Paper short abstract:

The presentation looks at fathering in Côte d'Ivoire as performative practice. It asks: how is fatherhood performed in public, who are the addressees of performances of fatherhood and what importance is attributed to descent from a praxeological perspective in traditionally matrilinear societies.

Paper long abstract:

In my presentation I will look at fathering as performative practice. I will analyze how fatherhood is performed in public, ask who are the addressees of performances of fatherhood and what importance is attributed to descent from a praxeological perspective in the context of traditionally matrilinear societies.

Studying fathering as performance and as performative will help reconciling processes of doing kinship with the essence and structural underpinnings of parenthood, as has recently been argued for by McKinnon 2016. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among middle-class fathers in urban and peri-urban areas of Côte d'Ivoire I will look at norms and practices of good fatherhood as expressed and performed by family welfare officers, education experts and family counselling programs of churches. For many of my interlocutors, intensive fathering offered an alternative and attractive model for living and was used to renegotiate and re-evaluate gender roles, the relations between the nuclear and the extended family and to craft imaginaries of a proper childhood that largely differed from their own childhood.

Paper short abstract:

This is a study on disruptions and continuities of paternity and fatherhood of products of 'same-sex' marriage and 'spare' sex partners in Nigeria. It considers the clash between the indigenous African and Eurocentric models and practices of paternity and impact on identified victims and society

Paper long abstract:

African traditions provide indigenous solutions to specific health and social problems such as impotency, barrenness, and male-child-succession syndrome. Examples of such provisions are 'same-sex' marriage - women marrying women and 'spare' husband - a secret male sex partner who does the fertilization for the sole purpose of succession and inheritance. The result of the unions is the birth of children whose identity and paternity experience disruptions, particularly in adherence to norms based on Anglo-American standards despite acceptable and recognized methods or strategies adopted by traditional societies, which have been in practice even before colonization, to, legally, protect such children's paternities and self-identities. This paper, therefore, is a qualitative study of the disruptions and continuities in the identity and paternity of products of 'same-sex' marriage and 'spare' sex partners in contemporary Nigeria. It considers the clash between the indigenous African and Eurocentric models and practices of paternity and the impact on identified victims and society as portrayed in narratives and popular cultures. The study adopts the descriptive and in-depth analytical methods and finds the literary approaches of feminism, psychoanalysis and new historicism very relevant. The paper finds some notions regarding the identity and paternity of the 'fatherless' as misguided and Eurocentric, and reasserts, according to accepted norms and traditions of Nigerian people, persons not to be regarded as fatherless and whose paternity are never to be questioned. This paper stems from research carried out as an African Humanities Program (AHP) Postdoctoral Fellow under the auspices of Carnegie Incorporation, New York.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic material collected between 2012 and 2016 in Niamey, this paper explores practices through which male Tuareg refugees from Mali renegotiate their father status in the face of adverse and often deeply humiliating living conditions in exile.

Paper long abstract:

When I arrived in August 2012 in Niamey for the first stay of my doctoral research, I was struck by the frequency of men' comments on their living conditions in exile. They portrayed themselves as those whose living conditions had turned them into "nothing," aytedim or adinat in bànan, or "zéro" in French. Back home in northern Mali, this term is often used to derogatorily indicate someone's loss of social consideration related or linked to birth. The fact that male refugees used this term so profusely to characterize their own situation in Niamey reflects on their sense of crisis and their perception that exile undermined their male honor (ahalis wan tidit). Men deplored that their respect (semghar) as husbands and father have been undermined as they could no longer live up to cultural expectations of "providing" for their families within their adopted role as head of a household. Conventionally, the man of household, the father, would expect obedience while the mother as well as their children would heed his demands in return for his "providing" for the family. Nowadays, under conditions of exile, the respect and honor that derive from a family father's role as sole provider can no longer be achieved. Accordingly, they feel that they have become "useless" people or "nothing." This paper explores practices through which my male refugee informants renegotiate their father status in the face of adverse, and often deeply humiliating living conditions in exile in Niger.

Paper short abstract:

We show how the dominant discourse on masculinity becomes modified over time by the experiences men go through from childhood to adulthood as they seek to marry and establish families

Paper long abstract:

Using data drawn from observations and interviews with men aged 30-50 years living in Kampala Uganda, we show how the dominant discourse on masculinity becomes modified over time by the experiences men go through from childhood to adulthood. Through their aspirations to establishing a family, being a good spouse and a good father, men end up being trapped in contradictory masculine terrains. One the one hand, childhood experiences including growing up polygynous families, financial struggles, and the effect of the HIV and AIDS pandemic, strengthen men's desire and attempts to disentangle themselves from the notions of masculinity of their fathers' generation. Yet, on the other hand, they constantly find themselves unable to live up to these aspirations— establishing a family, being a good spouse and a good father. As a result, they constantly struggle to live up to their aspirations while the notions of masculinity they grew up with have shaped them more than they anticipated and thus appeared more formative. To explain their struggle and the underlying shifts in masculinity, we use the concept of wellbeing as applied by Jackson (2011) where the vicissitudes of life stand central. We propose to approach men's lives as a journey, so as to understand the transitional struggles experienced by men to become good fathers, spouses and sons. Masculinity is not an explanatory category, however wellbeing provides a powerful tool to analyze shifting masculinities and their meaning for men attempting to disentangle from the dominant discourse on masculinity

Paper short abstract:

The paper represents an effort to determiante a wide variety of practices, customs and narrations related to fatherhood in the rural Northern Sudan.

