Abstract
Recent scholarship has viewed fatherhood from a variety of angles of encounter. In this paper studies that focus on the trope of authoritarian fatherhood in the Arab World were reviewed; extensive variability emerged as to what constitutes authoritarian parenting as well as how it is experienced by children. The authors conclude that current scholarship supports the notion of emergent fatherhood as suggested by Inhorn (2012, 2016) and explore the implications of this concept for the study of childhood.
Although fatherhood has been in existence for as long as human beings have been, the study of fatherhood is a latecomer to the family studies party (Lamb, 2010). Although popular culture sources supported the trope of the father as patriarch and authority within the family for many years (Inhorn, 2012) those stereotypes started to crumble in the 20th century. Fatherhood however was still often subsumed within the research on family studies, most of which centered mothers (Aitken, 2009). Further many early studies of fatherhood were conducted in Euro-Western settings and focused on documenting/discovering universalities rather on the contradictions and complexity that characterize family life (Coontz, 2016). Additionally, most studies of fatherhood centered the experiences of married White biological fathers in monogamous marriages (Inhorn et al., 2016). Other studies focused on the opposite, namely the absentee father (often of color) who failed to live up to expectations. More recently however scholars have adopted a variety of lenses to study both what Aitken (2009) calls the “institutional tracings of men’s lives” known as fatherhood and the emotional work of fathering (p. 2). This has created room for what Inhorn et al. (2016) term emergent fatherhood. In this paper we attempt to contribute to the burgeoning literature on emergent forms of fatherhood by reviewing scholarship from the Arab World that focuses on the trope of the authoritarian father. Although authoritarianism has many meanings, it has been commonly been associated with being “controlling, strict, domineering, coercive, restrictive, regimenting, intrusive, interfering, demanding and assertive of power” (Dwairy et al., 2013: p. 2). Specifically in connection with parenting, Baumrind (1966, 1977, 1989) equates authoritarianism to emphasizing control and obedience and the use of punishment as a discipline technique. Such a definition melds well with common stereotypes about Arab men as wielding unquestioned authority over their families (Jensen et al., 2007; Naguib, 2015; El Feki, Heilman & Barker, 2017).
In this paper, we briefly review the history of fatherhood studies, offer some critical perspectives on the field, and then review studies that address authoritarianism and fatherhood in the Arab World. Finally, we offer some thoughts on how this scholarship supports the notion of emergent fatherhood as suggested by Inhorn (2012, Inhorn et al., 2016) and what implications that has for the study of global childhoods.
(Mostly western) historical perspectives on fatherhood
We would like to begin with some historical perspectives on how fatherhood has been studied as a discipline, for two different but important reasons. For one, it illustrates that much of what we know about fatherhood is based on knowledge from the Global North. Secondly, as many scholars have pointed out (Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Joseph, 1993; LaRossa, 2012), fatherhood is a social construction and as such, the historical processes that have defined it must be critically examined to understand its current positioning.
Aitken (2009) has pointed out that up until the 19th century few formal studies of fatherhood existed. Lamb (2010) has outlined how in colonial America, perceptions of fatherhood centered around power and patriarchy. We would add that this was strictly confined to possibilities open based on race and social class. During the Enlightenment period, prominent scholars such as Locke, Rousseau and Hume offered varying perspectives on the role of the family, but without specifically addressing the issue of fatherhood (Aitken, 2009). Griswold (1993) states that the coming of the Industrial Revolution ushered in a new era in how fatherhood has been conceptualized. Changing family structures brought men into closer contact with their children and the mechanization of the workplace engendered a desire for closeness in domestic spaces (Inhorn et al., 2016). In the United States during the Great Depression as men struggled to provide for their families, the trope of the father as masculine role model for their sons arose (Lamb, 2010). While there appears to be a thread of unity in the historical trends described above, scholars point out that a diversity of viewpoints co-existed alongside these trends. As LaRossa (2012) has illustrated even in the 1920s there were calls for men to become more active participants in raising children. Over the years the study of fatherhood then came to center around paternal involvement (Lamb et al., 1985a, 1985b) and the kinds (and frequency) of the interactions fathers’ have with their children as well as how power in those relationships was negotiated (Pleck, 2010). The recognition that fatherhood is culturally constructed also rose to prominence in the 1980s (Seward and Stanley-Stevens, 2014). As Tamis-LeMonda illustrates, between 1970–1985 searches in the database PsychInfo returned only about 40 results for the keywords “father” and “culture.” That number doubled in the next 15 years and increased fivefold after that. As is evident from this brief overview, the construction of fatherhood in the Western world has changed dramatically over the years, with nurturing and engagement gradually replacing unquestioned authority as key features. It should also be mentioned that despite these theoretical shifts, statistics show that much of the work of caring for children as well unpaid work in families and households continues to be done by women/mothers (Oechsle et al., 2012) which indicates at least somewhat of a gap between the scholarship around fatherhood and lived realities.
