Acknowledgements

The journey that this book traces has been a long, sometimes perilous, transformative one. Like any journey, it would have proven impossible without the guides, companions, and innkeepers I met along the way. There are far too many people who have contributed to this project since its inception to thank them all; I focus here on those whose influence has been most marked. The faults and shortcomings of this book are, of course, my own.

The research and writing of this book were made possible by the generous support of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom; Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; the University of Edinburgh’s College of Humanities and Social Science and School of Social and Political Science; and the European Research Council (ERC), via an Advanced Grant under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (grant agreement 695285 AGATM ERC-2015-AdG, held at the University of Edinburgh), which also funded its Open Access publication. I acknowledge their support with gratitude. I would also like to thank the University of Toronto (Scarborough) Centre for Ethnography for supporting a period of writing under its Ethnographic Writing Fellowship. Research at all stages was undertaken with the permission of the Government of Botswana.

The images in this book were taken during my time in Botswana and do not correspond to specific people, events, or locations discussed in the text unless noted otherwise. All photographs are my own, unless indicated otherwise.

The Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh provided an intellectually well-furnished and comfortable home to this project, from start to finish. I am especially grateful to the community of scholars with whom I shared the tumultuous PhD journey. My thanks go to fellow students who read drafts and worked through ideas from their very first confused stages, including Sebastien Bachelet, Resto Cruz, Don Duprez, Daisy Fung, Luke Heslop, Heid Jerstad, Jenny Lawy, Laura Major, Diego Malara, Fauzia Malik, Hannah McNeilly (née Lesshaft), Gilda Neri, Katarina Ockova, Ting-Ting Shum, Leila Sinclair-Bright, Mart Viirand, Chrissie Wanner, and Laura Winterton; and, farther afield, Arie Molema, Kasia Puzon, and Michele Wisdahl. I am also grateful to have had the guidance, collegiality, and engagement of Tom Boylston, Magnus Course, Ian Harper, John Harries, Naomi Haynes, Laura Jeffery, Lucy Lowe, Rebecca Marsland, Maya Mayblin, and Jonathan Spencer. I had great good fortune in my examiners, Tony Good and Deborah James, whose intellectual curiosity, rigour, and dexterity helped me see my work in a new light. The Global Anthropology of Transforming Marriage (AGATM) research team has provided fresh inspiration since we began our collaboration in 2017; my thanks to Hsiao-Chiao Chiu, Siobhan Magee, and Eirini Papadaki for giving me new ways to think of things I thought I knew. As both the Principal Investigator of AGATM and my doctoral supervisor, Janet Carsten has been a limitless source of astute insights, gentle provocations, perspective, encouragement, mentorship, and (mostly) patience – a personal, professional, and intellectual debt I cannot hope to repay but to which I hope this book does some justice.

Many of the arguments in this book were initially fledged in seminars, workshops, and conferences, and crucial refinements were inspired in those contexts. I would especially like to thank Andrew Beatty, Isak Niehaus, and seminar participants at Brunel; Julia Pauli and seminar participants at the Institut für Ethnologie, Universität Hamburg; seminar participants at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Ethnography, and for fruitful discussions thereafter, Sandra Bamford, Mark Hunter, Seth Palmer, Letha Victor, Holly Wardlow, and Donna Young; and the panellists and audiences for the panel ‘Kinship and Crisis’ at the ASAUK conference in 2015 and its reboot at the AAA in 2016. Conversations with Perveez Mody and the participants of the ‘Spaces of Care’ workshop were particularly helpful in refining my ideas about care; and the AGATM advisory board and workshop participants, especially Ammara Maqsood, Susan McKinnon, Perveez Mody, Evythmios Papataxiarchis, and Julia Pauli, have supplied welcome new perspectives and inspiration. I am thankful above all for ongoing conversations with Deborah Durham, Fred Klaits, Jacqueline Solway, and Rijk van Dijk, who have all encouraged, challenged, pushed, and inspired me in ways only those with long experience and deep understanding of Botswana can. For their deft shepherding of the text that brings all these influences together, I would like to thank Stephanie Kitchen, Stephanie Taylor, Atifa Jiwa, and the production and design teams with the International African Library at Cambridge University Press; Divya Arjunan at Straive; Rohan Bolton for her indexing work, and Judith Forshaw for her precise and patient copyediting. I am also deeply grateful to the book’s anonymous reviewers, who were thorough, fastidious, and constructive, and who will, I hope, find that their investment has greatly improved the manuscript.

In Botswana, former colleagues from the Department of Social Services (DSS) and the NGO community were exceptionally helpful with my research and have welcomed me back with warmth and friendship on repeated occasions. Kennie Ralekgobo first inducted me into social work in Botswana, and her laughter and Five Roses tea never failed to rejuvenate me when I needed it most. I am particularly grateful for the generosity and support of Magy Mokgachane at DSS, as well as Ruth Radibe and Ookame Mokabathebe. Among the many social workers around Botswana from whom I have learned so much over the years, special mentions go to Felicity Nyoni, Dineo Segobai, Ben Semmomung, and Sister Tsepho Sengwatse for their support, guidance, and friendship. Masego Katisi and her team at Ark ‘n’ Mark have long been trusted collaborators, and they continue to inspire me with their innovative programmes for and dedication to children and families in Botswana. More recently, I have been delighted to find new inspiration and collegiality at the University of Botswana’s Department of Social Work, including from Gloria Jacques, Keitseope Nthomang, Dolly Ntseane, and the rest of the academic staff; and from Senzokuhle (Doreen) Setume in Theology and Religious Studies. I look forward to the collaborative work that awaits us. Le kamoso, bagaetsho.

Fieldwork was a challenging undertaking, despite my lengthy previous experience of Botswana. I am deeply indebted to friends and colleagues in-country who helped me to navigate its perplexities, and whose companionship kept me grounded throughout. Bianca Dahl, Melissa Godwaldt, Lyon and Boitumelo Itshekeng, Mareile Kroenig, Jenny Lawy, Brian and Lynette LeRoux, Gobona Mantle and family, Tim Race, and Tumi Sejoe sustained me with tea, chat, perspective, laughter, and kindness – and in some cases housed me. I could not have managed the fieldwork process without them.

Finally, and most importantly, my greatest debt of gratitude goes to the two families who, between them, have turned me into a kinship scholar: my own family in Canada and the ‘Legae’ family in Botswana. Both have shown me unstinting support and unbounded patience, and between them they have taught me the critical lessons that inform this book. I hope that it does justice to the lives we have shared and that it honours the relationships we have built.

This book is dedicated to the memory of Michele Wisdahl (1977–2021). While I cannot name them without compromising their anonymity, it is also dedicated to the memory of two others gone too soon: ‘Tumi’, with her laughter, and ‘Kagiso’, who was a brother to me.