Sharing Food: Grandmothers and “The Children of Today” in Western Kenya

Abstract

This chapter1 shows how HIV/AIDS has affected child exchange practices and grandmother-grandchild relationships in contemporary Luo society in western Kenya. Intergenerational relations between grandmothers and grandchildren began to change with long-term economic changes before the effects of HIV/AIDS were felt, but the large number of orphaned grandchildren that grandmothers now support has further adversely altered these intergenerational relations. Particularly, the lack of food to share in grandmother-headed households has negatively influenced grandmother-grandchild relations.