Critical lenses
While historical accounts are helpful in broadly depicting how fatherhood has changed, critical scholars have complicated this unified notion of what being a (good) father entails. As LaRossa (2012) comments, much of current scholarship is based on the idea that fatherhood is a practice that can be (empirically) observed, and that the methods for doing so already exist. Nieuwenhuys (2013) has argued that postcolonialism can be a helpful framework from which to both theorize and deconstruct studies of the family given that the dominance of scholarship from the Global North. The work of Pollard (2005) is a stellar example of the relationships between families and colonialism. Through her portrait of motherhood in Egypt she shows how the colonial project squarely targeted the family in its sights as a modernization tool. Colonialism fronted the ideal of the monogamous couple, their biological children and a “reformed modernized domicile” as its chosen replacement for the multiplicities of domestic arrangements to be found in the colonies, while all the while wreaking economic, political and social havoc worldwide. Jacob (2011) has described how disseminating European ideals of a ‘muscular Christian” masculinity was part of the “narrative of salvation” that characterized colonialism as well an essential part of the arguments used to justify it both at home and in the colonies themselves. Johnson (2020) has suggested that given the history of how much of academic knowledge has emerged, it behooves scholars everywhere to disentangle their own “imperial entanglements” so that academic disciplines can work towards pluralizing common understandings. LaRossa (2012) cautions us to be wary of over-generalizations especially in the case of fatherhood studies, that can erase nuanced understandings. For example, although there is evidence that the culture of fatherhood underwent significant changes during the late 20th century, the magnitude of changes varies greatly geographically. Specifically and glaringly, previous accounts often minimize the perspectives and struggles of minoritized cultures. And as we discuss later, in the case of the National Geographic, they can also serve to propagate misinformation.
Mackenzie and Damaris (1983) explore how capitalism reconfigured the family to serve its own ends: whereas in pre-capitalist households, “production, reproduction and consumption” were not stratified across gender or age-based lines, capitalist economies demanded large numbers of semi-skilled workers. Over time, as many of the functions of the home such as education, health and nutrition were re-purposed as fodder for capitalist ends, the family lost much of its productive function (Swerdlow et al., 1989) and a class system was created that privileged paid over unpaid labor (Gibson-Graham, 1996).
Inhorn et al. (2016) have also challenged the trope of the “uninvolved” father as more stereotype than truth, asserting that men have been treated as the second sex within family studies. They point out that while studies of motherhood have proliferated over the last century including on how motherhood in the Global North is heavily dependent on labor from the Global South (Chavkin and Maher, 2010) studies of fatherhood have been rare to materialize. Inhorn et al. do point out that more recently fatherhood is being studied from various vantage points such as that of public health (Frye et al., 2012; Caldwell et al., 2004) developmental economics (Qian, 2008) and anthropology (Townsend, 2002; Inhorn, 2012). Roopnarine’s (2015) anthology of the cultural practices associated with fatherhood provides a range of accounts of how cultural beliefs impact fatherhood including how authoritarianism is on the decline in both Mexico and Brazil (Velazquez, 2015; Carvalho et al., 2015).
One final angle that we believe it is important to briefly explore is fatherhood’s relationship to masculinity and in particular how masculinity is constructed in the Arab World (Isidoros and Inhorn, 2022; De Sondy, 2015; Al-Rasheed, 2013; Ouzgane, 2013; Ghannam, 2013) The work of Naguib (2015) and Ghannam (2013) is particularly helpful in understanding that masculinity in the Arab World while no doubt operating in the shadow of patriarchy as the “foundation of every part of Arab society”, is also enacted in families that are recurrent and dynamic. Ghannam’s (2013) ethnographic account of gender dynamics in urban Egypt suggests that contemporary studies of Arab masculinity should explore not just the phenomena that men have more power, but rather how that power is recognized and co-constructed with family and community members. Similarly El Feki et al., (2017) emphasize that although male perspectives in the Arab World carry weight on issues such as “household decision-making, political and leadership spaces and the daily lives of women and girls” what has been under-studied is men’s attitudes towards those practices. In their study that included over 9000 participants they found that while most men supported the idea that women mostly bear responsibility for the home (including the children) about half of the men also believed in a woman’s right to work. Further in terms of fatherhood, many men expressed concern about their inability to spend time with their children; men across the region emphasized the importance of emotional intimacy with their children.
