences of your life. My challenge to you is that you make it the
same for someone you meet. By how you act, by how you reach out, by how you teach, by
how you hold, by how you hug, by the hands you hold, by the questions of concern you
ask, by showing interest in another, by how you interact with a Malawian, you can make
an eternal difference in their life.

245 

Taken from Church of Christ Volunteer Tourism Handbook
This quote comes from the handbook that volunteer tourists visiting Miracles during the
summer of 2008 were given. The sentiment that this will be “one of the most amazing 
experiences of your life” is worth exploring. People do report that these experiences change them 
in profound ways. Again, it was my own volunteer tourist trip to the Dominican Republic that
led me to this research. For this reason, I want to recognize the potential that lies within these
adventures. As one mentor challenged me, “I would prefer [volunteer tourists] learn in dealing 
with orphans, with sick people, with AIDS, than not. How else can it be done without
simplification, without mistakes? Isn’t it about the framing of their experiences?”
In the end, I have demonstrated that what makes the lay humanitarian worker and the
organizations they develop unique is their lack of sophisticated knowledge about theories of
development, humanitarianism, and childcare, which can lead to unanticipated and at times
adverse outcomes. However, I believe that this should not dismiss the potential these individuals
hold, especially in light of the fact that traditional, larger-scale development and humanitarian
interventions have not proven particularly effective in addressing issues of poverty. Maybe it is
this group of newcomers that can radically change the current development/humanitarian matrix.
Maybe, because of their small-scale nature and their reliance on building more intimate
relationships with local people, they hold the key to potential success. Volunteer tourism does
not have to be a voyeuristic journey replete with missteps and fumblings. It can create engaged,
active, and educated individuals willing to do the work to create partnerships that are productive
and emancipatory. Anthropologists can begin a dialogue that encourages compassionate
individuals to ask better questions and imagine more appropriate responses. To start, we need to

246 

recapture the voices of children, parents, and communitites in ways that offer alternative
paradigms, shifting the desire to do good into actually achieving that goal.

247 

W O R KS C I T E D

248 

W O R KS C I T E D

Abebe, Tatek
2010 Beyond the “Orphan Burden”: Understanding Care for and by AIDS-Affected Children in
Africa. Geography Compass 4(5):460–-474.
Abu-Lughod, Lila
2002 Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural
Relativism and Its Others. American Anthropologist 104(3):783–790.
Achebe, Chinua
1998 Africa’s Tarnished Name. In Another Africa , edited by Robert Lyons and Chinua
Achebe. Pp. 103–117. London, UK: Lund Humphries.
Achilihu, Stephen Nmeregini
2010 Do African Children Have Rights? A Comparative and Legal Analysis of the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Boca Raton, FL: Universal Publishers.
Aeberhard, Patrick
1996 A Historical Survey of Humanitarian Action. Health and Human Rights 2(1):30–44.
Agamben, Giorgio
1995 Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Ainsworth, Martha, and Innocent Semali
2000 The Impact of Adult Deaths on Children’s Health in Northwestern Tanzania. World Bank 
Policy Reseach Working Paper No. 2266. SSRN eLibrary. <http://ssrn.com/abstract=
629117>.
Ali, Sandra
1998 Community Perceptions of Orphan Care in Malawi: Children in Distress Network,
Project of the Family Health Trust. <http://www.cindi.org.za/?q=Paper16>, accessed on
December 21, 2009.
Allen, Tim, and David Styan
2000 A Right to Interfere? Bernard Koucher and the New Humanitarianism. Journal of
International Development 12(6):825–842.
An-Na’im, Abdullahi A. (Ed.)
2002 Cultural Transfor mations and Human Rights in Africa . London: Zed Books.
Ansell, Nicola, and Lorraine van Blerk
2004 Children’s Migration as a Household/Family Strategy: Coping with AIDS in Lesotho and 
Malawi. Journal of Southern African Studies 30(3):673–690.

