Friendship, descent and alliance are basic forms of relatedness that have received unequal attention in social anthropology. Offering new insights into the ways in which friendship is conceptualized and realized in various sub-Saharan African settings, the contributions to this volume depart from the recent tendency to study friendship in isolation from kinship. In drawing attention to the complexity of the interactions between these two kinds of social relationships, the book suggests that analyses of friendship in Western societies would also benefit from research that explores more systematically friendship in conjunction with kinship.

Friendship, descent and alliance are basic forms of relatedness that have received unequal attention in social anthropology. Offering new insights into the ways in which friendship is conceptualized and realized in various sub-Saharan African settings, the contributions to this volume depart from the recent tendency to study friendship in isolation from kinship. In drawing attention to the complexity of the interactions between these two kinds of social relationships, the book suggests that analyses of friendship in Western societies would also benefit from research that explores more systematically friendship in conjunction with kinship.

Foreword
Günther Schlee

Acknowledgements

Introduction
Martine Guichard

Part I. Friendship, Kinship and Age

Chapter 1. Where Are Other People’s Friends Hiding? Reflections on Anthropological Studies of Friendship
Martine Guichard

Chapter 2. Comradeship and the Transformation of Alliance Theory among the Maasai: Shifting the Focus from Descent to Peer-Group Loyalty
Paul Spencer

Part II. Friendship and Ethnicity

Chapter 3. Friendship Networks in Southwestern Ethiopia
Wolde Gossa Tadesse and Martine Guichard

Chapter 4. Friendship and Spiritual Parenthood among the Moose and the Fulbe in Burkina Faso
Mark Breusers

Chapter 5. Labour Migration and Moral Dimensions of Interethnic Friendships: The Case of Young Gold Miners in Benin (West Africa)
Tilo Grätz

Part III. Friendship, Politics and Urbanity

Chapter 6. Friendship and Kinship among Merchants and Veterans in Mali
Richard L. Warms

Chapter 7. ‘Down-to-Earth’: Friendship and a National Elite Circle in Botswana
Richard Werbner

Chapter 8. Negotiating Friendship and Kinship in a Context of Violence: The Case of the Tuareg during the Upheaval in Mali from 1990 to 1996
Georg Klute

Afterword: Friendship in a World of Force and Power
Stephen P. Reyna

Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index