As illustrated above “the ways in which the rights, duties, responsibilities and statuses of fathers” relate to the context of “emergent masculinities” or in other words, how as masculinities are being redefined so is fatherhood (Inhorn et al., 2016) suggest that the term emergent fatherhood best captures the creativity and unpredictability of this moment. It seems to best capture how issues such as “new forms of fatherly affect and caretaking, often within the parameters of busy work lives, strict corporate work cultures…lingering conservative gender norms…a fundamental questioning of paternal labor” are redefining what fatherhood is becoming” (ibid, p. 7.) Our approach to understanding the relationship between authoritarianism and fatherhood in the Arab World too adopts this emergent approach, focusing on understanding over certainty and multiplicities over single narratives.
Fatherhood in the Arab World
We would like now to review accounts of fatherhood in the Arab World to present what we hope will be an inclusive picture of how the culture of fatherhood is constructed and studied. Certain cautions however must be put forward. For one, as Cohen-Mor (2013) has said, information about families in the Arab World is hard to come by, due to a historical emphasis on the “sanctity and privacy of family life” (p. 4). Joseph (1999) attributes some of this reluctance to the ‘hyper-valorization of the family’ in Arab cultures: to question, dissect or study it is considered a betrayal.Nasser and Viruru (2012) have similarly described the reluctance they encountered while trying to do research on Qatari families. Borneman (2007) extends this argument further in his ethnographic study of fathers and sons in Syria. Borneman found that fathers tended to not be forthcoming about fatherhood for reasons as diverse as their perceived inabilites to procure secure futures for their children, the powerful tropes of Arab men as terrorists that surrounded them and their powerlessness to control their own political futures. All of these factors, Borneman suggests, made fathers reluctant to speak of themselves as figures with authority. Further, as Tuhiwai-Smith has described research occupies an uneasy position in non-Western cultures. Steet (2000) analyzed images from the National Geographic magazine and states that those images were instrumental in creating stereotypes about Arab males as lacking in organizational skills. As we discuss in more depth later on, some scholars have suggested that in the Arab World, post-colonial studies should be supplemented by post-authoritarian studies (Khatibi, 1983; Hanafi, 2019) that deconstruct concepts put forward about the region particularly relating to authority. However Hanafi also urges us to keep in mind that research in the Arab World has often been conducted under the umbrella of authoritarian states and as such critical perspectives can be hard to come by as they can result in strong internal sanctions.
It is important also to outline what is (and is not) considered part of the Arab World. Arabic-speaking people number approximately 320 million spread out over 22 countries that lie at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa (Ahmad, 2014). These include some of the wealthiest countries as well as the most impoverished countries in the world. As Ahmad points out, since socio-economic responsibilities are often placed on fathers, socio-economic disparities impact how it is constructed as well. Accounts of fatherhood in Palestine stand out from this context as particularly unique and open the door to understanding what fatherhood can mean in politically violent situations that too are part of the Arab World (Otman, 2020). Otman’s work powerfully illustrates how in ‘racialized, politically violent and colonial contexts” fatherhood is tightly constrained and stifled by societal barriers and becomes an unrecognizable caricature of itself that yet demonstrates resilience and agency (p. 148).
