AbstractBiblical texts are assumed by communities that use them to be authoritative texts that should guide human relations positively. The phrase 'liberating the word', originating among biblical feminists, however, suggests two issues: first, it points to inherent limitations of the biblical scriptures; second, it places an ethical call on the reader/interpreter to take responsibility for liberating the word. Drawing from her experience as a Tswana African woman, the author analyses Matthew 23, which she reads as colonizing rhetoric of suppressing the Other. She discusses this text in the context of the colonial missionary approach in Africa, which was characterized by condemnation of all that was unfamiliar and a celebration of European culture. She argues that this approach was also scripturally informed.

AbstractAs a child of Zimbabwean migrants who relocated to Botswana when black people were dispossessed of their land, my own historical context is postcolonial. Like other Two-Thirds World populations, modern imperialism has remained a narrative woven into our bodies, spirits, minds and lands, ever demanding to be read and interpreted. Postcolonial framework of reading is thus the art of wrestling with the past and the present in the quest to glean our shared futures, changed and healed futures. Postcolonial literary theories describe myriad ways of reading that explore how imperialism was imposed on various nations/populations and times; its impact on the colonized populations and lands, and how the colonized responded/resisted/collaborated/survived. In literary studies, postcolonial theories explore the production and role of literature and cultural texts in the modern imperial–colonial relationships by examining texts that arise from both ends as well as the role of pre-existing literature. The application of postcolonial theories to biblical literature falls to the latter.

AbstractAssesses the traumatic experiences of Batswana, exploring concepts of remembering and forgetting healing and positive living.

AbstractIn response to K. N. Ngwa's study of Exodus 2 (see #1038), D. begins by recounting African regional wars during his high school and university years, then turns to Ngwa's essay as a "multilayered cultivation of a language that enables us to talk and think about the past, the present, and the future not only in the war-torn African state of Cameroon . . . as well as throughout the world," but where, however, there are "no motifs . . . of complete escape from Pharaoh" (p. 899). How might Africa reengage colonialism? D. points to the African traditions of hospitality and tricksterism. The midwives were such tricksters, as were Moses's mother and sister. D. casts Ngwa's reading as an example of the kind of trickstering that needs to take place today in Africa. See also ##1036, 1038, 1039. [Abstracted by: Paul L. Redditt] Abstract Number: OTA39-2016-JUN-1037

AbstractDiscussing the connections between the phenomenon of traveling and texts, this article aims to show that narratives present plots and maps that invite readers to become particular travellers (and hosts/hostesses) on either side of the power divide. This is done by juxtaposing the kind of traveller posited in the Gospel of John with the maps and stories of the author as representative of citizens of Botswana and southern Africa. By putting the story-maps of pre-colonial, colonial and post-indipendence encounters on the table when reading John's narrative, John's road-signs are checked against the author's story-maps for similarities, differences, and consequences. Resisting the subordination of characters like John the Baptist, Moses, Sophia and the non-believers in the fourth evangelist's narrative, the narrator's ideology is problematised as one which legitimises a selective and exclusive empowering and the rejection of difference. This is seen as an oppertunity for biblical scholars to take different paths, to plit new journeys, to draw new maps and to establish new rules for travelling and hosting others.

AbstractMother Earth is home to an unprecedented number of translations of the Bible, making it the most widely translated book in the world. The pages of this book have traversed a variety of physical and metaphorical borders, navigating diverse geographical, political, economic, cultural, linguistic, and religious intersections. Across space, time, and cultures, millions of readers have found various reasons to read it through diverse lenses. The Bible was frequently translated and brought to the colonized territories with colonial movements. Regrettably, it was often utilized as a tool for subjugation and dominance. However, the colonized people also used this resource for their own goals. Do contemporary biblical studies have the courage to look upon the tomes and tons of translated Bibles lying upon the surface of Mother Earth? What responsibilities and opportunities does the Global Translated Bible(s) lay upon academic biblical studies? What research questions, challenges, and opportunities for collaboration does it open? What are the pedagogical obligations and implications of acknowledging the Global Translated Bible(s)? In other words, what does faithfulness and unfaithfulness to the translated biblical corpus entail, imply, and demand? This lecture proposes and emphasizes the imperative of mainstreaming the Global Translated Bible(s) into academic biblical studies.

