The Elusive Idea of Adulthood in Botswana

FAIN: FT-62029-14

Deborah Lynn Durham
Sweet Briar College (Sweet Briar, VA 24595-5001)

I propose to study new ideas about adulthood in Botswana, where changes in education, use of English, urbanization, exposure to global media, medical discourses, and new configurations of class and class aspiration have given new importance to the idea of being adult. The project involves a comparative thinking about the idea in the U.S. that young people can't attain adulthood, with the new stakes attached to adulthood in Botswana. I propose to spend 2 months in Botswana in the summer of 2014, and upon return to write an article based on that work, and a book that integrates my previous research on youth with new work on adulthood.