Zimbabwean Transnational Migration,(In) Visible Masculinities,and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Shimmer Chinodya’s Chairman of Fools

Introduction

This article examines the effect of the relationship between Zimbabwean transnational migration and gender on the concept of “(in) visible masculinities” and how the space that would have been evacuated by these “masculinities,” as a direct consequence of the migratory experience, is reorganized or reconfigured in Shimmer Chinodya’s (2005) Chairman of Fools. This space, both marital and familial, compels us to reconfigure our conceptualization of masculinities and femininities, gender relations, and gendered identities in general. However, men’s temporary or permanent return migration results in masculinities accommodating the changes provoked by their absence in the process transforming gender relations and gendered identities into more democratic spaces of interaction. In my conceptualization of gender, I rely on Kandiyoti’s (1988) idea about women bargaining with patriarchy. I am mostly interested in Kandiyoti’s (1988) idea that women strategize within a set of concrete constraints and that different forms of patriarchy present women with distinct “rules of the game” and call for different strategies to maximize security and optimize life options with varying potential for active or passive resistance in the face of oppression. Gender, thus, becomes open to negotiation, mediation, and contestation, and a platform where gendered subjectivities are constructed.

Migration, (In) Visible Masculinities, and Gender Transformations in Chairman of Fools

Chairman of Fools centers on Farai and his family’s experiences. Farai is a professor in creative writing at an American university and returns home to Zimbabwe for vacation. Farai discovers, to his dismay, that his family, especially his wife Veronica, has changed into a reserved and independent person as she largely no longer depends on him. He fails to accommodate a transformed Veronica and the implications of such transformation in his life. Farai’s mental health, largely as a consequence of this failure, suffers, and he is hospitalized in an annexe for the mentally ill. Farai’s temporary “madness” (bipolar disorder) therefore is a discursive and ideological migratory experience that makes it possible for Farai to be transformed and accept the changes around him typified by his wife Veronica who has become more independent and assertive during his absence.

Muchemwa and Muponde (2007) argue that migration, whether local or transnational, results in absence that is literal and figurative, and the absence manifests in the forced retreat of the male body from various sites of visuality and authority. Muchemwa and Muponde (2007) argue further that because of the current Zimbabwean economic meltdown and political mayhem, a new and massive migrancy is dispersing and reconfiguring Zimbabwean manhoods, fatherhoods, and masculinities at an unprecedented pace, and will soon be associated with depressed local masculinities and newer womanhoods and femininities abroad and back home. Thus, Muchemwa and Muponde (2007) note that in the long and indefinite absence of men, women left behind take on the roles of “men,” and the reverse is true in instances of women leaving men at home as they become international migrant laborers. This situation, as Muchemwa and Muponde (2007) observe, results in men assuming the roles of women. However, in my reading of Chairman of Fools, I want to slightly depart from this conclusion and argue that absence (out migration) and return (reverse migration) of men does not necessarily result in men assuming the roles of women but in a transformed type of masculinity that is more tolerant and open to gender change.

Farai, who migrates to the United States of America as a professor of creative writing, largely epitomizes the privileged and valorized migrant postcolonial intellectual. Dirlik (1998) notes that the postcolonial starts when the third-world intellectual arrives in the first-world academe. Assumedly, this arrival is punctuated by a life of privilege as the migrant occupies spaces of honor and respectability. However, Smith (2004) cautions that we need to have a more nuanced perspective of migration as it does not always result in social and economic upward movement. More importantly, transnational migration, irrespective of the privileged economic life one might enjoy, is always a psychological and social traumatic experience largely characterized by rupture and disjuncture. Farai typifies this as he leads a lonely life in America:

He had time, silence and solitude, but he could not write. He was too lonely to put pen to paper, and his impotence made him feel guilty and restless. He went to the library for books, discovered exciting new authors in translation and read voraciously but remained empty and unsatisfied. (p. 133)

Farai compensates for and dispels the loneliness through attending conferences and seminars and networking on the Internet. Farai’s mobility resonates with Elliot and Urry’s (2010) view of mobilities when they state that we now live in an “intensively mobile society” (p. 3), which has significantly transformed the nature of occupations, personal identity, and life strategies. This “intensively mobile society,” which is a product of globalization, exerts new demands upon the self and its capacities for psychic reorganization. Nevertheless, Farai’s keen sense of loneliness is not adequately appeased:

He travelled a lot, though, jetting across states to read from his work at colleges. He attended literature association conferences and made friends, with intelligent, large-hearted people, men and women, with whom he corresponded by e-mail. But the vast distances made real contact difficult. (p. 133)

The Internet that Farai resorts to, as a way of keeping at bay the loneliness, proves inadequate as he continues to be assailed by loneliness. Farai’s life in the diaspora is thus projected as largely degenerative despite it being a seemingly privileged one and results in the worsening of his bipolar disorder.

