There are more grandmothers in the world today than at any time in the history of the planet. In the Global North, they are healthier, better educated and have more work experience than ever before. Many spent the 1960s as activists; they know how to precipitate social change. Today, they seek challenge, purpose and meaning. Globally, they are forming groups to kindle peace, justice, education, health, human rights, a clean environment and a better world for their grandchildren. An international grandmother movement is under way.
When I wrote Grandmother Power (Gianturco Reference Gianturco2012), I realised I could not tell the story of the international grandmothers’ movement without documenting the significant work of the Toronto-based Stephen Lewis Foundation's Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign. Three of the Campaign's grandmother groups (one in Canada; two in Africa) are each the focus of a full chapter. After working with these groups, I became an unabashed supporter. I delivered keynote speeches at Stephen Lewis Foundation (SLF) fundraisers in 15 cities across Canada. All of my author royalties from Grandmother Power benefit the SLF's Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign.
Dr Chazan spent ten years doing the research on which her book is based, conducting most of her fieldwork between 2006 and 2010. The book examines the Grandmother to Grandmother Campaign, which today involves almost 10,000 volunteer grandmothers in 240 groups across Canada who raise funds that the Foundation distributes to groups of African grandmothers raising children orphaned by AIDS. The Grandmothers’ Movement focuses on the Campaign's grandmother groups in Canada and on those under the umbrella of a SLF grantee, the Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust (HACT), which supports families affected by AIDS in the Valley of 1000 Hills near Durban, South Africa. The book's purpose is to ‘expand current thinking around global AIDS response, transnational solidarity, and old age’ (p. 22).
Chazan's book targets three audiences. One is organisations that combat AIDS internationally (e.g. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNAIDS, President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)), which might use her findings to refine their transnational strategies. These organisations’ leaders are peers of Stephen Lewis, who is a seasoned activist in the effort to turn the tide of AIDS, including serving as United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan's Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa (2001–2006). Another audience for the book is scholars, particularly those who specialise in ageing and gender issues, who will not be surprised by Chazan's rigorous research and theoretical nuance. Finally, she ‘deliberately attempted to write it for a wide readership’ (p. 12), using an intimate voice and enriching each chapter with anecdotes.
Chazan's research expertise, the fact that she has lived in both Canada and South Africa, and her decade-long involvement with both SLF and HACT complement her obvious affection and respect for her ‘subjects’ – as well as her subject. She is donating 100 per cent of the author royalties from her book to HACT.
In South Africa, Chazan learned to speak isiZulu. She tracked the activities of grandmother groups affiliated with HACT. She conducted focus group and depth interviews with 80 grandmothers and produced photo journals and family trees with 100 more. In Canada, she interviewed SLF staff, conducted archival research, surveyed 167 grandmothers in 53 groups, shared her findings with Foundation management and spoke at grandmother groups’ events. She also attended the SLF's watershed grandmother gatherings in Toronto (2006) and Manzini, Swaziland (2010), each of which resulted in a proclamation that continues to define and inspire the grandmothers’ work on the African continent as well as in Canada.
The central argument Chazan puts forth regarding the Canadian/HACT alliance, which she calls a ‘transnational network’ of grandmothers, is that (a) the network is driven by strong leadership, institutional support and resources, and, most significantly, by the ways in which those who influenced the discourse strategically use the concept of ‘grandmotherhood’; (b) the power of ‘grandmotherhood’ as a rallying cry has been magnified by major social, political, economic, demographic and historic shifts in Canada and South Africa; and (c) participants in the network are achieving their goals without having identical perspectives, motivations, understandings or identities. To support that third point, Chazan describes the narratives that unite and motivate the grandmothers in Canada and at the HACT.
The Canadian narrative:
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1. Names elderly African women as ‘grandmothers’ who assume responsibility for raising their grandchildren because their children have died of AIDS.
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2. Identifies the AIDS pandemic as profoundly and unjustly altering African grandmothers’ lives.
Chazen writes that those two ideas resonate deeply with Canadian grandmothers, who, sensitised by love for their own children and grandchildren, empathise with the African women who bury their own children and raise their grandchildren despite their own poverty and age. The Canadian grandmothers welcome the opportunity to stand in solidarity with those African grandmothers.
The HACT narrative: group members
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1. Did not organise in response to AIDS but rather to provide members with the emotional and spiritual solace needed to survive extreme poverty, domestic violence and the brutal transition period after Apartheid.
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2. Did not define even themselves as ‘grandmothers’, but rather as widows, older women, Christian women, rural women and/or women struggling financially.
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3. Did not take care of their grandchildren because their children had died of AIDS but because it is routine in their culture for grandmothers to raise grandchildren.
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4. Did not understand that Canadian grandmothers stand in solidarity with them but, rather, believe that the Canadian grandmothers who visit them are simply interested, charitable individuals.
Chazan observes that the SLF Grandmother to Grandmother Campaign created ‘observable, positive effects on women's lives’ (p. 166) both in Canada (by inspiring grandmothers to do meaningful, gratifying work and to forge close communities) and at HACT (by providing crucially needed support to grandmother group members and their families).
I am sure that Dr Chazan accurately describes the narrative held by HACT grandmothers. But that narrative is not what I heard from the two SLF African grantee groups I interviewed for Grandmother Power: Swaziland for Positive Living, Manzini, Swaziland and Grandmothers Against Poverty and AIDS, Cape Town, South Africa. The narratives that both those groups’ members told me were closer to the Canadian narrative: that from the beginning, they self-identified as ‘grandmothers caring for children orphaned by AIDS’, and that they were aware of (and took comfort from) solidarity with Canadian grandmothers. Chazan writes that her ‘book is not intended to make generalizations about how all (or even most) African grandmothers are organizing around AIDS…’ (p. 32). But the fact that I did not hear a different narrative and she did, makes me cautious. I hope more research will be conducted among the 300 SLF African grantees before anyone draws final conclusions about contrapuntal narratives and transnational AIDS programmes.
The SLF's 2006 Toronto Statement ends with these ringing words: ‘May this be the dawn of the grandmothers’ movement.’ I suspect those words inspired Chazan's book title The Grandmothers’ Movement which, she writes, is comprised of participants in the SLF Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign plus unaffiliated, Canadian supporters of that Campaign. Chazan's definition however is more circumscribed than mine in geography and issues. My work, Grandmother Power, documents a vital, diverse, grandmothers’ movement in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, North America and Africa. The work of 17 grandmother groups is documented and almost 100 more are listed on my project website (globalgrandmotherpower.com). I learn of new groups almost daily, as grandmothers around the world mobilise to fight for social, economic, political and environmental justice in their communities and countries.
I applaud the impact Chazan's work can have on readers’ assumptions about ageing and about older women's roles. ‘This remarkable story of strength, struggle and contribution’, she writes, ‘calls into question stereotypes about older women's passivity, disengagement, frailty and marginality’ (p. 183). Her book does a convincing job of making the case against such stereotypes. For me, that is The Grandmothers’ Movement’s most compelling contribution.
