MOI_AIMWELL2020 - Changing Life Projects: African Identities, Moralities and Wellbeing (AIMWell)

In Africa, rites of passage remain dominant as social spaces and processes where gender, ethnicity, age, religion, social class and other variables intersect to constitute not just identities but also moral personhood. We explored and analysed identities, moralities and moralities making in contemporary East Africa towards understanding how these are (re)defined, communicated, contested, (re)negotiated, re(invented) and practiced through rites of passage, such as initiation rites and marriages in relation to wellbeing. With dramatic changes resulting from mobilities of things, ideas, and people in social realities in the context of structural changes (such as modernization, urbanization, internationalization), and globalization, emphasis on human agency has emerged as individuals seek to (re)define their individual identities and moralities. Our long-term objective is to better understand differences and similarities in the relational processes of making, shaping and changing of identities and moralities across different communities but also in relation to gender and intersectionality in urban and non-urban contexts across East Africa.