Farai largely attributes his bipolar disorder to his life in the United States of America. A heightened sense of anxiety and loneliness chiefly characterize the disorder:

He remembers the long months in the States, one of a handful of black professors, trying to teach creative writing and African literature to white kids some of whom even struggled to construct sentences and paragraphs . . . He had arrived in the USA fired with enthusiasm, only to find the college machinery somewhat slovenly and indifferent . . . His colleagues in the department accepted him and let him be but they never really opened up to him, or so he thought. (p. 131)

The tone of the language used above is very significant in highlighting Farai’s loneliness. Farai is described as “one of a handful of black professors” (p. 131) in a largely White-dominated community. Farai’s racial identity as “Black” therefore heightens his ontological insecurity as he is largely perceived as the “other” whose racial and ethnic difference marginalizes him. Additionally, Farai’s loneliness is accentuated by seemingly mutual mistrust between him and his colleagues in the department. Farai’s transnational migration therefore is inflected along the lines of class, ethnicity, and race and results in inertia and alienation. More importantly, Farai’s loneliness in America is expressive of failure to successfully adapt to the American environment as he fails to successfully create an overlapping, hybrid, or replaced identity that, as Sussman (2010) argues, results from the need to adapt to life away from the homeland.

Farai’s return to Zimbabwe, however, fails to alleviate his sense of alienation and loneliness. Veronica’s transformation exemplifies this. Farai’s temporary migration to the United States literally and metaphorically leads to an absence of an authoritative father figure at home and in the process, creates space for Veronica to assume “masculine” roles. Veronica’s assumption of “masculine” roles is akin to Butler’s (1988) theorization of gender that is premised on performative acts. Veronica’s performance of “masculine” roles thus alters the gender relations between Farai and Veronica and subsequently their gender identities transforming their marriage in the process.

Sinha, Smita, and Nalin (2012) argue that male migration leads to modification in the structure of family life and also transforms women’s social and economic position, often to their detriment. Masculinity in Zimbabwe is largely perceived and judged on the basis of its ability to protect and provide for the family. However, through absence, which Muchemwa and Muponde (2007) view as the “forced retreat of the male body from various sites of visuality and authority” (p. xviii), fictional women like Veronica become more assertive and independent as they “take on the roles of men.” Veronica reminiscences thus,

A year out there, after a decade of blame and abuse and you think I’ll take it forever. You think I’ll stay the same, that I won’t change to become ME, MYSELF, I, ME. Be warned, my dear man, that I’m definitely changing; that there are things in store for you. (p. 1)

The tone of Veronica’s language is reflective of the bitterness felt against Farai after he left her and the family behind. The statement “ME, MYSELF, I, ME” (p. 1) exemplifies Veronica’s assertiveness and independence. Thus, Veronica has significantly changed, as a consequence of Farai’s transnational migration. She affirms this in her statement that “a woman changes a lot in twenty short months” (p. 2). Veronica perceives her transformation as necessary in her becoming her “real self” (p. 3) and not someone Farai wants her to be. Simbisai, Farai’s friend, supports this as she informs Farai that money is not all that a woman needs:

especially the educated, professional types. Maybe she is asserting her independence, after years of docility. You ask my husband about that. We went through that phase. Maybe she’s showing you that she can be herself even when you’re away for a year. (p. 50)

Veronica’s transformation might also be attributed to her Pentecostal/charismatic Christian orientation. Chairman of Fools, as Veronica exemplifies, also highlights why becoming a born-again Christian woman often represents a different kind of challenge and a more radical change of lifestyle. Lindhardt (2015, p. 254), in his study of Neo-Pentecostalism and its impact on the masculinities of converted Tanzanian men, notes that the most significant contribution of Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity to processes of “social and cultural change lies in the movement’s ability to shape gender roles and gendered identities in new ways.” Lindhardt (2015) argues further that women in Pentecostal/charismatic communities learn strategies for dealing with non-converted husbands and acquire a new set of interpretive frameworks for understanding aggressive and irresponsible male behavior. Thus, Veronica’s apparently “assertive” and “independent” behavior is not only a product of her feminist orientation but can also be attributed to her Pentecostal Christian positioning.

