essay

Room to maneuver: !Kung women cope with men

sanctions and sanctuary : cultural perspectives on the beating of wivesBoulder, Colo. • Published In 1992 • Pages: 43-61

By: Draper, Patricia.

Abstract
Among the !Kung San of Botswana, women are sometimes beaten by their husbands and coerced by other men, particularly their fathers. The factors that contribute to this form of aggression are various and are changing in recent years as a consequence of new economic and residential practices now seen among the !Kung as they have transformed themselves from mobile foragers to primarily sedentary food producers. The responses of women and their supporters to incidents of wife abuse are also changing. In this paper several episodes of wife-beating that came to the author's attention during her field work among the !Kung will be reported and discussed in terms of the cultural values relevant to their former nomadic life and in terms of the realities of current life styles in the 1980s. In a concluding section the prospects for future patterns in wife abuse is discussed (p. 43).
Subjects
Theoretical orientation in research and its results
Interviewing in research
Acculturation and culture contact
Sociocultural trends
Settlement patterns
Ethnic stratification
Ingroup antagonisms
Regulation of marriage
Family relationships
culture
San
HRAF PubDate
2005
Region
Africa
Sub Region
Southern Africa
Document Type
essay
Evaluation
Creator Type
Ethnologist
Document Rating
5: Excellent Primary Data
Analyst
John Beierle; 2003
Field Date
1968-1969, 1975, 1978, 1987-1988
Coverage Date
not specified
Coverage Place
western Botswana
Notes
Patricia Draper
Includes bibliographical references (p. 59-61)
LCCN
90023009
LCSH
San (African people)