title: Defying, producing, and overlooking stereotypes? The complexities of mobilizing "grandmotherhood" as political strategy.
abstract: This article explores the Canadian Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign, a mobilization of older women responding to the effects of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Based on interviews, participant observation, and archival work, this article looks at how and to what effect "grandmotherhood," as discourse, was mobilized and deployed, in fluid and fractured ways, in order to increase members' credibility as global social justice actors and build their solidarity with African women. These mobilizations functioned to uphold essentialist notions of what being a grandmother means, while also challenging stereotypes of older women as frail and disengaged.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Gender and Women's Studies , Trent University , Peterborough , Ontario , Canada.
authors.forename: May
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chazan
authors.affiliation: b Institute of Political Economy , Carleton University , Ottawa , Ontario , Canada.
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kittmer
mesh_terms: D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000523:psychology*; D017954:Africa South of the Sahara; D000368:Aged; D002170:Canada / Q000208:ethnology; D005260:Female; D000066502:Grandparents / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D016901:Intergenerational Relations / Q000208:ethnology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011057:Politics; D012935:Social Justice / Q000523:psychology*; D013240:Stereotyping
keywords: Activism; grandmother; grandmotherhood; mobilization; older women; stereotypes