Furthermore, Farai upon his return discovers that his privileged status as the family’s protector and provider has been significantly challenged and eroded. This accentuates Farai’s insecurity and anxiety and triggers his excessive and toxic protection of his children. Farai’s apprehension is exemplified by his perception of “home.” He conceptualizes his “home” as a “prison”:

When he arrives home it is after midnight. He clicks on the remote and the electric gate shudders open. The house is in darkness and the security lights are not switched on. He waits for the gate to close, pockets the remote and approaches what feels like his grim prison for the four-thousandth time. (p. 15)

The above-cited passage is significant in highlighting Farai’s insecurities and fears. We are told “the electric gate shudders” (p. 15) when Farai clicks the remote control and this is evocative of someone who feels unwanted. This accentuates Farai’s sense of loneliness and dejectedness and aggravates his bipolar disorder. Importantly, the “shuddering” of the gate is also suggestive of Farai’s fear of the assertive and independent form of femininity that Veronica now has. We are also told that the house is in “darkness” (p. 15) and the “security lights are not switched on” (p. 15). This, therefore, further emblematizes Farai’s insecurity and fear as he is stepping into the world now largely dominated by his transformed wife.

Farai’s conceptualization of “home” as a “grim prison” (p. 15) is also illustrative of his detestation of Veronica’s transformation. Woodward (2002) argues that “home” largely connotes security and safety for most people. However, as Woodward (2002) argues further, “home” for many people may be a place of risk, danger, and violence. Woodward (2002) also notes that “home” has a special place in the history of journeys and that the idea of “home” contributes to the desire to stabilize identity, since an expression of longing for home can also be translated as the need to secure the sense of who we are when our spatial location has compromised that security. Stefanson (2004), in a similar vein, observes that “home”

is the healing response to all other places and peoples, the starting point and end point that provide a reprieve to all phases of in-betweenness— travel and adventure, newness and strangeness, alienation and confusion, and unpredictability. It is the opposite of all the other places out there rolled into one. Home is security, comfort, certainty. (p. 24)

Farai sees “home” as a threatening space to his sense of masculinity and manliness and this engenders in him feelings of betrayal, uncertainty, fear, and imprisonment. These feelings, coupled with his loneliness in America, are the primary motivators for the assumption of a lifestyle characterized by drunkenness and prostitution. Farai has a traditional conceptualization of “home” as he sees himself as the sole provider and protector of the family and home. His conceptualization is akin to the 1950s’ West’s understanding of home as a private domestic space inhabited by a particular family form based on traditional familial ideology. This ideology as Woodward (2002) notes,

embraced the notion of a heterosexual, married couple and their dependent children in an economic relationship dependent on a male breadwinner and female mother and carer who did not participate in the labour market. (p. 50)

Thus, Farai expects his wife to pander to his every whim and is disappointed when he realizes that Veronica has changed. One therefore witnesses migrations of a marital nature, specifically gendered in nature, as Veronica is no longer the passive victim of Farai’s misconduct. This ideological and discursive marital migration is largely attributed to Veronica’s success in maximizing her security and life and career options during her husband’s absence. Veronica’s success is akin to Kandiyoti’s (1988) concept of women bargaining with patriarchy to “maximise security and optimise life options with varying potential for active or passive resistance in the face of oppression” (p. 274). Kandiyoti (1988) further observes that patriarchal bargains exert a powerful influence on the shaping of women’s subjectivity and determine the nature of gender ideology in different contexts. It is this change in Veronica that forces Farai to assume a “troublesome” identity and engage in toxic masculine behavior that endangers his family.

Psycho-Discursive Migration and the Generation of a “Troublesome” Identity

Farai’s temporary “madness” is testimony to psycho-discursive migrations and is largely heightened by his loneliness in America and accentuated by the fact that his wife has assumed a more independent form of life. Veronica’s independence is a direct consequence of Farai’s absence while employed as a professor of creative writing at an American university. Farai’s psycho-discursive migration and the subsequent generation of a “troublesome” identity is chiefly associated with his loneliness and drunkenness in America. This lonely life challenges much conventional thinking on transnational migration, which perceives it as the preserve of the privileged. Farai’s psycho-discursive mobility, which in medical terms is considered as a bipolar disorder, is heightened when he temporarily returns home only to find his wife, Veronica, changed. Consequently, Farai fails to accept this reality.

