Doing Fatherhood in the Middle Nile. Fatherhood, Masculinity and Change in Rural Northern Sudan

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 is evident 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 used to cultivate the fatherchildren 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 comes from author’s ethnographic observations (field research in 2010 and 2013) as well as from the fact being a father himself.