249 

Appadurai, Arjun
1990 Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy. Public Culture 2(2):1–24.
Arendt, Hannah
1963 On Revolution. New York, NY: Viking Press.
Ariès, Philippe
1962 Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of F amily Life . London: Jonathan Cape.
Ashforth, Adam
2005 Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa . Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
Auslander, Mark
1993 “Open the Wombs!”: The Symbolic Politics of Modern Ngoni Witchfinding. In 
Modernity and Its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa , edited by Jean
Comaroff and John L. Comaroff. Pp. 167–192. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Barnett, Tony, and Alan Whiteside
2002 AID S in the Twenty-F irst Century: Disease and Globalization. New York, NY: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Bauman, Laurie, with Stefan Germann
2005 Psychosocial Impact of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic on Children and Youth. In A Generation
at Risk: The Global Impact of HIV/AID S on Orphans and Vulnerable Children, edited by
Geoff Foster, Cindy Levine, and John Williamson. Pp. 93–133. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
Bello, Walden
2008 Manufacturing a Food Crisis. The Nation, May 17, <http://www.countercurrents.org/
bello170508.htm>, accessed November 22, 2010.
Bhattacharyya, Jnanabrata
2004 Theorizing Community Development. Journal of the Community Development Society
34(2):5–34.
Bicego, George, Shea Rutstein, and Kiersten Johnson
2003 Dimensions of the Emerging Orphan Crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa. Social Science &
Medicine 56(6):1235–1247.
Bohannan, Paul, and Phillip Curtin
1995 Africa and the Africans. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
Bollinger, Lori, and John Stover
1999 The Economic Impact of AID S. USAID Policy Project Document. Pp. 1–14

250 

Bornstein, Erica
2001 The Verge of Good and Evil: Christian NGOs and Economic Development in Zimbabwe.
Political and Legal Anthropology Review 24(1):59–77.
2003 The Spirit of Development: Protestant NG Os, Morality, and Economics in Zimbabwe .
New York, NY: Routledge.
Bourdieu, Pierre
1999 Language and Symbolic Power. In The Discourse Reader , edited by Adam Jaworski and
Nikolas Coupland. Pp. 503–513. London: Routledge Press.
1991 Authorized Language. In Language and Symbolic Power , translated by Gino Raymond
and Matthew Adamson. Pp. 107–126. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Brantley, Cynthia
1997 Through Ngoni Eyes: Margaret Read’s Matrilineal Interpretations from Nyasaland.
Critique of Anthropology 17(2):147–169.
Bryceson, Deborah Fahy
2006 Ganyu Casual Labour, Famine and HIV/AIDS in Rural Malawi: Causality and Casualty.
The Journal of Modern African Studies 44(2):173–202.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
2011 World Fact Book: Malawi <https://www.cia.gov/library/ publications/the-worldfactbook/geos/mi.html>.
Chapulapula, Theresa
2010 Man Defiles Four-Year-Old Daughter. The Daily Times, <http://www.bnltimes.com/
index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3604&Itemid=26>, accessed November
22, 2010.
Cheney, Kristen E.
2010 Interest Group Makes a Big Impact, Despite its Youth. Anthropology of Children and
Childhood Interest Group 2(1):1.
2007 Pillars of the Nation: Child Citizens and Ugandan National Development. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Chenjezi, Thokozani
2010 Twelve Years for Defilement. The Daily Ti mes, <http://www.bnltimes.com/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=5130&Itemid=26>, accessed November 22, 2010.
Chilowa, W., J. Milner, B. Chisinga, and R. Mandani
2000 Social Policy in the Context of Economic Reforms: A Benchmark Survey Report. Harare,
Zimbabwe: SARIPS.
Chimombo, Joseph Patrick Godson
2005 Quantity versus Quality in Education: Case Studies in Malawi. International Review of
Education 51(2-3):155–172.

