‘Buying her grave’: money, movement and AIDS in north-west Tanzania

Abstract

Abstract ‘Buying her grave’ is a highly condensed statement about the position of women, and of gender relations more generally, at the crux of dynamic processes of socio-cultural continuity among the Haya of north-west Tanzania. This article suggests that the grave, an essential site of focalisation, is undone by purchase, the quintessential act of disruption, dislocation and uncontrolled mobility. Men believe that women are ‘buying their graves’ (contracting AIDS) when they think they are ‘getting rich’ (finding material wealth through prostitution). To ‘buy a grave’ when you think you are ‘getting rich’ is not merely an ironic commentary on the terrible consequence of death for those who seek only their own gain. It is also a statement about the ways in which sweeping transformations in Haya economic and bodily conditions render impossible the very forms of death that allow the living to realise and perpetuate their own well-being.

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