Of boys and men
Masculinity and gender in Southern African studies
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4603920 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert Morrell (0000-0002-6096-486X, Durban University of Technology, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1998 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 605-630 |
| Publication date | 1998-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03057079808708593 |
| OpenAlex | W2109945149 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 206 |
| References cited | 102 |
Southern African historiography has become increasingly gender‐sensitive in the last decade. Primarily as a result of the impact of feminism in the world of work and in universities, research on women has burgeoned. The inclusion of women in the study of the past and the recognition of their agency has filled an important lacuna but also has made evident the corresponding gap in knowledge about men. The dominance of men in the public record has obscured the fact that little is known about masculinity. Men have generally been treated in essentialist terms. The socially constructed nature of masculinity is widely acknowledged and it is this insight that needs to be applied to a study of the region's history. This article introduces readers to the inter‐disciplinary work on masculinity, reviews how research on gender in South Africa has handled issues of men and masculinity and then suggests how insights taken from Men's Studies might help to broaden gender analysis and enrich the study of the South African past. In this article, a range of masculinities is identified. Colonialism created new and transformed existing masculinities. Race and class featured prominently in the configuration of these masculinities. Under colonialism positions of domination and subordination were created along the lines of race, bequeathing to the region the language of white men and black 'boys'. The particular trajectory of colonialism ended the political independence of the indigenous polities and destroyed their economic independence but the success of the defeated polities in retaining possession of land and of the policies of segregation and apartheid meant that key African institutions survived. These were the basis for an African masculinity that in certain geographical and social areas disputed hegemony with white masculinities
Colonialism · Essentialism · Gender history · Historiography · Indigenous · Masculinity · Patriarchy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · African history and culture studies · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Law · South African History and Culture
Commodified liberation
Boys, masculinity and literacy
Las Nuevas Masculinidades Alternativas Interculturales en la Superación de la Violencia
Patriarchy, violence and African male powerlessness
It made me feel good and man enough
Geographies of the Black African Masculine in Tsotsi and The Wooden Camera
Understanding Men
Gendered Play and Evaluation of Computer Video Games by Young South Africans
Endangered Youth? Youth, gender and sexualities in urban Botswana
The Work of the Nation
Uddannelse og opposition
Gender inequalities, intimate partner violence and HIV preventive practices
Youth, HIV/Aids and the importance of sexual culture and context
Mujer, género y desarrollo en el Lesotho colonial
Why were we crucified into car mechanics?”
Fiction as prosthesis
Contesting ‘Traditional’ Masculinity and Men's Sexuality in Kwadukuza, South Africa
Tradição, masculinidades e posições de sujeito
Sexuality, Africa, History
Performing Sustainability in West Africa
Competing Masculinities (III)
Missionary Masculinity, 1870–1930
Exhuming Bodies
An Incomplete Rupture
Masculinities, multiple-sexual-partners, and Aids
From work with men and boys to changes of social norms and reduction of inequities in gender relations
Violence and injuries in South Africa
The health and health system of South Africa
Gender and sexuality
Gender-Transformative Interventions to Reduce HIV Risks and Violence with Heterosexually-Active Men
Africa After Gender?
Religion and Gender Inequality
Urban Displacement and Trade in a Senegalese Market
« J’ai l’honneur de porter plainte contre ma femme ». Litiges conjugaux et administration coloniale au Congo belge (1930-1960)
The Implications of a Narrow Understanding of Gender-Based Violence
Enduring Traditions and Emerging Shifts
Disability and masculinity in South African autosomatography
Control, struggle, and emergent masculinities
Old concerns, renewed focus and novel problems
“The Boy Has to Be a Man in Order for Life to Start”
Are you man enough? A Case study of the represented and experienced masculinity in the South African Police Service
Safe sex and constructions of young male sexuality in one semi-rural Western Cape community
Hegemonic Masculinity and Male Powerlessness
Decolonising Men and Masculinities Research in South Africa
Hegemonic Masculinity
“ Respecting One Another Does Not Work Here ”
Masculinidad hegemónica. Repensando el concepto
Reading hegemonic masculinities in 2 Samuel 11 in the South African contexts
Nie jestem jak ty. Męskość hegemoniczna we współczesnym południowoafrykańskim kinie queer
Hidden distress
Mariella Popolla, Daniela Bagattini. Violenza maschile sulle donne. Il ruolo dell’assistente sociale tra sfide e opportunità
Missing men with tuberculosis
Toxicity in gendered Sepedi proverbs
“I’m Not Afraid of Dying Because I’ve Got Nothing to Lose”
Homes as ‘cages of violence’ during the Covid-19 pandemic
Portraying political violence, rape and masculinities in post-apartheid African language literature
Real Men Do Good Sex
“She’s Here and I’m Not”
The Social Nature of Attractiveness
‘I am the God of the House’
Boys and Men”
Masculinities and the “colonial unconscious” in Shimmer Chinodya’s Dew in the Morning
Negotiating legitimacy and normalization of queer desires in Sello Duiker's The Quiet Violence of Dreams
Documenting Essex‐Boy as a local gendered regime
Shaping up”
The topography of masculine normativities in South Africa
‘I just ended up here, no job and no health…’ — men's outlook on life in the context of economic hardship and HIV/Aids in Namibia
Textual Textiles
Men in the making of nations
Gender violence in schools
The built environment & the impact of neighborhood characteristics on youth sexual risk behavior in Cape Town, South Africa
Gender Role and Relationship Norms among Young Adults in South Africa
Dialling up the Testosterone”
Male-Male Sexuality in Lesotho
The “Ideal Man”
Men, Movements, and Gender Transformation in South Africa
Rhetorical representations of masculinities in South Africa
When sacrificing self is the only way out
But he is my husband! How can that be rape?’