251 

Chin, Elizabeth
2003 Children Out of Bounds in Globalising Times. Postcolonial Studies 6(3):309–325.
Chinsinga, Blessings
2002 Politics of Poverty Alleviation in Malawi; A Critical Review. In A Democracy of
Chameleons: Politics and Culture in the New Malawi , edited by Harri Englund. Pp. 25–
42. Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
Chirwa, Wiseman Chijere
1998 Aliens and AIDS in Southern Africa: The Malawi-South Africa Debate. African Affairs
97(386):53–79.
2002 Social Exclusion and Inclusion: Challenges to Orphan Care in Malawi. Nordic Journal of
African Studies 11(1):93–113.
Christensen, Pia, and Alan Prout
2005 Anthropological and Sociological Perspectives on the Study of Children. Researching
Children’s Experience: Approaches and Methods, edited by Sheila Greene and Diane
Hogan. Pp. 42–60. London: Sage Publications.
Clacherty, Glynis, and David Donald
2007 Child Participation in Research: Reflections on Ethical Challenges in the Southern
African Context. African Journal of AID S Research 6(2):147–156.
Comaroff, Jean
1993 The Diseased Heart of Africa: Medicine, Colonialism, and the Black Body. In
Knowledge, Power and Practice: The Anthropology of Medicine and Everyday Life ,
edited by Shirley Lindenbaum and Margaret Lock. Pp. 305–320. Berkeley: The
University of California Press.
Comaroff, Jean, and John L. Comaroff
1991 Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South
Africa, Vol.1. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
1999 Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction: Notes from the South African
Postcolony. American Ethnologist 26(2):279–303.
Conroy, Anne C., Malcolm J. Blackie, Alan Whiteside, Justin C. Malewezi, and Jeffrey Sachs
2006 Poverty, AID S and Hunger: Breaking the Poverty Trap in Malawi . New York, NY:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Conroy, Anne C., and Alan Whiteside
2006 The AIDS Crisis. In Poverty, AID S and Hunger: Breaking the Poverty Trap in Malawi ,
edited by Conroy et al. Pp. 49–69. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cooper, Frederick
1997 Modernizing Bureaucrats, Backward Africans, and the Development Concept. In
International Development and the Social Sciences: Essays on the History and Politics of
Knowledge, edited by Frederick Cooper and Randall Packard. Pp. 64–92. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
252 

2005

Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History. Berkeley: University of California
Press.

Cooper, Fredrick, and Randall Packard (Eds.)
1997 International Development and the Social Sciences: Essays on the History and Politics of
Knowledge. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cornwall, Andrea
1998 Gender, Participation and the Politics of Difference. In The Myth of Community: Gender
Issues in Participatory Development, edited by Irene Guijt and Meera Kaul Shah. Pp. 46–
57. London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
Crush, Jonathan
2000 Migrations Past: An Historical Overview of Cross-Border Movement in Southern Africa.
In On Borders: Perspectives on International Migrations in Southern Africa, edited by
David A. McDonald. Pp. 12–24. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.
de Waal, Alex, and Alan Whiteside
2003 New Variant Famine: AIDS and Food Crisis in Southern Africa. The Lancet
362(9391):1234–1237.
Doctor, Henry
2004 Parental Survival, Living Arrangements and School Enrolment of Children in Malawi in
the Era of HIV/AIDS. Journal of Social Development in Africa 19(1):31–56
Durkheim, Émile
1964 [1893] The Division of Labor in Society, translated by George Simpson. New York, NY:
Free Press.
Ellis, Stephen, and Gerrie ter Haar
1998 Religion and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Modern African Studies
36(2):175–201.
Emond, Ruth
2009 I Am All about the Future World: Cambodian Children’s Views on Their Status as 
Orphans. Children and Society 23(6):407–417.
Englund, Harri (Ed.)
2002 A Democracy of Chameleons: Politics and Culture in the New Malawi . Uppsala, Sweden:
Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
1996 Witchcraft, Modernity and the Person: The Morality of Accumulation in Central Malawi.
Critique of Anthropology 16(3):257–279.
Evans-Pritchard, E. E.
1937 Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande . Oxford: Clarendon Press.

253 

Fairclough, Norman
1989 Discourse and Power. In Language and Power. Pp. 43–76. New York, NY: Longman
Publishing Group.
1995 Discourse Representation in Media Discourse. In Critical Discourse Analysis: The
Critical Study of Language. Pp. 54–69. New York, NY: Longman Publishing Group.
Farber, Amy Ilene
2003 Corridors of Peace: Adult Commitments to Doing Good for Children in Post-Apartheid
South Africa. PhD Dissertation. Harvard University.
Fassin, Didier
2007 When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AID S in South Africa . Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Ferguson, James
1994 The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development,” Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in 
Lesotho. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
1999 Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian
Copperbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press.
2006a The Anti-Politics Machine. In The Anthropology of the State: A Reader , edited by
Aradhana Sharma and Akhil Gupta. Pp. 270–286. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
2006b Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order . Durham, NC: Duke University
Press.
Ferguson, James, and Akhil Gupta
2002 Spatializing States: Toward an Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality. American
Ethnologist 29(4):981–1002.
Floyd, S., A. C. Crampin, J. R. Glynn, N. Madise, M. Mwenebabu, S. Mnkhondia, B. Ngwira, B.
Zaba, and P. E. M. Fine
2007 The Social and Economic Impact of Parental HIV on Children in Northern Malawi:
Retrospective Population-Based Cohort Study. AID S Care (19)6:781–790.
Foster, Geoff
2005 Religion and Responses to Orphans in Africa. In A Generation at Risk: The Global
Impact of HIV/AID S on Orphans and Vulnerable Children, edited by Geoff Foster, Cindy
Levine, and John Williamson. Pp. 159–180. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.
Foster, Geoff, Carol Levine, and John Williamson (Eds.)
2005 A Generation at Risk: The Global Impact of HIV/AID S on Orphans and Vulnerable
Children. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Foucault, Michel
1979 Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York, NY: Vintage.
1980a The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century. In Power/Knowledge: Selected
Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. Pp. 166–182. New York, NY: Pantheon.