Central to Veronica’s transformation is her profession and social upward mobility indicated by her rise at work and purchase of a new car. However, this generates insecurity and fear in Farai who feels threatened by an independent, professional Veronica. Farai does not want Veronica to work as he wants her to be economically dependent on him. He confesses this in one of his paranoiac moments:

Look at this. CORRUPTION EXPOSED AT DISCOUNT HOUSE. I told you, Tindo. Don’t you see? Look at this picture. It’s him, don’t you see? He has been corrupt for years and they never knew it. Stealing right under their noses and pushing all the blame on Veronica. She’s just a poor victim of their system. I’ve told her many times to quit and work for me but she won’t hear of it. Her eyes are set on promotion, on him. She was following him, coming with him to steal my children and look what’s happened. (p. 55)

Farai in his deluded mind subscribes to the view that Veronica and assumedly by extension women should not work. Farai’s demeaning conceptualization of women, which might be inferred from his hallucinations, is largely premised on patriarchal thinking that perceives men as the supposed providers and protectors of families. However, this thinking is challenged by Veronica who insists on working and sees Farai’s migration to America as an opportunity to becoming her “real self” (p. 3).

Farai’s migration to America literally and metaphorically reflects the absence of men from sites and spaces of visibility and authority discussed by Muchemwa and Muponde (2007). This absence is significant as it transforms gender relations and results in the production of new forms of masculinities and femininities. Additionally, as exemplified by Veronica, women in the absence of men tend to assume “masculine” roles as they occupy spaces of privilege and authority formerly the preserve of men. This acceptance of “masculine” roles by women further resonates with Butler’s (1988) concept of the performativity of gender as women begin to act “manly.” In addition, Veronica’s gender performativity results in the production of what Judith Halberstam (2002) cited by Nye (2005, p. 1942) terms as “female masculinity.” “Female masculinity” is generated when women enact the same masculine scripts as men. These performative acts destabilize the conventional understanding of gender, which views masculinities as the preserve of men and conversely femininities as the province of women. Men’s return migration from such contexts can be successful only in an environment where men are willing to accept the necessity and inevitability of change. More importantly, men must also be prepared to accept that return migration does not necessarily result in the re-claiming of old identities as old identities and formerly occupied spaces are reconfigured during absence owing to outward migration. However, failure to accept these changes triggers a “crisis” for most men, which has the potential of destroying their sanity as exemplified by Farai.

Farai’s depicted psycho-discursive migration is predicated on his unwillingness to accept the inevitability of change. Veronica’s job and car, which implies that Veronica no longer depends on Farai and his Mazda car for her daily mobilities, typifies Farai’s psycho-discursive migration. Thus, the car at the level of mobilities signifies a woman’s attempt to break out of the confining space of a man’s control and authority, which is largely premised on economic power. Farai’s failure to stop the blue Toyota Corolla car that features in his paranoiac moments metaphorically exemplifies this:

At twelve the next day the mechanic starts resembling his car. While he waits he goes out to look at the traffic. The blue corolla stalks him. It emerges from the shops, ever so slowly and approaches the garage. At the gate it gathers speed and darts towards the north, only to reappear in the east. Simultaneously there are several blue corollas, two or three perhaps, coming and going and reversing, droning like planes taking off, patrolling the area. For whole minutes they vanish, only to reappear in a convoy, before disappearing again. (p. 73)

Veronica’s success elicits in Farai feelings of fear and anxiety and this is typified by the above-cited passage. Thus, we are told that “the blue corolla stalks” (p. 73) Farai, and this illustrates the haunting anxiety that Farai endures in relation to Veronica’s apparent success. More importantly, Farai is depicted as someone who is incapable of controlling the movement of the “blue corolla” as “simultaneously there are several blue corollas” (p. 73), and these cars are “coming and going and reversing, droning like planes taking off, patrolling the area” (p. 73). Therefore, Farai’s failure to control the “flow” of the “traffic” is suggestive of failed attempts to control Veronica and thus testimony of his loss of power in the face of Veronica’s success.