I don’t like them coming to me and saying hey, I like you’
State and bureaucracy
Negotiating masculinity
Men and violence
Bullies, sissies and crybabies
Black revolutionary masculinity in Miriam Tlali's Amandla
An invitation to decoloniality in work on (African) men and masculinities
Power through Knowledge
You must be thinking what a lesbian man teacher is doing in a nice place like Dipane Letsie School?’
Fount of Deep Culture
Representation of Gender in South African Television Advertising
Geography and gender
To Maintain or Adjust
Tropical Cowboys
Cookie” and “Jungle Boy”
Masculinities and Femininities in Zimbabwean Autobiographies of Political Struggle
“Youth of Awo-Omama Will Boycott Their Girls”
Contact, Communication, Imagination, and Strategies of Worldmaking
Prophetic Becoming
Colonialism and African Childhood
Covid and Custom in Rural South Africa
Sexual Dissidence
Live Fast and Die Young
Ain't I a woman
Feasts and riot
Reaction to conquest
Brothers
Manhood in the making
Manliness and morality
Zulu Thought-Patterns and Symbolism
The Empire Strikes Back?
Theorizing Masculinities
Ethnography and the Historical Imagination
The development of capitalism in South Africa
Men don’t go to the moon
The people's city
Marriage, Perversion, and Power
Defiant Desire
Being Black in the World
Making Imperial Mentalities
Slow Motion
Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa, 1919–36
The Political Economy of Pondoland 1860–1930
Volkskapitalisme
Colonial masculinity
Popular Imperialism and the Military, 1850-1950
Sexual Dissidence
Gender Trouble
The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa
The Political Economy of Race and Class in South Africa
The big pictures
Insiders and Outsiders
Reaping the Whirlwind
White Radical History in South Africa
Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand, 1886-1914
The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry
Gender and Power
Manhood in America
The Gender of Oppression
The Myth of Masculinity
Men's Lives
Manful Assertions
Ruling Relations
Nxele, Ntsikana and the Origins of the Xhosa Religious Reaction
The evolution of Ndebele Amabutho
Women, Gender and Colonialism
Men in the public eye
Defiant Desire
The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa
Changing Men
Insiders and Outsiders
The Social and Economic Underpinning of Paternalism and Violence on the Maize Farms of the South-Western Transvaal, 1900-1950
Marxism, feminism and South African studies
Family, crime and political consciousness on the East Rand, 1939-1955
Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945
Beyond the Tryline
The future of the South African past
The study of South African society
Negotiated spaces and contested terrain
Tough guy, eh
Learning to kill? Masculinity, the family and violence in Natal
The cows of Nongoloza
Zulu Thought Patterns and Symbolism
The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry
Class, Community and Conflict
Heroes or Villains? Youth Politics in the 1980s
Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand 1886-1914
Making Imperial Mentalities
Makgoba
Political and collective violence in Southern African historiography
Pass Controls and the Urban African Proletariat
The new tribalism
What Should Historians do with Masculinity? Reflections on Nineteenth-century Britain
Which Way is up? Essays on Class, Sex and Culture
Brothers. Male Dominance and Technological Change
Citizen and Subject
Imperial Leather
Insiders and Outsiders
Call Me Not a Man
Social Forms/Human Capacities
The South African Economy
Images of Empire, Contests of Conscience
Making Empire Respectable
Introduction Tensions of Empire
Lives at the Center of the Periphery, Lives at the Periphery of the Center
A Whole New World
Race in the social structure of South Africa, 1652-1836
Capitalism and cheap labour-power in South Africa
The origins of theindlavini
We Must Speak for Ourselves
What is hegemonic masculinity
The big picture
Toward a new sociology of masculinity
The state, gender, and sexual politics
| Unique citing works | 206 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 7,63 |
| Citation span | 1999 - 2026 (28) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 187 |