Abstract In Sierra Leone, transactional relationships – so-called agreement relationships – have a life-course dimension. Not only are they employed by young people but they are equally important among elders, and they serve different purposes as people age. Long-term ethnographic research with the elderly uncovers that they remember the past and engage with the present through agreement relationships. The elders’ love and life histories from the 1930s to today form ‘accumulated history’. They reveal a shift from kin-based rural hierarchies, where agreement relationships were carefully concealed, to larger, more dynamic urban networks that are openly held together through such relations. Leaving the former and finding one's feet in the latter become possible through transactional relationships that provide alternatives to fosterage and strategies of fictive or aspirational kin. The case of Sierra Leone invites us to rethink the focus on transactional relationships at a specific point in time for a life-course perspective that reveals the enduring nature of the phenomenon and sheds light on its changing texture in individual biographies, with the potential for capturing large-scale social trajectories within and across countries.

中文翻译：

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塞拉利昂的长者和交易关系：重新思考同步方法

摘要 在塞拉利昂，交易关系——所谓的协议关系——具有生命历程的维度。他们不仅受雇于年轻人，而且在老年人中也同样重要，并且随着人们年龄的增长而服务于不同的目的。对老年人的长期民族志研究发现，他们通过协议关系记住过去并与现在互动。长辈们从1930年代到今天的爱情和生活史形成了“积累的历史”。它们揭示了从以亲属为基础的农村等级制度的转变，在这种等级制度下，协议关系被小心地隐藏起来，转变为更大、更有活力的城市网络，通过这种关系公开地联系在一起。离开前者并找到一个' 后者通过交易关系成为可能，交易关系为虚构或有抱负的亲属的寄养和策略提供了替代方案。塞拉利昂的案例邀请我们重新思考在特定时间点对交易关系的关注，以从生命历程的角度来揭示这一现象的持久性，并揭示其在个人传记中不断变化的结构，并有可能捕捉到国家内部和国家之间的大规模社会轨迹。