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‘I go to school to survive’: Facing physical, moral and economic uncertainties in rural Lesotho

Dungey, Claire Elisabeth; Ansell, Nicola

‘I go to school to survive’: Facing physical, moral and economic uncertainties in rural Lesotho Thumbnail


Authors

Claire Elisabeth Dungey

Nicola Ansell



Abstract

In Lesotho, when children or adults talk about the importance of schooling, they frequently use the term ho iphelisa. This is usually translated as ‘to survive’, reflecting the uncertainties that people in this small country have confronted over recent decades: rapidly diminishing employment opportunities, extremely high HIV prevalence and environmental crises. Based on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork in two rural primary schools and their neighbouring communities, we examine how the idea of survival motivates engagement with education. We find that ‘survival’ permeates the school curriculum and the discourse of children, parents and teachers, and encompasses three distinct but related dimensions: economic, moral and physical. We also highlight how these aspects of survival are both individual and collective, and operate across different temporalities. Through this, we contribute to understanding the complexities of educational aspiration and motivation in contexts of uncertainty.

Citation

Dungey, C. E., & Ansell, N. (2020). ‘I go to school to survive’: Facing physical, moral and economic uncertainties in rural Lesotho. Children's Geographies, 18(6), 614-628. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2020.1822514

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Sep 18, 2020
Publication Date 2020
Deposit Date Oct 7, 2020
Publicly Available Date Nov 26, 2020
Journal Children's Geographies
Print ISSN 1473-3285
Electronic ISSN 1473-3277
Publisher Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 18
Issue 6
Pages 614-628
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2020.1822514

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Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (1.5 Mb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.





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