Robert Morrell
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 157901 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Robert Morrell |
| NOMBRES | Robert |
| APELLIDO | Morrell |
| FIRMA | MORRELL R |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Cape Town |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6096-486X |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 56 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 552 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 54 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 2 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1986 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 13 |
Against the Odds
This article explores the positions of young fathers living in contexts of unemployment and poverty in South Africa's Eastern Cape. We use two primary sources of data to explore young men's ideas about fatherhood, as articulated in letters written to their children as well as in ethnographic fieldnotes based on conversations with 11 young fathers. This article highlights the ambitions that young men have for themselves as providers for their chil…
Academic Journals and Activism
Two progressive academic journals were established during the height of the anti-apartheid struggle in Durban. This article provides an explanation for the emergence of these journals at that time and in that place, and focuses attention on the activist academic community of Durban. Using interviews with the editors of the two journals, Agenda and Transformation, and with local academic activists, it argues that a key element was the commitment b…
The Impact of Feminism on postgraduate teaching in Durban
Aspects of hawking in the Transkei, 1920-1945
During the 20th century Transkei became a place of migrant workers, old people, women and children. The gradual impoverishment of the region and its African population paradoxically was accompanied by economic opportunities for whites, particularly in the towns. Poor whites fleeing the harsh economic climate of white South Africa were able to succeed as hawkers in Transkei largely because local authorities had discriminatory policies towards blac…
Bill Freund, 6 July 1944 – 17 August 2020
Bill Freund, an economic historian, died in Durban in August 2020. He was 76 years old. Since his death, his autobiography, Bill Freund: An Historian’s Passage to Africa,1 has been posthumously pub
Corporal punishment and gender equality
Many policy interventions designed to achieve gender equality in education are predicated on the assumption that the enforcement of a human rights framework will promote equality and reduce (gender) inequalities. In South Africa, the ending of apartheid led to the introduction of a rights-based constitution in 1996. In line with this Constitution the education system was overhauled and a new Act, the South African Education Act of 1996 came into …
Misrepresentation of research on academic promotions at the University of Cape Town
In this response, we address the misrepresentation of our article by Rene W Albertus on higher education decolonisation processes in South Africa. We respond to her claim, based on a misreading of our article, that at the University of Cape Town white academic staff are promoted faster than black staff and restate the major findings of our quantitative analysis of 11 years of promotion data. We used time to promotion as a proxy for fairness to ex…
Vehicle for Southern African Knowledge? Men and Masculinities and Research from South Africa
Knowledge production is dominated by publications in and from the global North. This has given rise to a concern that certain perspectives and agendas have global prominence whereas others, from the global South, are marginalized. Analyzing the publication record of Men and Masculinities with respect to articles authored by scholars from, or working in, South Africa, I argue that the journal, despite being founded, based and published in the Unit…
Southern Agency
Researchers in the Global South are geopolitically distant from the places and people influencing global climate change debates. Their contribution in terms of academic publication is not large. Yet, by examining a South African research center, we show that these researchers negotiate their marginalization, optimize their local advantage, and navigate between national and global imperatives. Climate change requires global action and is a site of…
Re-making the global economy of knowledge
How is global-North predominance in the making of organized knowledge affected by the rise of new domains of research? This question is examined empirically in three interdisciplinary areas - climate change, HIV-AIDS, and gender studies - through interviews with 70 researchers in Southern-tier countries Brazil, South Africa and Australia. The study found that the centrality of the North was reinstituted as these domains came into existence, throu…
Negotiating with the North
This article examines a group of intellectual workers who occupy a peripheral but not powerless position in the global economy of knowledge. How do they handle relations with the global metropole, especially in new fields of research where established hierarchies are in question? Three new domains of knowledge - climate change, HIV/AIDS and gender studies - are studied through interviews with 70 active researchers in Southern-tier countries Brazi…
Hegemonic Masculinity, Violence, and Gender Equality