AbstractThis article reviews the gendered Pentecostal Bible as documented by various researchers. It assesses how the prophetic-spirit framework encounters and functions within the framework of the inerrant but patriarchal written word. The Spirit framework is an oral canon that opens spaces of gender empowerment. Yet Pentecostal scholars problematise the supposedly liberating Spirit, highlighting that it sometimes denies the materiality of human existence and inhabits the constraining parameters of patriarchal church structures. The article suggests that in addition to the Spirit-Word framework, new Pentecostal theological categories, such as healing and deliverance and the prosperity gospel need to be investigated for the new spaces they open for gender justice. ‘The authority of the Bible as the word of God, and the experience of the Holy Spirit form two of the most important sources of Pentecostal theology’ (Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu 2004:390).

AbstractThe relationship between postcolonialism and feminism is often complicated and conflict-laden in its struggles against empire and patriarchy and its related social categories of oppression. The question is, How have African women in former colonies balanced their act ? To address this question, the article focusses on Boleo, A Setswana Novel . Firstly, theories of post-coloniality and feminism are explored. Secondly, four creative African women writers are analysed for their take on the intersection of postcolonialism and feminism prior to reading Boleo, A Setswana Novel. Thirdly, the analysis of Boleo indicates boundary crossing and cross-border oppressions and solidarity in the struggle against apartheid that features a female protagonist and other minor characters. It is proposed that because the novel equates apartheid with sin ( boleo ), it thus constructs salvation as the concerted communal efforts of resistance and suspicion towards the institutions of the oppressor, characterised by baitiredi [independent or self-actualising workers], a political movement founded by Boleo. The analysis of the African novel indicates that the struggle against colonial and patriarchy gave rise to the First Things First; Second Things First and Both Things Simultaneously approaches, which are evident within African women creative writers. Contribution: This article adheres to the journal’s scope and vision by its focus on a systematic, historical, exegetical and practical reflection within a paradigm in which the intersection of philosophy, religious studies, social sciences and humanities generate an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary contested discourse.

AbstractThe article first compares the apocryphal Acts with the ancient novel, highlights the function of nostalgia in both sets of texts, and considers the connection between the tendency to characterize women as rich and the authorship of the apocryphal Acts. Next it compares the apocryphal Acts with the Pastoral epistles (especially 1 Timothy) in an attempt to illuminate the agenda of the former (nostalgia for a past that actually existed but is now under threat). Finally it considers the history of women in African Independent Churches in Southern Africa in light of the apocryphal Acts to empower women in Southern Africa and elsewhere to claim their his/herstory against gender discrimination in the church and society.--C.R.M. Abstract Number: NTA44-2000-2-1477

AbstractThis paper investigates how native languages were used by colonizers to subordinate the colonized. The paper uses an example from the Setswana language of Botswana to investigate the colonial translations of the Bible and compilation of the first dictionaries and to show how they were informed by their time. It focuses on the translation of Badimo (Ancestral Spirits) and other related words to show how the Setswana language was employed for imperial ends in colonial times. The paper also examines how the subsequent versions of the Setswana Bible and dictionaries reflect the growing spirit of decolonization as colonized subjects became involved in writing their own languages. Given that colonial translations remained in circulation beyond the period of colonization, this paper also documents how native readers developed strategies of resistance by reading the Bible as a divining text to get in touch with Badimo, thereby subverting the colonial translations that equated the latter with evil powers.

AbstractTranslation of Scripture, feminism and post-colonial contexts

AbstractThe article was first written for the SECSOR SBL, eastern regional meeting held in Atlanta in 2008. The theme of the conference was healing and the author of this article was the keynote speaker. This article outlines the attempts that have been made by biblical scholars and faith activists to address their reading and interpreting strategies within the overall context of the HIV and AIDS pandemic. This article offers a comprehensive survey of the literature and the ongoing developments at creating an engaged mode of biblical scholarship and practical reading strategies that will be of service to all people suffering from the blight of HIV/AIDS. A particular concern of the author is that such reading strategies should seek to provide liberation and healing for those struggling with this most pernicious of human scourges.

AbstractThis article discusses the different families of the New Testament literature; its the historical and cultural background. Thereafter, the article samples from each genre to analyse constructions of gender in the gospels, history, epistles and apocalyptic literature of the New Testament.

