Grandfathers caring for orphaned grandchildren in rural Southern Malawi : invisible in plain sight?

This thesis explores grandfathers’ caregiving for orphaned grandchildren in rural Southern Malawi. Using an ethnographic approach informed by intersectionality and situated within interpretivist framework, children, young people, and adults from rural impoverished communities of Zomba District were engaged in multiple participatory research activities to collect empirical data as evidence about their views and experiences on/of the topic. The findings suggest that although grandfathers are on the periphery of research and policy on grandparenting in Malawi and other regions of sub-Saharan Africa, they are incontrovertibly at the epicentre of their orphaned grandchildren’s lives. They are providers for their orphaned grandchildren, support their formal education, and are key to intergenerational transmission of knowledge and values through socialisation (informal education), roles which are characterised by intersections of, inter alia, culture, gender, age, physical health, generation, and poverty. Paradoxically, despite performing myriad caring roles in the plain sight of their communities, grandfathers remain largely invisible because of gendered conceptions of care. Subsequently, many grandfathers are systematically excluded from social support programmes, thus highlighting the social exclusion of grandfathers [men] who find themselves in roles not associated with hegemonic notions of masculinities in their communities. This social exclusion from welfare programmes may negatively impact their orphaned grandchildren’s development. Thus, there is need for greater recognition of grandfathers alongside other carers of orphans, and their targeting in social policy and programmes to benefit and assist orphans, particularly to offset livelihood challenges facing grandfathers. Ultimately, this would improve the lives of their orphaned grandchildren. Given the paucity of research on grandfathers’ caregiving for orphaned grandchildren in sub-Saharan Africa, further research is needed to interrogate, inter alia, gendered conceptions of care, gendered social support, and the plight of orphans raised by grandfathers in impoverished communities such as those that participated in this study

Invisible in Plain Sight? Grandfathers Caring for Orphaned Grandchildren in Rural Malawi

Millions of orphans, created by parental deaths due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa, live with, and are cared for, by grandparents. Little research has considered how grandparents and, in particular, grandfathers, are caring for orphans. Here, we employ the analytical concept of generative grandfathering to analyse rural grandfathers’ roles in orphan care within communities of Zomba District, Southern Malawi. Using an ethnographic approach to investigate orphan care, we engaged children, young people and adults in multiple qualitative research activities, including interviews, focus group discussions, stakeholder and dissemination meetings. The findings suggest that although grandfathers’ contributions to orphan care are on the periphery of research and policy concerned with grandparenting in Malawi and other regions of sub-Saharan Africa, grandfathers are incontrovertibly at the epicentre of their orphaned grandchildren’s everyday lives. Grandfathers are providers for their orphaned grandchildren, they support their formal education, and are integral to the intergenerational transmission of both knowledge and values. However, despite performing myriad caring roles in plain sight of their communities, grandfathers remain largely invisible due to gendered (mis)conceptions of care. This highlights the dilemma of grandfathers as ageing men who find themselves in roles not traditionally associated with hegemonic notions of masculinity in their communities