Messerschmidt and colleagues have pioneered work in criminology using masculinities theory, yet many researchers in the field have not engaged with the possibility that the different patterning of correlated violent, sexually risky, and antisocial behaviors may reflect a disaggregation of the category of men into multiple masculinities. This lens can help understand men's violence and enable intervention targeting. We analyzed household survey da…
Southern knowledge online? Climate change research discoverability and communication practices
The networked age promises global digital cultures with flattened power relations, given the affordances of information and communication technologies to collapse distance, enable easier cross-country collaborations and create new opportunities for knowledge production and sharing. In the academic domains, indications are that knowledge patterns continue to reflect physically based geopolitical realities – where knowledge from the South is still …
Touch Rugby, Masculinity and Progressive Politics in Durban, South Africa, 1985–1990
Rugby is a sport frequently considered to be highly competitive and even violent. In the history of South Africa under apartheid it was a bulwark of white minority, authoritarian, nationalist rule. So was it possible for an alternative masculinity to develop and express itself on the country’s rugby playing field? This paper seeks to answer this question by examining an informal weekly game of touch rugby played in the five years prior to the unb…
Toward a global sociology of knowledge
This article discusses changing social perspectives on knowledge, from the old sociology of knowledge to current post-colonial debates. The authors propose an approach that sees knowledge not as an abstract social construction but as the product of specific forms of social labour, showing the ontoformativity of social practice that creates reality through historical time. Research in three southern-tier countries examines knowledge workers and th…
Fathers who care and those that don’t
Fathers have an important role to play in childcare and when they are not involved, the children, mothers and fathers themselves are the poorer for it. Yet in many contexts we do not actually know either the extent or nature of father involvement. This article reports on a study that drew on data from a randomised survey of 18–49-year-old men in South Africa to explore levels of childcare participation and to analyse which particular activities m…
Making Southern theory? Gender researchers in South Africa
This article examines the work of six South African gender researchers working in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It suggests that their work should be understood as situated in terms of politics, educational histories, theoretical connections and transnational engagements. It reflects on whether this work can be considered an example of Southern theory, and in turn suggests that Southern theory should itself be understood in…
Hegemonic masculinity
The concept of hegemonic masculinity has been used in gender studies since the early-1980s to explain men's power over women. Stressing the legitimating power of consent (rather than crude physical or political power to ensure submission), it has been used to explain men's health behaviours and the use of violence. Gender activists and others seeking to change men's relations with women have mobilised the concept of hegemonic masculinity in inter…
Hegemonic Masculinity
The study of men and masculinity has become a strong feature of gendered research and scholarship in South Africa in the last twenty years. Gender policy frequently includes consideration of men and masculinity, marking a significant shift from the days when 'gender' was synonymous with women. The gendered focus on men owes its origins to feminist theory and thus centres on the subordination of women. The concept of hegemonic masculinity is part …
Transactional relationships and sex with a woman in prostitution
The notion of 'transactional sex' developed through research with women does not translate easily to men. Many perceive expectations that they fulfil a provider role, with quid pro quo entitlement to sex. Men distinguished these circumstances of sex from having sex with a woman in prostitution. Whilst there may be similarities, when viewed relationally, these are quite distinct practices. Conflating them is sociologically inappropriate. Efforts t…
Approaching Southern theory
This article draws on the five other papers from South Africa in this issue of Gender and Education to consider how Southern theory has been developed and is developing in relation to gender and education in South Africa. We argue that Southern theory is not an on-the-shelf solution to global geopolitical inequalities but a work in process that is important both for the global South and to simultaneously dethrone and enrich Northern, mainstream t…
Conflict, provocation and fights among boys in a South African high school
Boys are commonly associated with disruptive behaviour and physical fighting at school. Explanations for this behaviour range from naturalistic ‘boys will be boys’ approaches to analyses which focus on the social construction of masculinity and emphasise the gendered nature of boys' behaviour. Whichever view holds sway, it is often assumed that conflict and disagreement lead, in automatic, linear and unproblematic ways, to instances of physical v…
Sexuality and the limits of agency among South African teenage women
Zulu Masculinities, Warrior Culture and Stick Fighting