One further area of contextual information that we think is important relates to the state/family relationship. Sidani and Thornberry (2009) contend that since the state can often be an unreliable actor, where power is concentrated in the hands of a few, families and communities often form strong internal bonds to tackle the challenges that life brings them (Al-Krenawi, 2014). This is in contrast to the changes that accompanied the industrial revolution in the West which led not only to the growth of nuclear families but also to the state assuming responsibility for the welfare of its citizens (Dwairy, 2015). Similarly, while in Western societies infringements are punished by the state, in Arab societies, families often hold greater power in terms of discipline and punishment. What constitutes a family and what its roles may also bedefined differently. For example, Young and Shami (1997) identified 75 different family structures within working-class Arab communities. Cohen-Mor (2013) argues that three relationships constitute the core of the Arab family: the bond between spouses, between parents and that between siblings, each of which has established social norms. Cohen-Mor elaborates that unlike in Western families, the mother-son bond may be the strongest one which can in fact weaken marital relationships and complicate father-son relationships. Given that family structure is complex and that the family is sometimes pitted against other groups and sometimes the state itself, leadership is considered critical and in most cases the leader is male. While agreeing that Arab families can have complex structures, some scholars suggest that the idea that most Arab families are extended is more nostalgia driven than fact based (Al-Thakeb, 1986). Al-Thakeb however clarifies that even if the nuclear family is the most common unit, kinship networks are strong and greatly impact “marital relationships, business partnerships and leisure time” (p. 576).
Joseph (1993, 1994) adds a further layer of complexity to understandings of the Arab family through their discussion of “patriarchical connectivity.” As Joseph (1993) explains, connectivity within families can be explained as “relationships in which a person’s boundaries are relatively fluid so that persons feel a part of significant others” (p. 452). Thus human beings may think of themselves and the people around them as extensions of one another. Joseph points out that in working class communities in Lebanon, patriarchy formed an overlay that significantly influenced the connective spaces of the family within which identities were already blurred. Thus connectivity supported patriarchy by the creation of selves who were more open to being shaped and patriarchy supported males in the family by training them on how to mold selves around them. As Joseph points out however this does not locate power exclusively with male figures as age too is a significant factor and older women often take power in patriarchical systems. Fatherhood in such a context thus takes place within systems where fathers are embedded in relationships with those who they may perceive as another of their own selves, yet over whom they are expected to enact authority. Boundaries in this system are necessarily fluid and relationships are characterized by “complexity, plurality and multiple agency” (Joseph, 1993: p. 461).
Given this diversity we would now like to focus in depth on a theme heavily highlighted in this context: what constitutes authoritarianism in the Arab World and how that impacts fatherhood.
How authority is performed
Although there are few axioms that hold true across the diversity of the populations being discussed, scholars do agree that both fatherhood and the definition of authority in the Arab world are going through a period of change (Abu Baker, 2003); whereas previous models of fatherhood emphasized authority as the defining feature of what fathers do (Noor 1999), current research reveals more nuances.
Blit-Cohen and Jammal-Abboud (2017) state that fatherhood in the Arab world merges the collective/individual dimension with the fatherhood/masculinity dimension. Although the dominant family structure was collectivist, the father was constituted as head of the family and family members recognized him as an authority figure (Strier, 2014). The main tasks of Arab fathers were making economic provisions for their children and keeping them safe (Ridge et al. 2018). However they were also expected to wield authority judiciously, in a manner that promoted family harmony and that prioritized love over discipline, to the extent that family members turned inward first before seeking help elsewhere (Khalaila and Litwin, 2011). Smetana and Ahmed (2018) concur with this portrait of the norms that have governed fatherhood in Arab families. As they put it typical adjectives to describe parenting styles in the Arab world would include patriarchal and authoritarian (Al-Simadi and Atoum, 2000; Dwairy and Achoui, 2006). Further fathers are empowered to demand not only obedience but also both loyalty and respect even when there is discord (Ahmad et al., 2014). Other studies show that mothers are more likely to exhibit an authoritarian parenting style than fathers (Dor and Cohen-Fridel, 2010). Ahmad found that younger participants in research studies were more likely to describe the parenting style they experienced as characterized by warmth and attention, in contrast to that described above. Yetother studies have however revealed negative associations between authoritarian behavior and child outcomes (Abdul-Kader, 2000). Similarly Abdel-Ghany (1983) found that the more children associated the father with authority, the more likely they were to obey him and the less likely they were to exhibit self-control.
