To Share or Not: Navigating Contradictory Norms about Sharing Maternity Photos on Social Media in Ghana

The sharing of pregnancy photos and photos of infants is becoming a normative way of announcing pregnancy and birth, respectively, by women in the Global North. Even though this practice is gaining popularity in Ghana, women still experience tension between local and Western forces, causing a wide range of dilemmas. The study explores how women navigate global/Western forces, which promote a visual culture of maternity and normalize the sharing of pregnancy photos and photos of infants, and the local Ghanaian norms, which abhor this practice. Based on forty-two interviews with post-partum mothers aged between 24 and 42 years old in Accra, Ghana, the study shows that both local and Western ways influence the online performance of participants. The findings of the study indicate that the influence of Western maternity trends does not result in the total elimination of local traditions but rather, in most Western-inspired performances, there is the indigenization of Western trends.