Zulu soldiers are renowned for decimating a British army at the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879. This military victory not only entrenched a legacy of merciless conquest long attributed to King Shaka, but also sensationalised the idea that Zulu men are natural-born killers. We reassess this stereotype by scrutinising the 'Shakan' version of martial culture and its reputed links to the formative encounters of Zulu men. One such experience involved bo…
Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society
Hegemonic Masculinity/Masculinities in South Africa
The concept of hegemonic masculinity has had a profound impact on gender activism and has been taken up particularly in health interventions. The concept was part of a conceptual gendered vocabulary about men which opened up analytical space for research on masculinity and prompted a generation of gender interventions with men. Academic work focused primarily on relations between men, to the neglect of relations with women, while paradoxically ac…
Of boys and men
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 o…
Sexuality and the limits of agency among South African teenage women
From Boys to Gentlemen
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Toward a global sociology of knowledge
This article discusses changing social perspectives on knowledge, from the old sociology of knowledge to current post-colonial debates. The authors propose an approach that sees knowledge not as an abstract social construction but as the product of specific forms of social labour, showing the ontoformativity of social practice that creates reality through historical time. Research in three southern-tier countries examines knowledge workers and th…
Power and Identity
In this introduction we provide a framework for and an overview of the seven articles included in this special issue. We begin by discussing the history and historiography of sexuality in Southern
Re-making the global economy of knowledge
How is global-North predominance in the making of organized knowledge affected by the rise of new domains of research? This question is examined empirically in three interdisciplinary areas - climate change, HIV-AIDS, and gender studies - through interviews with 70 researchers in Southern-tier countries Brazil, South Africa and Australia. The study found that the centrality of the North was reinstituted as these domains came into existence, throu…
Negotiating with the North
This article examines a group of intellectual workers who occupy a peripheral but not powerless position in the global economy of knowledge. How do they handle relations with the global metropole, especially in new fields of research where established hierarchies are in question? Three new domains of knowledge - climate change, HIV/AIDS and gender studies - are studied through interviews with 70 active researchers in Southern-tier countries Brazi…
Approaching Southern theory
This article draws on the five other papers from South Africa in this issue of Gender and Education to consider how Southern theory has been developed and is developing in relation to gender and education in South Africa. We argue that Southern theory is not an on-the-shelf solution to global geopolitical inequalities but a work in process that is important both for the global South and to simultaneously dethrone and enrich Northern, mainstream t…
Zulu Masculinities, Warrior Culture and Stick Fighting
Zulu soldiers are renowned for decimating a British army at the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879. This military victory not only entrenched a legacy of merciless conquest long attributed to King Shaka, but also sensationalised the idea that Zulu men are natural-born killers. We reassess this stereotype by scrutinising the 'Shakan' version of martial culture and its reputed links to the formative encounters of Zulu men. One such experience involved bo…
Gender Role and Relationship Norms among Young Adults in South Africa
Men, Movements, and Gender Transformation in South Africa
In the last decade, South Africa has undergone a major political transformation. The ending of apartheid and the installation of a democratically elected, black majority government has had major implications for gender policy and gender relations in the country. This paper examines how men collectively have responded to these changes. It identifies a number of different men's movements and locates them in terms of their relationship to the goal o…
Corporal Punishment and Masculinity in South African Schools
Corporal punishment has long been the most common form of punishment in South African schools. Its widespread use undoubtedly influenced constructions of masculinity
Indian merchants anddukawallahsin the Natal economy, c1875-1914
In the early years of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Natal provided an ideal environment in which Indian merchants could flourish. Under‐supplied with money and goods, with relative stability and with few bureaucratic hindrances, Indians could import both their goods, their skills and their time‐tested commercial and financial methods. Although the first wave of merchants found a niche mainly in the market for trade, credit and money…
Making Southern theory? Gender researchers in South Africa
This article examines the work of six South African gender researchers working in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It suggests that their work should be understood as situated in terms of politics, educational histories, theoretical connections and transnational engagements. It reflects on whether this work can be considered an example of Southern theory, and in turn suggests that Southern theory should itself be understood in…
Counting Fathers in South Africa
