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Contested multiple voices of young masculinities amongst adolescent boys in Alexandra Township, South Africa
Abstract
Objective: In this paper, the author explores how adolescent boys negotiate multiple voices of masculinity in Alexandra Township, a historically working-class and black community in Gauteng, South Africa.
Method: Thirty adolescent boys were recruited and provided with disposable cameras to take 27 photos under the theme ‘my life as a boy’ in the new South Africa. Arrangements were made for photos to be collected and processed. In the follow-up interviews, boys were asked to give a description of each photo and why and how they had decided to take that photo to represent aspects of their masculinity.
Results Some of the photos taken depict books, cars, boys smoking, gambling, fighting and reading books at school.
Conclusion: This study reveals that being a boy is not a homogeneous phenomenon. All the participants agreed that there are different ways of being a boy and that some boys are more popular than others, which often depends on the context in which the boys find themselves. The interviews revealed recurring allusions to different ‘types’ of boys at schools in Alexandra Township – namely, tsotsi boys and academic boys. However, it is important to note that boys do not fit neatly into each of these categories. The findings of the study reveal some interesting complexities on how adolescent boys simultaneously accept and reject certain practices of township masculinity in their daily lives, depending on the time and space in which they find themselves. Some positions are more dominant than others and this reveals how adolescent boys ‘police’ each other as part of a process of conforming to idealised norms of township masculinity as lived out in the township context of Alexandra.
Journal of Child and Adolescent Mental Health 2010, 22(1): 1–13
Method: Thirty adolescent boys were recruited and provided with disposable cameras to take 27 photos under the theme ‘my life as a boy’ in the new South Africa. Arrangements were made for photos to be collected and processed. In the follow-up interviews, boys were asked to give a description of each photo and why and how they had decided to take that photo to represent aspects of their masculinity.
Results Some of the photos taken depict books, cars, boys smoking, gambling, fighting and reading books at school.
Conclusion: This study reveals that being a boy is not a homogeneous phenomenon. All the participants agreed that there are different ways of being a boy and that some boys are more popular than others, which often depends on the context in which the boys find themselves. The interviews revealed recurring allusions to different ‘types’ of boys at schools in Alexandra Township – namely, tsotsi boys and academic boys. However, it is important to note that boys do not fit neatly into each of these categories. The findings of the study reveal some interesting complexities on how adolescent boys simultaneously accept and reject certain practices of township masculinity in their daily lives, depending on the time and space in which they find themselves. Some positions are more dominant than others and this reveals how adolescent boys ‘police’ each other as part of a process of conforming to idealised norms of township masculinity as lived out in the township context of Alexandra.
Journal of Child and Adolescent Mental Health 2010, 22(1): 1–13
