Against a background of rising adult mortality and morbidity in the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub‐Saharan Africa, this paper provides both quantitative and qualitative evidence for the existence of a largely neglected group of young people with increased responsibility for caregiving. Using questionnaire surveys, focus groups, storyboards and in‐depth interviews in three studies across Southern and Eastern Africa some young people in Lesotho, Tanzania and Zimbabwe are found to devote considerable time and energy to caring for sick members of their households. Examination of the tasks carried out by these youngsters finds them to be burdened beyond usual familial and societal expectations of children's ‘normal’ contributions to the reproduction of households via domestic chores and suchlike. It is concluded that these young people can be described as ‘young carers’. The three studies are presented to illuminate different socio‐spatial aspects of caregiving by young people. First, using qualitative data from Lesotho the range of caring tasks young caregivers perform for care recipients – usually a grandmother, parent, or sibling – is identified. Second, the impact caregiving responsibilities have on children's primary school attendance is examined using survey data from Tanzania. Third, the wider negative and positive impacts of caregiving including loss of friends and gaining of emotional maturity for young carers and their households is explored with in‐depth individual interviews from Zimbabwe. Finally, suggestions are made for further research to deepen understanding of the geographies of caring within the context of the population geographies of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub‐Saharan Africa and beyond. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The past decade has witnessed a resurgence of interest in the geographies of children's lives, and particularly in engaging the voices and activities of young people in geographical research. Much of this growing body of scholarship is characterized by a very parochial locus of interest — the neighbourhood, playground, shopping mall or journey to school. In this paper I explore some of the roots of children's geographies' preoccupation with the micro-scale and argue that it limits the relevance of research, both politically and to other areas of geography. In order to widen the scope of children's geographies, some scholars have engaged with developments in the theorization of scale. I present these arguments but also point to their limitations. As an alternative, I propose that the notion of a flat ontology might help overcome some difficulties around scalar thinking, and provide a useful means of conceptualizing sociospatiality in material and non-hierarchical terms. Bringing together flat ontology and work in children's geographies on embodied subjectivity, I argue that it is important to examine the nature and limits of children's spaces of perception and action. While these spaces are not simply `local', they seldom afford children opportunities to comment on, or intervene in, the events, processes and decisions that shape their own lives. The implications for the substance and method of children's geographies and for geographical work on scale are considered.

This paper examines the diverse ways in which southern

Most southern African orphans are cared for by extended families but the implications of the spatial dispersal of such families are seldom recognised: orphans often have to migrate to new homes and communities. This paper, based on qualitative research conducted with children and guardians in urban and rural Lesotho and Malawi, examines orphans' migration experiences in order to assess how successful migration might best be supported.Most children found migration traumatic in the short term, but over time many settled into new environments. Although much AIDS policy in southern Africa stresses the role of communities, the burden of care lay with extended family households. Failed migrations, which resulted in renewed migration and trauma, were attributable to one of two household-level causes:orphans feeling ill-treated in their new families or changes in guardians' circumstances.Policy interventions to reduce disruption and trauma for young AIDS migrants should aim at facilitating sustainable arrangements by enabling suitable households to provide care.Reducing the economic costs of caring for children, particularly school-related costs, would: allow children to stay with those relatives (e.g. grandparents) best able to meet their nonmaterial needs; reduce resentment of foster children in impoverished households; and diminish the need for multiple migrations.2 Enabling households to support successful migration of AIDS orphans in southern Africa Background

The fluidity of southern African families is related to a long history of internal and external migration. Currently, HIV/AIDS is having a dramatic impact on extended family structures, with the migration of individual members employed as a coping strategy. Children's migration is one aspect of this that is often distinct from that undertaken by other household members. This article is based on qualitative research conducted in Lesotho and Malawi with young migrants and the households that receive them. It examines the processes of fragmentation and re-formation of households through the movements of children that are taking place in response to HIV/ AIDS, and explores the impacts these processes have on young migrants and the households they join.

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Introduction Geographical research with children has intensified over recent years with growing acceptance that children are social actors creating their own unique geographies (Aitken, 2001; Holloway and Valentine, 2000a; 2000b; Katz, 1993; Matthews et al, 1999). Children-focused research has been brought to the forefront of many geographical subdisciplines, in line with the recognition that society is culturally diverse and composed of complex individuals with different ways of seeing and understanding the world. With a few notable exceptions the burgeoning literature on children's geographies has focused on children's microgeographies and on their specific relationships to environments such as the home, school, playground

Ansell N (2001) ''Because it's our culture!' (Re)negotiating the meaning of lobola in Southern African secondary schools ' Journal of Southern African Studies 27(4)