254 

1980b Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. New York, NY:
Pantheon.
1980c The History of Sexuality: Volume One: An Introduction. New York, NY: Vintage Press.
Fox, Fiona
2001 New Humanitarianism: Does it Provide a Moral Banner for the 21st Century? Disasters
25(4):275–289.
Ghosh, Jayati, and Ezekiel Kalipeni
2004 Rising Tide of AIDS Orphans in Southern Africa. In HIV and AID S in Africa: Beyond
Epidemiology, edited by Ezekiel Kalipeni, Susan Craddock, Joseph R. Oppong, and
Jayati Ghosh. Pp. 304–315. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Gibbs, Andy
2008 Gender, Famine, and HIV/AIDS: Rethinking New Variant Famine in Malawi. African
Journal of AID S Research 7(1):9–17.
Gottlieb, Alma
2004 The Afterlife Is Where We Come F rom : The Culture of Infancy in West Africa . Chicago,
IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Government of Botswana
2000 The Impact of HIV/AIDS on Primary and Secondary Education in Botswana: Developing
a Comprehensive Strategic Response. Report of the “HIV/AIDS and Education” Study
Group. UK: Ministry of Education, Government of Botswana, and the Department of
International Development.
Government of Malawi
1992 Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children Policy Guidelines.
2005 National Plan of Action for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children 2005–2009.
Guest, Emma
2001 Children of AIDS: Africa’s Orphan Crisis. Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: University of
KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Guijt, Irene, and Meera Kaul Shah (Eds.)
1998 The Myth of Community: Gender Issues in Participatory Development .London:
Intermediate Technology Publications.
Gupta, Akhil
1995 Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and the
Imagined State. American Ethnologist 22(2):375–402.
Harrigan, Jane
2008 Food Insecurity, Poverty and the Malawian Starter Pack: Fresh Start or False Start? Food
Policy 33(3):237–249.

255 

Harris, Joseph E.
1987 Africans and Their History. New York, NY: Penguin Group.
Hefferan, Tara
2006 Deprofessionalizing Economic Development: Crafting F aith-Based Development
Alternatives through U.S.-Haiti Catholic Parish Twinning. PhD Dissertation. Michigan
State University.
2007 Twinning F aith and Development: Catholic Church Partnering in the U S and Haiti .
Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.
Hefferan, Tara, Julie Adkins, and Laurie Occhipinti (eds.)
2009 Bridging the Gaps: F aith-based Organizations, Neoliberalism, and Development in Latin
America and the Caribbean. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Henquinet, Kari Bergstrom
2007 Gender, Rights, Development and Islam : Interfaces with Transnational Aid
Organizations in Niger . PhD Dissertation. Michigan State University.
Hewlett, Barry S.
1991 Intimate F athers: The Nature and Context of Aka Pygmy Paternal Infant Care . Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Hodgson, A. G. O.
1933 Notes on the Achewa and Angoni of the Dowa District of the Nyasaland Protectorate.
The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 63:123–
164.
Hollos, Marida
2003 Profiles of Infertility in Southern Nigeria: Women’s Voices from Amakiri.  African
Journal of Reproductive Health 7(2):46–56.
Iliffe, John
2006 The African AID S Epide mic: A History. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Kalipeni, Ezekiel, Susan Craddock, Joseph R. Oppong, and Jayati Ghosh (Eds.)
2004 HIV & AID S in Africa: Beyond Epidemiology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Kariuki, Brenda
2007 Stop Child Abuse Campaign Asks for Change at a Policy Level. UNICEF Malawi.
<http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/malawi_40938.html>. Accessed November 22,
2010.
Kaspin, Deborah
1999 The Lion at the Waterhole: The Secrets of Life and Death in Chewa Rites de Passage. In
Those Who Play with F ire: Gender, F ertility, and Transformation in East and Southern
Africa, edited by Henrietta L. Moore, Todd Sanders, and Bwire Kaare. Pp. 83–100.
London: Athlone Press.

