Orphans, Victims and Families: An Ethnography of Children in Aceh.

A long civil con ict and the 2004 tsunami left 80,000 children in Aceh without at least one of their parents. Orphanhood is a category both of childhood and su ering, which needs to be examined more closely. In this article, I tackle two issues: what constructs an orphan in the Acehnese post-catastrophe society and what institutionalised “orphans” actively do within and beyond their de nition as such. More speci cally, I consider some institutions called panti asuhan, “home for the care of the needy”, as well as dayah or pesantren, Islamic residential schools that host orphaned and poor children. I rst describe what the idea of “orphanhood” conveys for the Acehnese I encountered and then turn to the dialogue between families and institutions using some speci c cases. is will relate to practices and ideas of marriage and parenthood in a prevailingly matrilocal society, where single women (janda) are not an exception. e way children experience and shape the construction of a ective ties through space and su ering is one of the re- current themes. e conclusions highlight how the children’s re-working of social and international categories such as orphanhood, victimhood and family collides with the social use of orphanhood as a highly valued social foundation.