A central feature of anthropology is to question what is assumed to be natural. This is especially true for the anthropological study of kinship. Notions of motherhood and fatherhood are deeply engrained into our personal experiences. They feel “natural.” Erdmute Alber questions any naturalistic assumption with the very first sentence of her fascinating and very timely book on parenthood and fosterage in Benin: “Nothing is seemingly more natural than the idea that children belong to their birth parents who are caring for them” (1). In a sophisticated way, Erdmute Alber shows that children do not always and not everywhere belong to their birth mother or their birth father. Among the Baatombu in northern Benin, the belonging of a child can be transferred to someone else. While adoption and fosterage have been described for different regions of the world, what makes the cases described in Alber’s monograph outstanding is the normality of this transfer of belonging. For the Baatombu, child fostering and not growing up with one’s birth parents is “the normal way of parenting and not an exception or an anomaly” (4). Nevertheless, due to various forms of social change and “modernisation,” especially the spread of Western types of education and European ideas of parenthood, practices of child fostering are undergoing substantial changes. In exemplary detail, Alber scrutinises these historical trajectories and relates them to the contemporary practices. The book is divided into four parts. In the first part, the introduction, Alber lays out her conceptualisation of the study, describes her field site, and discusses her fieldwork. The book spans a remarkable long period of more than a quarter of a century of research. Since 1992, Alber has researched the Borgu region of northern Benin, conducting field work in both villages and cities. The honesty with which she describes her long-term fieldwork is unusual, touching, and very convincing. Photographs of herself, her two daughters, and the new kin Alber made while living in Benin are complemented with reflexive discussions of how of her children have influenced her fieldwork. Methodological, Alber’s book is ethnography at its best. Alber combines the intimacy of numerous life stories she has observed and listened to over the years with archive data, participant observation, and questionnaires. Beyond globalisation, Alber’s monograph shows the importance of long-term ethnographic fieldwork in one field site. Africa Spectrum 1–2 a The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0002039719886324 journals.sagepub.com/home/afr

中文翻译：

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书评：归属的转移：20世纪西非的儿童抚养

人类学的一个核心特征是质疑什么被认为是自然的。对于亲属关系的人类学研究尤其如此。为人父母的观念深深植根于我们的个人经历中。他们觉得“自然”。Erdmute Alber 用她关于贝宁父母身份和寄养的迷人且非常及时的书的第一句话质疑任何自然主义的假设：“没有什么比孩子属于照顾他们的亲生父母的想法更自然的了”（1） . Erdmute Alber 以一种复杂的方式表明，孩子并不总是也不在任何地方都属于他们的生母或他们的生父。在贝宁北部的 Baatombu 中，孩子的财产可以转让给其他人。虽然在世界不同地区已经描述了收养和寄养，但让阿尔伯的专着中描述的案例突出的是这种归属感转移的常态。对于巴托姆布人来说，抚养孩子而不是与亲生父母一起长大是“正常的养育方式，而不是例外或异常”（4）。然而，由于各种形式的社会变迁和“现代化”，特别是西方教育方式和欧洲父母观念的传播，养育子女的做法正在发生重大变化。阿尔伯详细地审视了这些历史轨迹，并将它们与当代实践联系起来。本书分为四个部分。在第一部分，引言中，Alber 阐述了她对研究的概念化，描述了她的现场，并讨论她的实地考察。这本书跨越了长达四分之一多世纪的研究。自 1992 年以来，阿尔伯一直在研究贝宁北部的博尔古地区，在村庄和城市进行实地工作。她坦诚地描述了她长期的田野工作，这是不寻常的、感人的，而且非常有说服力。她自己、她的两个女儿和新近亲属 Alber 在贝宁生活时拍摄的照片与关于她的孩子如何影响她的田野工作的反思性讨论相辅相成。方法论，阿尔伯的书是最好的民族志。阿尔伯将她多年来观察和聆听的众多生活故事与档案数据、参与者观察和问卷调查相结合。超越全球化，阿尔伯 (Alber) 的专着显示了在一个现场进行长期民族志田野调查的重要性。非洲光谱 1–2 a 作者 2019 年文章重用指南：sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI：10.1177/0002039719886324 journals.sagepub.com/home/afr