Current national data-bases in South Africa do not reveal the number or profile of fathers in the country. It is only possible to derive an estimate of fathers by making a series of inferences from other information contained in these data sets. In this paper, we argue that it is important for national surveys to directly identify which men are fathers. Internationally, research shows that engaged forms of fatherhood benefit children, fathers the…
Farmers, Randlords and the South African state
The pervasive importance of gold mining in modern South Africa has become embedded in South African historiography. Despite this, little research has been done to ascertain its impact on the other major sector of the economy, agriculture. The gold mines had a profound effect upon one particular branch of agriculture – beef farming. The mines purchased large amounts of beef and were able to use their buying power to confront beef farmers in the ma…
Corporal punishment and gender equality
Many policy interventions designed to achieve gender equality in education are predicated on the assumption that the enforcement of a human rights framework will promote equality and reduce (gender) inequalities. In South Africa, the ending of apartheid led to the introduction of a rights-based constitution in 1996. In line with this Constitution the education system was overhauled and a new Act, the South African Education Act of 1996 came into …
Hegemonic Masculinity, Violence, and Gender Equality
Messerschmidt and colleagues have pioneered work in criminology using masculinities theory, yet many researchers in the field have not engaged with the possibility that the different patterning of correlated violent, sexually risky, and antisocial behaviors may reflect a disaggregation of the category of men into multiple masculinities. This lens can help understand men's violence and enable intervention targeting. We analyzed household survey da…
Conflict, provocation and fights among boys in a South African high school
Boys are commonly associated with disruptive behaviour and physical fighting at school. Explanations for this behaviour range from naturalistic ‘boys will be boys’ approaches to analyses which focus on the social construction of masculinity and emphasise the gendered nature of boys' behaviour. Whichever view holds sway, it is often assumed that conflict and disagreement lead, in automatic, linear and unproblematic ways, to instances of physical v…
Doubts, dilemmas and decisions
This article discusses the tension between 'do no harm' on the one hand and the integrity of the research process and its intended goals on the other. We discuss a set of choices confronted in the process of researching gender and sexuality in the context of HIV in South African schools. One dilemma was what to do with information that suggested that an adjunct member of the research team was undermining the gender equality goals of the project a…
Talking about rape
This focus is based on a series of cognitive interviews conducted as part of a broader quantitative study on rape in South Africa. During the process of refining the questionnaire, 20 men from the country's Eastern Cape province, aged between 18 and 49 years, were asked to comment on questions about attitudes towards and practices of non-consensual sex with women. The men were divided in their views but most expressed fairly traditional rape-supp…
Introduction
The Disintegration of the Gold and Maize Alliance in South Africa in the 1920s
As early as the 1890s certain Transvaal farmers enjoyed an economic marriage of convenience with some of the wealthy gold mine owners despite the fact that most Transvaal burghers saw the mines as a political and economic threat.1 The changing requirements of the Randlords, however, terminated this relationship and the Jameson Raid (1896) and the South African War (1899-1902) widened the breach. Nevertheless, in the early decades of the twentieth…
Vehicle for Southern African Knowledge? Men and Masculinities and Research from South Africa
Knowledge production is dominated by publications in and from the global North. This has given rise to a concern that certain perspectives and agendas have global prominence whereas others, from the global South, are marginalized. Analyzing the publication record of Men and Masculinities with respect to articles authored by scholars from, or working in, South Africa, I argue that the journal, despite being founded, based and published in the Unit…
Farmers, Randlords and the South African state
The pervasive importance of gold mining in modern South Africa has become embedded in South African historiography. Despite this, little research has been done to ascertain its impact on the other major sector of the economy, agriculture. The gold mines had a profound effect upon one particular branch of agriculture – beef farming. The mines purchased large amounts of beef and were able to use their buying power to confront beef farmers in the ma…
The Disintegration of the Gold and Maize Alliance in South Africa in the 1920s
As early as the 1890s certain Transvaal farmers enjoyed an economic marriage of convenience with some of the wealthy gold mine owners despite the fact that most Transvaal burghers saw the mines as a political and economic threat.1 The changing requirements of the Randlords, however, terminated this relationship and the Jameson Raid (1896) and the South African War (1899-1902) widened the breach. Nevertheless, in the early decades of the twentieth…
African Land Purchase and the 1913 Natives Land Act in the Eastern Transvaal
Power and Politics at a non-racial, ethnic University
Indian merchants anddukawallahsin the Natal economy, c1875-1914