The work of Dwairy and Achoui (2006) and Dwairy et al., (2013) is the most comprehensive resource available on parenting within the Arab World within which he particularly looks at dimensions related to authoritarianism. Dwairy and Achoui (2006) draw from Baumrind’s (1977, 1989) widely used work on parenting styles within which parenting was categorized as authoritarian, permissive or authoritative. Whereas permissive parenting styles are characterized by sparing use of parental authority, authoritative styles involve dialogue and discussion before decisions are made (Cole et al., 2018). Authoritarian styles however tend to locate authority in the parent; control, obedience, adherence to rules and the use of harsh discipline to enforce rules (Dwairy and Achoui, 2006) are characteristic of this mode of parenting. According to Baumrind (1977), the best outcomes for children are to be found through the use of authoritative strategies. However scholars from various locations around the world suggest that these categorizations do not hold universally. Dwairy and Achoui (2006) found that in the Arab families they studied the adverse effects associated with authoritarian parenting were not substantiated. Many adolescents in fact approved of authoritarian styles. Further Dwairy found that these categories are not a good representation of parenting practices in the Arab World suggesting rather that there are three clusters into which parenting tends to fall: controlling oriented (that combine authoritative and authoritarian), flexible (that combines authoritative and permissive) and inconsistent (which combines authoritarian and permissive). These clusters, Dwairy suggests hold true for most societies in the Arab World with differences being found along political lines: countries with more liberal governments tended to have parents who engaged in more permissive practices. Boys tended to be on the receiving style of authoritarian parenting over girls across both rural and urban areas and first born children were given the greatest latitude. Dwairy also found that while authoritative parenting styles were positively correlated with values such as self-esteem and confidence, there was no correlation between authoritarian parenting and any kind of what he terms “psychological mal-adjustment” (Dwairy, 2015: p. 27).
Inhorn (2012) offers a fascinating account of what she calls hegemonic masculinity in the Middle East and its relationship to the authoritarian aspects of fatherhood. She draws from Connell and Messerchmidt’s (2005) hegemonic masculinity framework on how hierarchical inequalities among men play out and their relationship to how gender is socially constructed. Connell and Messerschmidt’s work is based on Gramsci’s concept of hegemony defined as a “social mechanism through which various groups develop the “will to conform” with a leading group’s way of being, thereby facilitating class-based domination” (Inhorn, 2012: p. 50). Thus, although males may occupy positions of power, that power is never complete even if in some instances this power is willingly acquiesced to. Connell believes understanding the hierarchical jostlings and competitions that take place within male dominated spaces is a critical part of the politics of masculinity. According to Inhorn, this concept is useful in understanding how masculinity is enacted in the Middle East where hegemonic masculinity manifests itself in the form of the “family patriarch.” In this system boys are taught from childhood to in essence “father” their younger siblings, particularly sisters. Middle Eastern males thus achieve the authority early on to exert power over their families. They are also encouraged to spend large amounts of time with other men (Nasser and Viruru, 2012) and in such gender-segregated spaces men compete to have more wealth, more children (sometimes through multiple spouses), a stronger faith (or at least the outward trappings of it) and more authority at home and in the community (demonstrated through the kind of respect commanded). However as Inhorn points out, such essentialization seems more of a vilification than an attempt at capturing reality and to belong to the long tradition of Orientalism “through which the West has viewed the East with simultaneous, prurience, repugnance and outright fear” (p. 58). The characterization of fatherhood in the Arab world as the ultimate expression of authoritarian patriarchy therefore leaves little room for the lived realities of fatherhood experienced there. As Inhorn et al. (2016) has explained it is sometimes harder for men in the Arab World to become fathers due to higher than average rates of male infertility that have caused many men to question gender norms and patriarchal notions of authority. Interestingly, Inhorn’s research shows that the quest to become a father, which can require many visits to medical clinics and complicated procedures, tends to be viewed more as a “badge of honor” or what one does for love, rather than as demeaning and as questioning one’s masculinity. These experiences, Inhorn suggests, are leading to a new form of Arab fatherhood that reject the four P’s by which it has been commonly characterized namely patriarchy (male dominance), patrilineality (tracing the family line only through the father), patrilocality (families being formed around the male head of household) and polygyny.
