Childhood in a Sri Lankan Village: Shaping Hierarchy and Desire

by Bambi L. Chapin

Overview

Like toddlers all over the world, Sri Lankan children go through a period that in the U.S. is referred to as the “terrible twos.” Yet once they reach elementary school age, they appear uncannily passive, compliant, and undemanding compared to their Western counterparts. Clearly, these children have undergone some process of socialization, but what?

Over ten years ago, anthropologist Bambi Chapin traveled to a rural Sri Lankan village to begin answering this question, getting to know the toddlers in the village, then returning to track their development over the course of the following decade. Childhood in a Sri Lankan Village offers an intimate look at how these children, raised on the tenets of Buddhism, are trained to set aside selfish desires for the good of their families and the community. Chapin reveals how this cultural conditioning is carried out through small everyday practices, including eating and sleeping arrangements, yet she also explores how the village’s attitudes and customs continue to evolve with each new generation.

Combining penetrating psychological insights with a rigorous observation of larger social structures, Chapin enables us to see the world through the eyes of Sri Lankan children searching for a place within their families and communities. Childhood in a Sri Lankan Village offers a fresh, global perspective on child development and the transmission of culture.    

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813561677
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	06/30/2014
Series:	Series in Childhood Studies
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	230
Sales rank:	180,303
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

BAMBI L. CHAPIN is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. 

 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Note on Translation and Transliteration xiii

1 Introduction 1

2 Sri Lanka: Setting the Ethnographic Context 21

3 Socializing Desire: Demanding Toddlers and Self-Restrained Children 42

4 Shaping Attachments: Learning Hierarchy at Home 69

5 Making Sense of Envy: Desires and Relationships in Conflict 112

6 Engaging with Hierarchy outside the Home: Education and Efforts at Change 144

7 Culturing People 168

Notes 181

References 193

Index 205

Editorial Reviews

"This is a nuanced and subtle book … I found it enthralling."

Children & Society

"Chapin's work is a significant contribution to the anthropology of childhood. It tackles important questions about the meaning of child care practices and patterns."

Department of Anthropology and Schubert Center for Child Studies, Case Western Reserve University - Jill E. Korbin

"This is a new kind of research on childhood, one that boldly focuses on a few trajectories of enculturation rather than covering a conventional set of contextual categories … Chapin carries this off with remarkable sophistication, skill and humility in a book that should be read by every student in this field."

Ethos

"What makes this book so special is that it does not stop at description, as do most ethnographies. It goes on to explain Sinhalese childhood and child rearing, doing so within a well-considered, smartly-deployed psychoanalytic framework."

professor emerita, Department of Cultural Anthropology, Duke University - Naomi Quinn

"Chapin's work is a significant contribution to the anthropology of childhood. It tackles important questions about the meaning of child care practices and patterns."

From the Publisher