In the early years of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Natal provided an ideal environment in which Indian merchants could flourish. Under‐supplied with money and goods, with relative stability and with few bureaucratic hindrances, Indians could import both their goods, their skills and their time‐tested commercial and financial methods. Although the first wave of merchants found a niche mainly in the market for trade, credit and money…
Banking, Credit and Capital in Colonial Natal, c.1850-1910
In 1843 Natal, on the south east coast of Africa, became a British colony after a contest between Boer and British forces which had culminated in the battle of Congella. The colony was not particularly wealthy; its resources being made up primarily of wild game and cattle, the latter chiefly in the possession of the yet unsubjugated Africans of the area. The Zulu state was still intact and abutted the northern borders of the colony. One of the ea…
Masculinity in South African History
Introduction
Of boys and men
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 o…
Men, Gender Wounds and Healing
Corporal Punishment and Masculinity in South African Schools
Corporal punishment has long been the most common form of punishment in South African schools. Its widespread use undoubtedly influenced constructions of masculinity
Men, Movements, and Gender Transformation in South Africa
In the last decade, South Africa has undergone a major political transformation. The ending of apartheid and the installation of a democratically elected, black majority government has had major implications for gender policy and gender relations in the country. This paper examines how men collectively have responded to these changes. It identifies a number of different men's movements and locates them in terms of their relationship to the goal o…
The school setting
ROBERT MORRELL, RELEBOHILE MOLETSANE, QUAIRRAISHA ABDOOL KARIM, DEBBIE EPSTEIN and ELAINE UNTERHALTER argue school-based HIV interventions offer an opportunity to transform gender, in schools and beyond
Enriching Gender Studies in Sub-Saharan Africa
Counting Fathers in South Africa
Current national data-bases in South Africa do not reveal the number or profile of fathers in the country. It is only possible to derive an estimate of fathers by making a series of inferences from other information contained in these data sets. In this paper, we argue that it is important for national surveys to directly identify which men are fathers. Internationally, research shows that engaged forms of fatherhood benefit children, fathers the…
From Boys to Gentlemen
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
African Masculinities
While masculinity studies enjoys considerable growth in the West, there is very little analysis of African masculinities. This volume explores what it means for an African to be masculine and how male
African Masculinities
Zen Sanctuary of Purple Robes
Gender dynamics in the primary sexual relationships of young rural South African women and men
A substantial body of South African research describes the importance of gender dynamics within sexual relationships as factors underlying HIV risk, yet we know little about these factors among young adults-a group at exceptionally high risk of infection. Our primary objective was to explore the ways that young adult men and women interpret and enact gender roles within their established primary partnerships, and how these dynamics influence sexu…
Gender Role and Relationship Norms among Young Adults in South Africa
Talking about rape
This focus is based on a series of cognitive interviews conducted as part of a broader quantitative study on rape in South Africa. During the process of refining the questionnaire, 20 men from the country's Eastern Cape province, aged between 18 and 49 years, were asked to comment on questions about attitudes towards and practices of non-consensual sex with women. The men were divided in their views but most expressed fairly traditional rape-supp…
Power and Identity
In this introduction we provide a framework for and an overview of the seven articles included in this special issue. We begin by discussing the history and historiography of sexuality in Southern
Empowering teenagers to prevent pregnancy
Reducing rates of teenage pregnancy is an important part of the agenda of action for meeting most of the Millenium Development Goals. South Africa has important lessons for other countries in this regard as the rate of teenage pregnancy is high but has declined very substantially over the last twenty years. The country experiences waves of moral panic about teenage pregnancy, with assertions that current problems are rooted in accepting or even e…
I know that I could have walked away but there were people around there.” Masculinities and fights between boys at a Durban high school
This article draws upon research conducted in a co-educational secondary school. It explores violence among boys by examining the processes which lead from conflict to outright physical violence between two or more boys. The affirmation of peers is critical in maintaining one's status within the school, and this makes the presence of other boys at a site of conflict highly significant. A conflict situation generally has two phases—the first phase…
Sociology (45 obras) · Gender Studies (35 obras) · Political science (31 obras) · Gender Roles and Identity Studies (23 obras) · Gender Studies (21 obras) · Psychology (19 obras) · Geography (17 obras) · Law (17 obras) · Masculinity (17 obras) · Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (14 obras)