The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.
This award will support a twenty-four month research fellowship by Dr. Maggie Zraly to work with Dr. Joseph Ntaganira at National University of Rawanda.
Over the last two decades, youth headed households have emerged and proliferated in Africa south of the Sahara, signaling a reconfiguration of long-standing family patterns. During this same time, Rwanda has undergone civil war and genocide, followed by an era of reconstruction involving free-market reforms, privatization, and a huge influx of foreign aid, contributing to the intense concentration wealth in a minority of the population. The burgeoning of youth headed households in post-genocide Rwandan society presents a valuable opportunity to examine the cultural process of resilience among a generation of youth who are growing up amidst widespread social transformations never before seen in the world. This collaboration will investigate the interplay between social inequality and resilience in peer networks among youth heads of household (YHH) in Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda. The purpose of the study is to understand patterns of variability in vulnerability to sexual coercion, HIV risk, and emotional experience and expression among YHH, especially with respect to gender. Where YHH connect with peers who share similar experiences and problems, it is expected that resilience in peer networks will be a cultural source of hope and courage to overcome threats encountered in everyday life. However, it is also expected that where YHH are socially excluded from, or must compete for, access to the support of peer networks, they will be more likely to be driven into coercive sexual relationships offering economic benefits and carrying considerable risk for HIV infection. This research strengthens anthropology?s engagement with human phenomena typically approached through epidemiology and psychology (i.e. resilience, emotion, risk, and vulnerability), and extends theorizing on how social inequality is actually experienced, negotiated, and shaped by youth in cultural context, as well as how it patterns vulnerability to disease. This project will build the capacity of a female postdoctoral researcher from the United States to forge long-term collaborative relationships with scientists in Rwanda. It will also promote the participation of YHH in science education, and enhance the basic social science training of graduate level Rwandan public health researchers.
