{"product_id":"the-bonds-of-kinship-in-jessica-catherine-reuther-9780253071439","title":"The Bonds of Kinship in Dahomey: Portraits of West African Girlhood, 1720-1940","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom the 1720s to the 1940s, parents in the kingdom and later colony of Dahomey (now the Republic of Benin) developed and sustained the common practice of girl fostering, or \"entrusting.\" Transferring their daughters at a young age into foster homes, Dahomeans created complex relationships of mutual obligation, kinship, and caregiving that also exploited girls' labor for the economic benefit of the women who acted as their social mothers. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing upon oral tradition, historic images, and collective memories, Jessica Reuther pieces together the fragmentary glimpses of girls' lives contained in colonial archives within the framework of traditional understandings about entrustment. Placing these girls and their social mothers at the center of history brings to light their core contributions to local and global political economies, even as the Dahomean monarchy, global trade, and colonial courts reshaped girlhood norms and fostering practices. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReuther reveals that the social, economic, and political changes wrought by the expansion of Dahomey in the eighteenth century; the shift to \"legitimate\" trade in agricultural products in the nineteenth century; and the imposition of French colonialism in the twentieth all fundamentally altered--and were altered by--the intimate practice of entrusting female children between households. Dahomeans also valorized this process as a crucial component of being \"well-raised\"--a sentiment that continues into the present, despite widespread Beninese opposition to modern-day forms of child labor.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Jessica Catherine Reuther\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0253071437\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780253071439\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Indiana University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/07\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 278\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback","brand":"Jessica Catherine Reuther","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46250614522111,"sku":"9780253071439","price":36.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_e7907f12-e31a-4fb6-a4b6-c8f56edbb3c5.jpg?v=1729600877","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-bonds-of-kinship-in-jessica-catherine-reuther-9780253071439","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}