AbstractAl drie decennia leeft onze wereld nu met hiv en aids. Deze tijd is een reis van openbaring, groeiend inzicht en opnieuw ontwaken geweest, waarin …

AbstractA cultural text is not confined to the borders of its written pages, but to the whole culture that embraces its interpretations. To understand its meaning(s), one needs to go beyond and read also the cultural conditions that have sur­ rounded its production and consumption. ...A cultural text should be read not just for the history it reflects, but also for the history it has made: the political, moral, economic, and social consequences that the text has affected in the culture (Leticia Guardiola-Saenz 1997:72)

AbstractThis article explores how the HIV and AIDS epidemic became a revealing moment in history--highlighting the structures of power within the relationships that we inhabit and their ill-health. This stretched from highlighting the fractures of gender relations, marriage, social ethics, economic distributions, sexual and age disparity, among other things. In so doing, the HIV and AIDS epidemic turned the light on the darkness of our relationship, calling for new imaginations and for justice to be served to and with all.

AbstractThe global HIV and AIDS epidemic has been a context of great suffering: stigmatization, death, grief, orphaned children and impoverishment. It is an attack on life and its quality. Moreover, the most marginalized groups such as women, homosexuals, youth, blacks and the poor have been at the center of the storm of the epidemic. With millions dead, and other millions living with HIV, and with millions of orphaned children globally, the epidemic has been an apocalyptic event that raises significant theological questions. Who is God? Where is God? Does God Care? The same questions are asked about Christ by communities and individuals who are living with HIV and AIDS. How then should we read the Bible in such a global context? This lecture will share the imperative to read the Bible in the context of HIV&AIDS, which calls for frameworks of reading for the affirmation of life, justice, the body, sexuality and compassion among others. "There will be no end of AIDS without ensuring respect and dignity of all people, equity in access to health services and social justices," Prof Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, AIDS 2014 International Conference.

AbstractThe first part of the paper will spend much of its introductory energies on globalization. The rest of the paper will then explore in broad outlines how globalization is related to postcolonialism, gender and religion. My approach, as the title suggests, is through "looking back in order to look forward", which basically means I will briefly assess some of my published works and their position towards globalization.

AbstractThe article utilises narrative, feminist, postcolonial and HIV and AIDS frameworkd to read Mark 5:21-43

AbstractThis paper discusses my activities in the classroom and beyond to address African contexts of the HIV and AIDS crisis. Alongside an account of my strategies, encounters and journeys, I discuss the activist Gugu Dlamini and Mmutle, a trickster of African folklore. Both act as inspirations for the role of change agent.

AbstractThe article theorises about various responses to an HIV and AIDS outbreak by comparing it to a burning hut in the village. These responses range from indifference to action oriented engagement with HIV and AIDS. It is a framework that challenges scholars of religion and other disciplines to place themselves within the story of HIV and AIDS and to plot their own response. The approach is both autobiographical and institutional in its analysis. The article thus highlights insights on curriculum transformation gathered from individual experiences and intuitional engagement by highlighting the writer’s response, organised efforts from the World Council of Churches, the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians, the University of Botswana and other institutions. The conclusion emphasises that both research and teaching should be justice seeking.

AbstractThe article investigates how Purple Hibiscus utilizes intertextuality and explores the intersection of class, gender, race, postcoloniality and violence in a context of theological imagination represented by two siblings, who express their Roman Catholic faith differently. The character of Papa Eugene, whose extreme religiosity and violence pervades the book, is depicted as a colonized subject, who embodies epistemic violence of a colonial past. The decolonizing postcolonial feminist perspective of the book is best modeled by the character of Aunty Ifeoma and how she expresses her Christian faith as an African woman. Whereas, Aunty Ifeoma is an articulate intellectual, women of different status are shown to use different means of resisting patriarchy and violence in the quest for liberating relationships, thereby modeling various expressions of feminist agency. This paper, therefore, explores the intersectionality of gender, class, race, religion, postcoloniality and power in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s debuting novel, Purple Hibiscus set in a political context of a military coup in Nigeria.

