Paper short abstract:

We studied grandfathers’ role in orphan care in Malawi. We found them crucial to their orphaned grandchildren’s daily needs, education, and intergenerational transmission of knowledge and values. Despite this, grandfathers remained largely invisible because of gendered (mis)conceptions of care.

Paper long abstract:

Many grandparents in sub-Saharan Africa are living with millions of orphans created by parental death due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Little research has considered how grandfathers are caring for orphans. We employed the analytical concept of generative grandfathering to analyse grandfathers’ roles in orphan care in rural communities of Zomba District in southern Malawi. Using ethnography, we engaged children, young people, and adults in multiple participatory research activities, including interviews, focus group discussions, stakeholder meetings, and dissemination meetings, to obtain their views and experiences of orphan care. 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. They are providers for their orphaned grandchildren, support their formal education, and are integral to intergenerational transmission of knowledge and values. Despite performing a myriad of caring roles in the plain sight of their communities, grandfathers remain largely invisible because of gendered (mis)conceptions of care. This highlights the dilemma of grandfathers as ageing men who find themselves in roles not associated with traditional, hegemonic notions of masculinities in their communities.