256 

1993 Chewa Visions and Revisions of Power: Transformations of the Nyau Dance in Central
Malawi. In Modernity and Its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa ,
edited by Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff. Pp. 34–57. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
Kelly, Michael J.
2005 The Response of the Educational System to the Needs of Orphans and Children Affected
by HIV/AIDS. In A Generation at Risk: The Global Impact of HIV/AID S on Orphans and
Vulnerable Children, edited by Geoff Foster, Cindy Levine, and John Williamson. Pp.
66–92. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Kendall, Nancy, and Chloe O’Gara
2007 Vulnerable Children, Communities and Schools: Lesson from Three HIV/AIDS Affected
Areas. Compare 37:5–21.
Kristof, Nicholas D.
2010 D.I.Y. Foreign-Aid Revolution. The New York Times, October 20, 2010.
Lamers, Machiel
2005 Representing Poverty, Impoverishing Representation? A Discursive Analysis of an
NGO’s Fundraising Posters. Graduate Journal of Social Science 2(1):37–74.
Lancy, David F.
2008 The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
Lareau, Annette
2003 Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and F amily Life. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
LeVine, Robert A., Suzanne Dixon, Sarah LeVine, Amy Richman, P. Herbert Leiderman,
Constance H. Keefer, and T. Berry Brazelton
1994 Child Care and Culture: Lessons from Africa . New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press.
Longwe, Molly
2006 Growing Up: A Chewa Girls’ Initiation. Zomba, Malawi: Kachere Series.
Lwanda, John Lloyd
2004 Politics, Culture, and Medicine: An Unholy Trinity? Historical Continuities and Ruptures
in the HIV/AIDS Story in Malawi. In HIV & AID S in Africa: Beyond Epidemiology,
edited by Ezekiel Kalipeni, Susan Craddock, Joseph R. Oppong, and Jayati Ghosh. Pp.
29–42. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Macrae, Joanna
2000 Humanitarianism: Facing New Challenges. Great Decisions Topic 8:87–91.

257 

Malkki, Liisa H.
1995 Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in
Tanzania. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
1996 Speechless Emissaries: Refugees, Humanitarianism, and Dehistoricization. Cultural
Anthropology 11(3):377–404.
1997 Children, Futures, and the Domestication of Hope. Paper presented at the University of
California Humanities Research Institute, group convened by Susan Harding, “Histories 
of the Future,” University of California, Irvine.
Mandala, Elias Coutinho
2005 The End of Chidyerano: A History of Food and Everyday Life in Malawi, 1860–2004.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Manzo, Kate
2008 Imagining Humanitarianism: NGO Identity and the Iconography of Childhood. Antipode
40(4):632–657.
Marcus, George E.
1995 Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography.
Annual Review of Anthropology 24:95–117.
Martinussen, John
1997 Society, State and Market: A Guide to Competing Theories of Development. London: Zed
Books.
Maundeni, Tapologo
2009 Residential Care for Children in Botswana: The Past, the Present, and the Future. In
Residential Care of Children: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Mark E. Courtney
and Dorota Iwaniec. Pp. 88–104. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Meintjes, Helen, and Sonja Giese
2006 Spinning the Epidemic: The Making of Mythologies of Orphanhood in the Context of
AIDS. Childhood 13(3):407–430.
Mitchell, J. Clyde
1961 Social Change and the Stability of African Marriage in Northern Rhodesia. In Social
Change in Modern Africa, edited by Aiden Southall. London: Oxford University Press,
published for the International African Institute.
Moeller, Susan D.
1999 Compassion F atigue: How the Media Sell Disease, F amine, War and Death. New York,
NY: Routledge.
Montgomery, Heather
2009 An Introduction to Childhood: Anthropological Perspectives on Children’s Lives.
Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