Farai’s irritation with his powerlessness worsens his condition. The “blue corolla” sums up all of Farai’s anxieties, insecurities, and fears. Farai’s refusal to board the blue corolla when he needs to have his brain scanned and rather suggesting walking to the main hospital exemplifies this:

At ten the next morning, Veronica arrives, without notice, to take him to the main hospital for a brain scan. She is brief with the nurses and offers to drive him there. He suggests that they walk, on the pretext that he needs the exercise. He is uneasy about riding in her corolla, or going anywhere near it. He hasn’t been in it more than two or three times since she bought it, or rather, since her company had sold it off to her as a benefit. The truth is that the car represents all he resents about his wife, and the company she works for. And in the last few days, the car has been the elusive harbinger of his fears. (p. 126)

Veronica’s car is associated with Farai’s insecurities and anxieties. We note that Farai is “uneasy” (p. 126) about riding in the car, which is reflective of his attitude toward the car and by extension the owner of the car, Veronica. This, therefore, suggests his deliberate distancing from the car and invokes an obsessive and deep-seated hatred of Veronica’s success as the car “represents all he resents about his wife, and the company she works for” (p. 126).

Farai also projects Veronica as not really a “successful” character. He cynically comments that the car “is sold off to her as a benefit” (p. 126). Critically, Farai still tenaciously clings to traditional notions of how a wife should be, but the reality is that the modern professional woman, personified by Veronica, has undermined such old traditions. The car thus signifies Veronica’s ability to transgress traditional gender roles as the borders between what is normal and expected of a woman are easily transgressed by her. Gender migration thus becomes a powerful tool that Veronica uses to free herself from Farai. Farai’s ridicule and fear of Veronica’s car is paralleled to his desire to control and dominate Veronica. Farai thus tells Tindo, his sister, “I’ve told her many times to quit and work for me but she won’t hear it” (p. 56). Furthermore, Farai perceives his wife’s apparent success as a consequence of her competition with him. Farai therefore informs Simbisai that Veronica is “killing herself competing with me” (p. 50) as he assumedly has more money than Veronica and hence perceives himself more successful than her. He thinks that Veronica neglected her duties during his absence. Farai’s complaints to Simbisai that Veronica is an incompetent wife epitomizes this:

Farai leans through the window and pours everything out to Simbisai. He feels severely wronged and is longing for someone to hear him out. He tells her about his missing wife and the unpaid bills, about the uncooked suppers and a fridge without food, about disconnected phones and uncollected rents. (p. 50)

Finally, Farai’s return to Zimbabwe is characterized by the constitution of an incessantly peripatetic identity. He is always on the move and does not stay at home with his family for a long time as he is always out with friends drinking beer. Farai’s constant movement therefore constitutes intra-urban mobilities (Musanga, 2015), which, however, do not result in a “rich and complex” life as Urry (2000) and Elliot and Urry (2010) argue in their treatment of mobilities in the 21st century. Rather, his intra-urban mobilities are metaphoric of a restless and insecure person failing to accept change. Farai, however, undergoes rehabilitation and is cured of his mental disorder. The successful rehabilitation is metaphoric of an end of the “crisis” of masculinity that has been haunting him.

Farai’s Rehabilitation as Return Migration, Formation of a Tolerant Masculinity, and Democratization of Marriage

The concept of return migration is closely related with the psycho-discursive rehabilitation that Farai undergoes later in the novel. My notion of return migration is not limited to return physical movement but also considers a return of a psycho-discursive nature. Farai, from a medical perspective, is described as a person suffering from a bipolar disorder and therefore requires rehabilitation. This psycho-discursive rehabilitation, which metaphorically ought to be read as “return psycho-discursive migration,” is predicated on Farai’s ability to accept change. Thus, Farai emerges a transformed person who is now more interested in his family after his rehabilitation.

Farai’s rehabilitation is, therefore, not just at the level of the personal but also involves return migrations of a gender, familial, marital and professional nature. Farai initially suffers from a “crisis” provoked by his rigid conceptualization of masculinity and is akin to Blayac, Conilleau, Delahaye, and Quanquin’s (2011) theorization of a crisis of masculinity. Blayac et al. (2011) note that a crisis of masculinity is made palpable subjectively and is a consequence of social change as it is a “local manifestation of, and personal reaction to, changes in social, economic and gender relations” (p. 6). This crisis, Blayac et al. (2011) further argue, corresponds to a given moment of negotiation leading to the reassertion of a dominant model of masculinity. However, my reading of Chairman of Fools slightly departs from this conclusion as Farai’s crisis does not lead to a reassertion of a domineering form of masculinity but one that is tolerant of gender transformation and open to change.