AbstractIn this article, the biblical Rahab and I ؛ill pay a visit to Precious Rawiotswe or a cup of red bush tea. That is, the narrative of Rahab will provide a reading grid by which to analyse a Botswanan woman character. Precious Ramotswe, created and popularized by Alexander McCall Smiths’ nod. The Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. This postcolonial feminist reading of the nods analyses the characterization of Mma Ramotswe through Rahab’s context, highlighting how McCall Smith’s narrator serves as a spy who investigates, reports, and translates Botswanan cultures for the Western world by using her as his mouth piece. The article explores how McCall Smith constructs colonialising feminism through the paradigm of saving brown women from brown men. The article highlights that such a strategy depends on a colonial portrait of black men as docile and over-sexed. While The Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series has won worldwide popularity, this article highlights its dependence on colonially-cultivated tastes of constructing Africa as the Other and a readership that still yearns for such literature in the Western world. McCall Smith thus indulges in colonial images, metaphors, and narrative designs of the Other and through them sates the reading appetites of millions in the Western world.

AbstractExploring the implications of teaching in the HIV and AIDS death zone of the early 2000s, this article underlines how the context generated a teaching crisis and demanded multiple responses. HIV and AIDS called into question established scientific knowledge, methods, and theories, highlighting their inadequacy. University classroom boundaries had to be extended to include the community outside the academic halls, thereby necessitating curriculum transformation concerning the content, justification, and methods of teaching. While HIV and AIDS generated silence and death, responsive teaching methods had to create a space of breaking the silence, healing, and working out a theology of resurrection.

AbstractThe book explore biblical portrayal of commercial sex and analysis the interpretation, particularly feminist readers.

AbstractIn this article I begin with Laura Bohannan's 1966 celebrated essay "Shakespeare in the Bush;' which is where I derive the title "The Bible in the Bush." I then discuss some of the first written responses of Batswana to Robert Moffat's translation of the Setswana Bible of 1857. The third and final part of the article looks at some implications for biblical translations in the context of globalization and localization.

AbstractThis special issue of Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies is dedicated to the interpretation of the results of the Botswana AIDS Impact Survey 2013 (henceforth BAIS IV), and seeks to highlight their implications for HIV and AIDS programmes in Botswana as well as for further research.  Through the facilitation of the University of Botswana HIV and AIDS Coordination office, the National Council of AIDS Agency (NACA) was invited to collaborate with the University of Botswana researchers. NACA accepted this invitation by expressing an interest in BAIS IV-based research project. Interested University of Botswana researchers were identified and BAIS IV data and report were made available to them for further investigation.  The authors of the articles in this volume, therefore, interpret and analyse BAIS IV within the national, regional and international literature on HIV and AIDS.

AbstractAfrican oratures consist of a significant corpus of trickster stories. This article investigates indigenous frameworks of reading texts by exploring the philosophical stance of Mmutle, the trickster of Southern Africa, by analyzing eight stories. The analysis of the Mmutle trickster discourse highlights four postures of reading for liberation. First, the vulnerable and oppressed should keep a permanent vigil toward the powerful and always watch out for their interests without fail. Second, the vulnerable and oppressed should be willing to be in solidarity with other vulnerable and oppressed members of the society and to use teamwork. Third, sharp and transgressive thinking skills are vital weapons of resistance, survival, and liberation. Fourth, the Mmutle trickster philosophical framework demands skills of rewriting and redirecting a story toward new and unexpected ends in the service of resistance, survival, and liberation.

Abstract“Botho (Ubuntu)… must permeate every aspect of our lives, like the air we breathe” (Vision 2016: 2) “Botho (Ubuntu) will be the cornerstone that guides our lives in the future” (Vision 2036)

AbstractThis article seeks to trace the fussy boundaries of religion and the public space in the modern colonial archive of southern Africa. It investigates how drawing such boundaries became a central strategy in translating indigenous cultures into sin and creating guilt in communities that did not observe the sacred and secular boundaries. The article uses the attestations of the 19th century letters to Mahoko a Becwana, a London Missionary Society public paper, printed from Kuruman. While the Batswana worldview kneaded religion and all spheres of individual and collective public space, modern western colonial perspectives claimed otherwise. This paper analyses the letters for the intrusion of colonial religion into the public space of Batswana; the colonial agenda to translate key cultural beliefs and activities into the realm of evil and the various responses it initiated - thereby uncovering that perhaps the separation of religion from state has always been a mythological and ideological construction.

AbstractBlog post based on the inauguration of President Victor Aloyo at Columbia Theological Seminary, 11/11/2022

AbstractThis article is an amalgam of four talks given over several days at The Community of Women and Men in Mission Conference. The overall title `Who do you say that I am?' covers the subjects of Jesus the Liberator, The Healer, The One Who Empowers, and The One Who Sends Us. The author explores these issues in the context of Africa and opens a very illuminating set of questions.

AbstractOverview of efforts by some churches in Botswana to help children orphaned by the death of their parents from AIDS. Includes interviews with some church leaders.

AbstractThis article’s analysis of data from Gaborone Bridal showers used theories of agency propounded by Ashivat and Saba Mohammed, drawn from religious women. They highlight “agency as resistance that might also appear as “negotiation with oppressive social structures, and partial compliance” thereby indicating that “docility does not necessarily compromise agency” (Ashivat, 2016:67). Gaborone Bridal Showers are undoubtedly about women encouraging and accompanying another woman to enter a very patriarchal institution: heterosexual marriage, hence its agentic angle has to be interrogated carefully. The analysis of data collected from Gaborone Bridal Showers asked the following questions from interview guides: How does go laya (counselling of a bride) in the cultural setting and the urban-based bridal showers of Gaborone construct and reconstruct gender? How do they create new female spaces? Granted that they still buy a woman household items and that some voices are outright conservative, there is sufficient evidence-based conclusions that Gaborone Bridal Showers are still embrace patriarchy. Yet the analysis of the context and content of the Gaborone bridal shower, with its insistence on “outright freedom” and that every woman is welcome and must be free to talk, regardless of age and marital status, creates an inclusive space that resists equating women’s full humanity with heterosexual marriage. Even the most conservative voices acknowledged radical inclusivity as a change brought by Gaborone Bridal Showers in the go laya female space. Content wise, evidence-based findings indicate iconoclastic twists in go laya—insisting that a married woman must keep her voice, keep her friends, wear what she wants; hold the man accountable financially, insist on faithfulness, insist on shared household chores, watch out for intimate partner violence, enjoy her sexuality and pursue her profession.

AbstractBotho/Ubuntu is a community-building ethic that urges individuals to define their identity by caring, welcoming, affirming and respecting the Other. This paper investigates how Botho/Ubuntu ethic was understood and manifested in traditional Botswana communities. The article explores how Botho/Ubuntu is expressed in the preparation and arrival of a new daughter-in-law, the reception of the mother-in law and the preparation for the arrival of a new baby. The article analyses these three cases to investigate the possible co-habitation of Botho/Ubuntu with patriarchy by exploring the practices and rituals surrounding the welcoming of new members by the community and key hosts. The investigation focuses on marriage and the arrival of a new daughter-in-law (ngwetsi); mother-in-law (matsale) as a key host; and the arrival of a new baby, including the care for a wet mother (go baya botsetse). It seeks to examine how Botho/Ubuntu practices create female spaces and networks while it still co-habits with patriarchy in the Setswana rituals and practices of welcoming the Other. The paper will also explore how women are using some of these activities to create female cultures that construct and deconstruct oppressive gender roles. Keywords: Botho/Ubuntu, patriarchy, gender, marriage, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law and botsetse, bridal and baby showers, wedding, Botswana

AbstractMarriage in Setswana culture is a community of relationships. One of these important relationships is the mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law. This relationship has historically been wrought with tensions and difficulties. In 2014, a group of Pentecostal Christian women formed the mother-in-law and father-in-law showers. They chose biblical eponyms, Naomi and Laban to name parental showers. This article explores Naomi/Laban Showers. Our exploration is based on data collected in Gaborone and surrounding areas over a period of eighteen months (2016-2018). We examine critically how Naomi/Laban Showers build community. We investigate also how the showers construct and reconstruct gender. Our analysis of the data is framed by the intersectionality of Womanist (or Womanism) Social Theory and Botho/Ubuntu African Philosophy. We conclude that Naomi/Laban Showers create a Womanist-Botho/Ubuntu Ethic of Communal Living in which the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law exist in harmonious relationship. Furthermore, the showers create the mother-in-law subjectivity by insisting that her subjectivity must un- Other her daughter-in-law.

AbstractLittle is known on the area of pastoral theological approaches used for premarital counseling during bridal showers in Botswana. Pentecostal pastoral counselors during Naomi/ Laban showers were interviewed about their premarital pastoral counseling work, on values and ethics of Botho/Ubuntu, how the ethic is manifested in a traditional society and how it can be used to construct and reconstruct gender. Qualitative and quantitative data was collected on 66 Naomi-Laban pastoral counselors who took part in the study in Gaborone and semi villages of Kanye, Ramotswa, Mochudi and Tlokweng between 1 st August 2016 and 31 st March 2017. The Naomi-Laban marital counseling group use the communal contextual, cross-cultural and hermeneutic pastoral theological approaches in their deliberations. They have adopted a new church family model that retains traditional values while taking contextual issues into cognizance. Naomi/ Laban constitute an engaging and useful group with experiences and skills that can be tapped by pastoral marital counselors. Their work represents a significant premarital counseling resource. Their approaches could however be made more relevant if they are beefed up with a participatory approach. The latter allows couples to explore their positions on several issues relating to marriage.

AbstractBotswana has experienced rapid urbanisation and industrialisation since independence, with people moving from the rural to the urban areas consequently. The quality of family and peer relationships and the spirit of communityhood have also deteriorated significantly over the years. However, few studies have investigated how people forge or reproduce significant values from the rural areas/traditional practices in the urban space. This study investigated the Botho/Ubuntu-driven practices of building community in the urban space in the form of Naomi and Laban, bridal and baby showers in Gaborone. Showers are gendered celebrations organised by women for a mother or father who will either receive a daughter or a son-in-law or for a woman who is engaged to be married or one who is about to become a mother, respectively. The study combined both quantitative and qualitative methods of inquiry. The study first carried out secondary desktop analysis and, second, conducted fieldwork-based research. Themes such as social networks, social norms of mutuality, reciprocity, social support, collective efficacy, informal social control, mutual trust, empathy and reciprocity appeared in the study. Results show that participation in the showers could bring satisfaction, improved social relations, an increased sense of control and empowerment.

AbstractSince the introduction of economic practices and the ideas of neo-liberalism in many African countries, the indigenous ideas of mutual empowerment have become a dominant feature and the backbone of many societies. Though bridal showers have been in existence for a long while, few studies have investigated how people forge or reproduce mutually reinforcing practices in urban areas. The study investigated the Botho/Ubuntu driven practices of community building in the urban space in the form of Bridal Showers in Gaborone. Showers are gendered cultural, relational celebrations organized by women for a mother or father who will either receive a daughter or a son-in-law; a woman who is engaged to be married or one who is about to become a mother respectively. Themes such as mutually enhancing and growth-fostering relationships among participants, reciprocity, social support, mutual trust and empathy appeared in the study. Results show that participation in the showers could bring satisfaction, improved social relations, an increased sense of control and empowerment.

AbstractThe paper explores Setswana and biblical moral teachings on the environment as well as their functions in the preservation of the Earth. It will also look at how contemporary profit-oriented relationships with the Earth constitute moral degeneration. Lastly, the paper will discuss how some Setswana perspective on the environment can constitute Earth friendly ways of reading the Bible for the revitalization of the Earth community as a whole. This paper demonstrated that in reading the Biblical narrative of Genesis 8:20, 9:17 God was not making a covenant only with men but rather God was making a covenant with the Earth using Noah as a representative of the whole creation. Consequently, Setswana Ecological biblical hermeneutics used in this paper offers an Earth friendly perspective of reading the Bible.

AbstractThe paper explores Setswana and biblical moral teachings on the environmentas well as their functions in the preservation of the Earth, demonstrating withthe text of Genesis 8:20-9:17. It also explores how contemporary profit-orientedrelationships with the Earth constitute moral degeneration. Lastly, the chapterexplores how some Setswana perspectives on the environment can constituteEarth friendly ways of reading the Bible for the revitalisation of the Earth com-munity as a whole.

AbstractThe expectation and arrival of a baby has always played a significant role in many societies across the globe. For simple reasons, babies are perceived as blessings from God. Hence, there is the need to shower the mother-to-be and her unborn baby with gifts and advice in preparation for welcoming, not only the bundle of joy, but also the new additional member into the family. The article is based on data that were collected from baby showers in greater Gaborone over a period of twelve months. The concept of Botho/Ubuntu cuts across as one of the major initiatives that drive baby showers. The goal of this paper is to establish what baby showers entail, how these initiatives started and how they are conducted. But most importantly, the paper will argue that baby showers are a community building initiative in the urban space. The paper seeks to establish the extent to which baby showers are gendered, using analytical insights from the theory of the “good mother”.

AbstractExploring the concept botho/Ubuntu through bridal showers in the urban space, Gaborone Botswana