258 

Moore, Henrietta L., and Todd Sanders (Eds.)
2001 Magical Interpretations, Material Realities: Modernity, Witchcraft and the Occult in
Postcolonial Africa. New York, NY: Routledge.
National AIDS Commission (NAC)
2003 HIV Sentinel Surveillance Report 2003. Lilongwe, Malawi: NAC.
Nguyen, V. K.
2009 Government-by-Exception: Enrolment and Experimentality in Mass HIV Treatment
Programmes in Africa. Social Theory and Health 7(3):196–217.
Ohadike, Partick O.
1981 Demographic Perspectives in Zambia: Rural-Urban Growth and Social Change.
Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, published on behalf of the Institute for
African Studies.
Oleke, Christopher, Astrid Blystad, Karen Marie Moland, Ole Bjørn Rekdal, and Kristian
Heggenhougen
2006 The Varying Vulnerability of African Orphans: The Case of the Langi, Northern Uganda.
Childhood 13(2):267–284.
Øygard, Ragnar, Roberto Garcia, Atle G. Guttormsen, Richard Kachule, Anthony Mwanaumo,
Inyambo Mwanawina, Espen Sjaastad, and Mette Wik
2003 The Maze of Maize: Improving Input and Output Market Access for Poor Smallholders
in Southern Africa Region, the Experience of Zambia and Malawi. Agricultural
University of Norway, Department of Economics and Resource Management, Report No.
26.
Packard, Randall M., and Paul Epstein
1991 Epidemiologists, Social Scientists, and the Structure of Medical Research on AIDS in
Africa. Social Science and Medicine 33(7):771–794.
Pandolfi, Mariella
2003 Contract of Mutual (In)Difference: Governance and the Humanitarian Apparatus in
Contemporary Albania and Kosovo. Indiana Journal of Global Legal Issues 10(1):369–
381.
Panpanich, R., B. Brabin, A. Gonani, and S. Graham
1999 Are Orphans at Increased Risk of Malnutrition in Malawi? Annals of Tropical
Paediatrics: International Child Health 19(3):279–285.
Parry-Williams, John
2007 Assessment of Capacity to Manage Alternative Care in Malawi. UNICEF-Esaro
Consultation Findings. December 14, 2007.
Peters, Pauline E., Daimon Kambewa, and Peter Walker
2008 The Effects of Increasing Rates of HIV/AIDS-Related Illness and Death on Rural

259 

Families in Zomba District, Malawi: A Longitudinal Study. Final Report presented to the
Renewal Program, International Food Policy Research Institute.
Peters, Pauline E., Peter A. Walker, and Daimon Kambewa
2008 Striving for Normality in a Time of AIDS in Malawi. Journal of Modern African Studies
46(4):659–687.
Phiri, Kings M.
1983 Some Changes in the Matrilineal Family System among the Chewa of Malawi since the
Nineteenth Century. The Journal of African History 24(2):257–274.
Phiri, Stanley Ngalazu, and David Tolfree
2005 Family- and Community-Based Care for Children Affected by HIV/AIDS: Strengthening
the Front Line Response. In A Generation at Risk: The Global Impact of HIV/AID S on
Orphans and Vulnerable Children, edited by Geoff Foster, Cindy Levine, and John
Williamson. Pp. 11–36. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Powdermaker, Hortense
1962 Copper Town: Changing Africa; The Human Situation on the Rhodesian Copperbelt .
New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Read, Margaret
1959 Children of Their F athers: Growing Up among the Ngoni of Nyasaland. London: Wyman
& Sons, Ltd.
Reynolds, Pamela
1989 Childhood in Crossroads: Cognition and Society in South Africa . Grand Rapids, MI:
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
1991 Dance Civet Cat: Child Labour in the Zambezi Valley. Athens: Ohio University Press.
1996 Traditional Healers and Childhood in Zimbabwe. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Rist, Gilbert
1997 The History of Development: F rom Western Origins to Global F aith. London: Zed
Books.
Ruddick, Sue
2003 The Politics of Aging: Globalization and the Restructuring of Youth and Childhood.
Antipode 35(2):334–362.
Rushing, William A.
1995 The AID S Epidemic: Social Dimensions of an Infectious Disease. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
Sachs, Jeffrey D.
2005 The End of Poverty: Econom ic Possibilities for Our Time. New York, NY: Penguin