Farai’s rehabilitation and the assumption of a more tolerant form of masculinity, at the familial level, are typified by his reignited interest in his family. The trip Farai takes with his family to Masvingo as a way of reconnecting with his family signifies this:

They go to Great Zimbabwe with the children, for the weekend family holiday. They climb up to the acropolis, stopping at the top to rest, and inspect the cone tower; then he relaxes with Veronica on the cool veranda while the children play netball and swim in the large pool. In the evenings they eat long, elaborate dinners together around a large table, all five of them, listening to soft canned music. After dinner the children go to the room to watch videos and play games while he and she take a walk in the moonlight, imbibing the cool night air and the history of the place. He now knows that he should spend more time with his wife, and with his children, in this way. This is his opportunity to change, to re-organise himself and start afresh. He wishes, of course, he had wine, or a beer, to loosen his tongue, so that he can speak freely to Veronica and tell her all the things he has always wanted to, but he knows this might spoil things and decides against it. (p. 180)

Interestingly, Farai “relaxes” (p. 180) with Veronica as a consequence of his rehabilitation, unlike in previous instances, where he used to feel insecure and unease owing to Veronica’s actions. Thus, the above quotation also highlights the importance of the family reconnection. The pronoun “they” (p. 180) serves to reinforce the unity and togetherness of purpose that used to lack between Veronica and Farai. Moreover, the pronoun “they” (p. 180) is also evocative of the idea of partnership as previously missing in their marriage. Farai and Veronica’s marriage is therefore democratized as a consequence of Farai’s rehabilitation as he learns to see and treat Veronica as a partner and not as someone who is docile and submissive. Therefore, as a direct consequence of the rehabilitation, which I consider a metaphoric return psycho-discursive migration, Farai “now knows that he should spend more time with his wife, and with his children” (p. 180). Farai’s transformation also elicits a change in Veronica as she becomes more loving and caring toward Farai.

Furthermore, Farai and Veronica now engage in family-based travels that engender familial connectivity as noted in the following description:

They visit Veronica’s folks to give their condolences for relatives who died while he was away. Her mother prepares him goat meat and rice with peanut butter. Veronica invites him to a Saturday afternoon at her church and finally he agrees to accompany her. They go with the children and sit on the grass, eating sausage roll after sausage roll and drinking coke after coke, chatting with her friends, who at once like him. This is as she would want him to be, witty and sociable, the Farai he was when she first met him. She hopes and thinks he is changing, that he will change. (p. 179)

In addition, the “home” that Farai initially conceptualized as a “grim prison” (p. 15) is transformed into a space where the couple re-discover and re-claim each other:

Veronica works hard to resurrect him, to rebuild him. This is her chance to reclaim him. She cooks him his favourite dishes, buys him surprise presents, baths with him; holds him close to her at night. She takes him to movies—once, replete with popcorn, ice-cream and coke, he falls asleep on her lap, in the theatre. (p. 178)

Veronica’s card to Farai on his return to America testifies to a changed woman. Veronica notes in the card that she has “grown as a woman, a mother and your friend” (p. 182). Thus, a tolerant and respectful form of masculinity that Farai now embodies is complimented by the existence of a loving and caring femininity typified by Veronica.

Conclusion

Zimbabwean transnational migration has had a tremendous impact on our understanding of masculinities and femininities and gender relations in general. This impact, as highlighted in the above analysis, is reflected in Shimmer Chinodya’s Chairman of Fools. Farai’s successful rehabilitation is predicated on the acceptance of Veronica’s transformed gendered identity and his ability to change. However, Farai’s change also elicits a transformation in Veronica as she becomes more loving and caring. Thus, Chairman of Fools explores the psycho-discursive migration experienced by Farai and the consequences of such migration for his wife, family, extended family, and profession. This psycho-discursive migration is largely triggered by his migration to America and the subsequent alienation and loneliness he experiences. Farai’s migration to America was conceptualized as “absence” in the literal and metaphorical sense taking a cue from Muchemwa and Muponde (2007). My analysis of Chairman of Fools, through Farai’s experiences in transnational and return migration, therefore, points to the link between migration and the reconfiguration of gender relations and gendered identities in the family and the home.