Emergent fatherhood in the Arab World
The Marxist scholar Raymond Williams (1978) has explored what the term emergence means in the context of dominance by one group of people over others. As he explains, no group can ever exert complete control over others due to the nature of human potential. So even within hierarchical systems, hierarchies are constantly redefined. Williams terms these new forms of practice as emergent, and suggests that over time these emergent forms can become part of the social order and eventually change it altogether (Inhorn, 2012). Inhorn further suggests that given the many qualitative studies of masculinity and fatherhood that are now being conducted around the world, it may be more appropriate to think of emergent fatherhood as representative of the field. This conceptualization is supported by studies from the Arab world that show that both authoritarianism and authoritarian parenting are constantly being redefined. Further widespread social changes within the Arab world such as high rates of women graduating from college, the entrance of record numbers of women into the paid workforce, a rise in the average age at marriage and large scale protests against authoritarian governments (Inhorn, 2012) are accelerating these trends. As Roopnarine (2015) states in regards to the changing state of fatherhood studies around the world, “in some instances, change and continuity occur simultaneously.” (p. 4). And as Roopnarine elaborates, “the face of this much-touted “new fatherhood” is not well defined” (p. 4) and in this transitional phase much research is still needed to understand how the internal scripts of fatherhood that have been written over generations interact with new societal conditions. Some examples include the work of Ahmad (2014) who has suggested that fatherhood in the Arab World actually revolves around the four main themes of altruism, obligation, commitment and responsibility. Pointing out the diversity of regions that constitute the ‘Arab world,’ he called for further studies that attend to the specific historical and socio-economic contexts through which Arab men become fathers. In particular, Ahmad identified three challenges that contemporary studies of fatherhood in the Arab world must grapple with: (1) the reality that the family is no longer the chief agent of socialization and that it is often at odds with popular media (2) fathers in the Arab world often find parenting to be a difficult task due to varied living circumstances and (3) economic stresses. We would point out that authoritarianism does not make that list and also underscore Roopnarine’s (2015) point that “it is likely that the very engaged father is deeply engrossed and comes alive in his participation with children where he is at ease with himself. “(p. 4). The concept of ‘emergent fatherhood’ thus signals a need for nuanced studies of men’s varied experiences and understandings of fatherhood in the 21st century. Given the rich diversity of the Arab World, studies from this region can be particularly helpful in the regard.
Implications for the study of childhood
In light of all of the above, we believe that embracing the concept of emergent fatherhood has important implications for the study of childhood. For one, we were struck by the paucity of literature that explored what role children have in the construction of fatherhood; given that fatherhood is a relationship, studies that leave children out of the equation are necessarily incomplete. As we have illustrated, many studies in the Arab World revolve around the concept of authoritarianism, but also reveal that it in fact has many forms that do not resemble the mainstream definition and that there are other issues that are just as important to focus on, including how children and fathers together negotiate fast-moving changes that are impacting many Arab societies. Moving past definitions created at least in part through Orientalist philosophies would be an important step in this and other regions of the world. Additionally, as studies of fatherhood in the Arab World demonstrate, childhood is not a monolithic entity with fixed pathways that lead to pre-determined outcomes: even behaviors that might be considered authoritarian in one context are experienced differently and negotiated with agency and resourcefulness in others. This underlines yet again the need for more research that focuses on the many forms that both childhood and fatherhood can take. Key concepts that emerged from our review of the research on fatherhood in Arab cultures include structural considerations such as the idea that masculinity is a foundational part of how identities as fathers are constructed and that political violence can deeply impact how families function as the state becomes an unreliable actor. More relationally speaking this review suggests that connectedness is deeply embedded into familial including patriarchical relationships and that the gender of the child impact the kind of fathering they receive. These findings underline the deep relevance of Inhorn’s call for the adoption of an emergent lens while studying fatherhood around the world.
Adopting an emergent framework towards fatherhood also has deep relevance for the construction of more inclusive theories of childhood particularly given the velocity with which globalization and its ideals are overtaking the field of childhood studies (De Castro, 2020). As de Castro points out whereas the field itself is somewhat new a focus on global childhoods (with a unified ideal of what an ideal childhood is) has quickly become one of its key features. Scholars from the global South however deeply mistrust this trope of a unified global world (and child) suggesting rather that this represents global colonialism rather than global unification (Escobar, 2008). Thus accounts of childhoods and family lives from the south that do not fit neatly constructed narratives of what the ideal child within the ideal family might look like are more important than ever in constructing robust southern theories of childhood and family. As our review of the research on fatherhood in the Arab world shows, southern childhoods inhabit spaces that have yet to be recognized or given value in the field of childhood studies. The confidence with which the mainstream literature proclaims what is “acceptable, manageable and important” in fathers relationships with their children leaves little room for such as alternative perspectives as emerge from the Arab World. Abebe and Ofusu-Kusi (2016) have called for scholarship and accounts of childhood that do not emphasize well known tropes of premodernity or difference and that rather call into question what difference and diversity can mean and that can form the foundation of a new way of looking at children and families. Our hope is that this work contributes to that effort.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Qatar National Research Fund.