Paper long abstract:

The paper represents an effort to understand what it means to be a father in modern rural Northern Sudan. After a brief consideration of a local model of manhood and various forms of fatherhood in the Sudanese societies, its rich cultural context is examined in some detail. It seems that fatherhood is intricately related to a wide variety of practices, customs and narrations, all of which can throw some light on the local model of masculinity and its dynamics. The paper suggests that in case of Muslim communities of Northern Sudan fatherhood is, first of all, a father-son relation which is aimed to prepare a boy to the role of "a very important man". Just so little and so much. Since quite often a young generation is not willing or not able to fulfil the fathers` expectations, it is neither a simple or obvious matter. The issue is also to explore the discourses and the practices of "globalized fatherhood"- for example, how new communication technologies are being used to cultivate father-children relations. Though the paper refers to certain ethnographic experiences in Northern Sudan, it is not a result of systematic research on fatherhood. It can be rather called a "personal ethnology" - it stems from authors` ethnographic observations (field researches in 2010 and 2013) as well as from being a father.

Paper short abstract:

Changing roles of women in West African capitals are likely to  destabilize gender relations. This communication will focus on the  transformations of masculinity, understood as the investments of  men in domestic work, care-giving and children education, through the  example of Dakar and Lome

Paper long abstract:

LONG : Women in West African capitals are more and more numerous in 

so-called "modern" jobs in the "formal" sector of the economy, because 

of their better access to schooling in recent decades. These 

transformations are likely to destabilize gender relations. On the one 

hand, professional work is no longer a men privilege. On the other 

hand, increasing women's access to employment income and their 

contribution to household income is shaking up the "male breadwinner" 

model.

This communication will focus on the transformations of masculinity, 

understood here as the investments of men in domestic work, 

care-giving and children education, through the example of two West 

African capitals : Dakar and Lome

This communication will be based on a cross-analysis of quantitative 

and qualitative surveys conducted in Dakar and Lome. In Dakar, a 

quantitative survey, inspired by the one conducted in Lomé in 2010 (on 

500 households) was conducted in 2018 among 1,200 households. These 

surveys include the usual participation of household members in 

domestic work, current household expenditures and in educational and 

care-giving work. These data will be mobilized to uncover the division 

of domestic work within households and the profiles of married men who 

are currently investing domestic , educational and care-giving work. 

Therefore, the communication will answer to major questions : • How 

does fatherhood change (or remain the same) with motherhood shifts ? • 

How do different family formations and changing economic roles of 

mothers, influence fatherhood?

Paper short abstract:

this paper interrogates on the one hand, the construction of masculinity as dominant cultural ethos and as aesthetic symbols and, on the other the seeming crises, even failure of male characters within the context of their most virile performative function of fatherhood.

Paper long abstract:

Mainstream African literary and intellectual discourses are, significantly, defined by an overt masculinist episteme. This traditional hegemony, ordinarily, presupposes a privileging and ascendancy of maleness. Yet, there appears a rupturing of this dominant supposition in which masculinities in Africa appear fraught with contradictions. Several literary representations of male characters from the perspectives of many male and female African writers seem to serially embody the failures of otherwise virile and potently powerful men. Thus, within the political contexts of 'national' fathers or within the more mundane, domestic sphere of marriage, it appears that men fail to conform to dominant gender norms and expectations. Theoretically grounded within Masculinity studies and its related discourses of fatherhood, identities, sexuality etc. in African literary debates, this paper interrogates on the one hand, the construction of masculinity as dominant cultural ethos and as aesthetic symbols and, on the other the seeming crises, even failure of male characters within the context of their most virile performative function of fatherhood. Therefore, making a selection from diverse literary and cultural backdrops ranging from Achebe's Okonkwo in contrast with his father, Uloko, in Things Fall Apart, the paper also examines Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions in which Babamukuru and his brother, Jeremiah contrast. Finally, I rivet attention on Baba Segi, the head of a rambling polygamous home in Lola Shoneyin's The Secret lives of Baba Segi's Wives. Through these analyses, I proffer some critical tools for the interrogation of the performance of masculinities and fatherhood in Africa.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the ways that imaginaries of African men are assembled within global knowledge and development networks, with a focus on research and ideas related to the spaces where so-called 'positive masculinities' emerge, proliferate and translate into interventions.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines how research and ideas regarding 'positive masculinities' and 'responsible fatherhood' emerge and proliferate among employees of a Dutch development organization, imagining and establishing itself as a frontrunner in the engagement of men in sexual, reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Arguments draw on organizational ethnography and analysis of discursive practices embedded in gender transformative training materials developed to engage African men via SRHR interventions. These ideas circulate within a Dutch-funded, globally distributed knowledge network, largely invisible to the men being fixed. Simultaneously, these power relations are hidden to the ones doing the fixing, unaware of how Dutch gender norms are mobilized to legitimize such (re-)ordering.