260 

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy
1987 Child Survival: Anthropological Perspectives on the Treatment and Maltreatment of
Children. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: D. Reidel.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy, and Carolyn Sargent
1998 Small Wars: The Cultural Politics of Childhood. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Schoepf, Brooke Grundfest
2004 AIDS, History, and Struggles over Meaning. In HIV and AID S in Africa: Beyond
Epidemiology, edited by Ezekiel Kalipeni, Susan Craddock, Joseph R. Oppong, and
Jayati Ghosh. Pp. 15–28. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Schoepf, Brooke G., Claude Schoepf, and Joyce V. Millen
2000 Theoretical Therapies, Remote Remedies: SAPs and the Political Ecology of Poverty and
Health in Africa. In Dying for Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor ,
edited by Jim Yong Kim, Joyce V. Millen, Alec Irwin, and John Gershman. Monroe, ME:
Common Courage Press.
Schumaker, Lyn
2001 Africanizing Anthropology: F ieldwork, Networks, and the Making of Cultural Knowledge
in Central Africa. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Schwartzman, Helen B.
2001 Children and Anthropology: Perspectives for the 21st Century. Westport, CT: Bergin and
Garvey.
Sharra, Steve
2006 From Material Girl to Spiritual Mum: Madonna, Malawi and Baby David. Posted
Tuesday, October 16, 2006 at <http://mlauzi.blogspot.com/>.
Singini, George
2010 Man, 35, Defiles Two-Year-Old Daughter. The Nation, <http://www.nationmw.net/
index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8589:man-35-defiles-two-year-olddaughter&catid=1:national-news&Itemid=3>, accessed November 22, 2010.
Slim, Hugo
2000 Dissolving the Difference between Humanitarianism and Development: The Mixing of a
Rights-Based Solution. Development in Practice 10(3&4):491–494.
Stephens, Sharon
1995 Introduction: Children and the Politics of Culture in “Late Capitalism.” In Children and
the Politics of Culture., edited by Sharon Stephens. Pp. 1–48. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Tarlin, Ellen
2007 Save the (Celebrity) Children: African Family Adopts Britney’s Kids. 
<http://www.slate.com/id/2175303/>, accessed November 22, 2010.
261 

Tew, Mary
1950 Peoples of the Lake Nyasa Region. London: Oxford University Press, published for the
International African Institute.
Ticktin, Miriam
2006 Where Ethics and Politics Meet: The Violence of Humanitarianism in France. American
Ethnologist 33(1):33–49.
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt
2005 F riction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Turshen, Meredith
1999 Privatizing Health Services in Africa. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
UNICEF
2006 Malawi’s Children: The Missing Face of AIDS. Lilongwe: UNICEF Malawi.
2008 Malawi Annual Report. <http://www.unmalawi.org/agencies/reports/Annual_Report_
2008.pdf>.
United Nations (UN)
2000 Convention on the Rights of the Child: Malawi. Pp. 1–82: United Nations Committee on
the Rights of the Child. Electronic document.
USAID
2010 HIV/AIDS Health Profile. <http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/aids/
Countries/africa/malawi_profile.pdf>, accessed May 5, 2011.
van Dijk, Rijk
2001 Witchcraft and Skepticism by Proxy: Pentecostalism and Laughter in Urban Malawi. In
Magical Interpretations, Material Realities: Modernity, Witchcraft and the Occult in
Postcolonial Africa, edited by Henrietta L. Moore and Todd Sanders. Pp. 97–117. New
York, NY: Routledge Press.
Vaughan, Megan
1987 The Story of an African F amine: Gender and F a mine in Twentieth-Century Malawi .
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
1991 Curing Their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press.
Verhoef, Heidi, and Gilda Morelli
2007 “A Child Is a Child”: Fostering Experiences in Northwestern Cameroon. Ethos 35(1):33–
64.
West, Harry G.
2007 Ethnographic Sorcery. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

262 

Wilson, Godfrey
1941 An Essay on the Economics of Detribalization in Northern Rhodesia (Part 1). Rhodes
Livingstone Paper No. 5. Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia: Rhodes Livingstone Institute.
1942 An Essay on the Economics of Detribalization in Northern Rhodesia (Part 2). Rhodes
Livingstone Paper No. 6. Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia: Rhodes Livingstone Institute.
Wilson, Godfrey, and Monica Wilson
1968 The Analysis of Social Change: Based on Observations in Central Africa. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
Yamba, C. Bawa
1997 “Cosmologies in Turmoil: Witchfinding and AIDS in Chiawa, Zambia.  Africa 67(2):200–
223.
Zelizer, Viviana A.
1985 Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.

263