Funerals and the Public Space of Sentiment in Botswana

Bibliographic Data

ID4603402
AuthorsDeborah Durham (corresponding author), Frederick Klaits
Year2002
Volume28
Issue4
Pages777-795
Publication date2002-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0305707022000043511
OpenAlexW2140557621
LanguageEN
Citations received41
References cited23

In Botswana, funerals are key to the exercise of civil conduct. Funerals constitute distinctive public spaces that focus local attention on how particular persons' sentiments influence the well-being of others. By managing the social impact of sentiments of sorrow, love, jealousy, anger and resignation, all those who attend funerals ideally maintain a footing of civility, preventing recognised differences from causing permanent disruptions in social relations. In the context of death, people shape forms of community and difference - along lines of ethnicity, class, religion, gender and kinship - through the mutuality of their emotions. Funerals thus give rise to a public space and a civil discourse based on sentiment, as distinct from the bureaucratic and rationalising practices of official nationalism. This article is based on the authors' respective fieldwork in a Herero minority community in Mahalapye, and with an Apostolic church in Gaborone

Anger · Civility · Context (archaeology · Ethnic group · Jealousy · Kinship · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Public space · Sociology · Sorrow · Space (punctuation) · African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology