Event ethics and their elasticity: weddings in Botswana and the exploration of the tacit extraordinary

Abstract

Whereas Michael Lambek situates the exploration of the significance of ‘ordinary ethics’ in the everyday as the study of ‘the ethical in the conjunction or movement between explicit local pronouncements and implicit local practices and circumstances’, this article takes the opposite view by drawing attention to special events that appear to engage – or provide space for – extraordinary ethics. Special events and their extraordinary ethics bring into relief the implicitness of the ordinary in everyday ethics. Weddings in Botswana are moments in the social life of the individual, the family and the community that produce such event ethics. On one level, the event ethics relate to the execution of these highly stylized weddings in terms of concerns about their performance and marital arrangements. On another level, the event ethics can have tacit dimensions that belong to the special nature of the occasion. This article argues not only that ‘ordinary ethics’ may be privileged through the study of what is tacit in social interactions, but that ‘event ethics’ also demonstrate the importance of the tacit.

Pentecostalism and the Arts of Insistence: Examples from Botswana

“…Here the case concerned marriage preparations, which in Botswana are a complex matter and take a long time to reach completion. As Van Dijk has reported elsewhere (Van Dijk 2010b, 2012b, 2012c, 2017a, 2017b, these marriage preparations may involve various ritual practices, such as for example the slaughtering of a cow from which a particular piece of meat is taken. Often, a traditional doctor (ngaka) inserts specific substances into that piece before it is eaten by the couple about to get married.…”