Identity and Ageing Men

This book presents an in depth study of elderly men's experience of growing old in a time of rapid social and economic change in Botswana in the 1990s. From 1967 to the 1990s, diamonds export changed Botswana from being one of the world's poorest countries, to "Africa's Taiwan". Participant observation and interviews from a one year fieldwork in Mmankgodi village bring forth old men s experience of growing old. In spite of the many positive changes, the old men in the village felt that the socio-economic changes had been negative to traditional cultural values. They, therefore, tried their best to highlight what they saw as important cultural values in ritual situations like funerals. On this background Frank J. Bruun argues that culture is used by the old men in the village as tool and arena for maintaining their position as venerable patriarchs in a time of change. The book has been written for students and researchers of social identity and old age, and in particular for those interested in the fascinating country and people of Botswana.