Fenske, Penelope2009-05-052009-05-0520092009-05-05http://hdl.handle.net/1828/1404This study considered if Zambian girls and young women who had lost parents to AIDS described themselves in resiliency terms, where did their resilience comes from, and how did I think it related to attachments they reported in the context of their life histories. I conducted semi-structured life history interviews with 18 participants (13 – 22 years old), who lost parents to AIDS, before 15 years of age. The analysis included a description of the life histories of four representative participants, a content analysis, which revealed 12 concepts that emerged from the data, and my interpretation, connecting the themes to attachment and resilience theory. I found that all but one of the participants reported having the capacity to keep going and credited this strength to a supreme spiritual being (God), and it seemed that they viewed God, as a surrogate attachment figure, who provided them with their necessities.enAvailable to the World Wide WebFemales, Zambia, AIDS, Attachment, Resilience,UVic Subject Index::Humanities and Social Sciences::Social SciencesThesis