Representations of ‘progressive fatherhood’ in postcolonial Zimbabwe: binaries, ambivalences and ambiguities

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore how the Swedish ideal of ‘progressive fatherhood’ is represented in the context of a photo competition and exhibition organised by the Swedish Embassy in postcolonial Zimbabwe. Drawing on Rose’s (2016) method of visual discourse analysis (VDA), the article examines how Zimbabwean fathers are represented as being progressive through both image and text, and the extent to which these representations could be seen to challenge or ‘mimic’ (Bhabha, 1984) the Swedish ideal of ‘progressive fatherhood’. While some of these representations reproduced certain binaries, they also presented the kind of ambivalent, ‘postfeminist’ relationship with gender equality that has been identified in other contexts. Overall, these representations were found to go beyond colonial mimicry by challenging and extending the Swedish ideal of ‘progressive fatherhood’ beyond the context of the middle-class, nuclear family.