The African HIV/AIDS pandemic has defined the childhoods of an entire generation. Many children have lost their parents to AIDS while HIV-infected children are now surviving thanks to life-saving antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). In this incisive ethnography, Cheney argues that humanitarian misreadings of the 'AIDS orphan crisis' have affected children's lives as irrevocably as HIV/AIDS itself. Using participatory research with the “post-ARV generation” in Uganda, this book traces the social transformations caused by AIDS orphanhood and it impacts on children, families, and communities. Young peopl ... More

The African HIV/AIDS pandemic has defined the childhoods of an entire generation. Many children have lost their parents to AIDS while HIV-infected children are now surviving thanks to life-saving antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). In this incisive ethnography, Cheney argues that humanitarian misreadings of the 'AIDS orphan crisis' have affected children's lives as irrevocably as HIV/AIDS itself. Using participatory research with the “post-ARV generation” in Uganda, this book traces the social transformations caused by AIDS orphanhood and it impacts on children, families, and communities. Young people’s experiences in the post-ARV era show how orphan suffering is still compounded by poverty and other structural vulnerabilities. Cheney explains how these vulnerabilities have posed new challenges to traditional systems of family support and child protection. Moreover, she argues that global humanitarian responses such as Western ‘orphan rescue’ efforts to relieve the ‘orphan crisis’ have actually deepened it. Crying for Our Elders substantially expands theoretical discussions of humanitarianism, children’s studies, orphanhood, kinship and the resilience of family as well as methodological innovations in longitudinal participatory research with children. Privileging young people’s perspectives, Cheney demonstrates that despite the challenges of growing up in the era of HIV/AIDS, the post-ARV generation still holds out hope for the future.