Grace Khunou

Defining absent, unknown and undisclosed fathers in South Africa

ABSTRACT The absence of fathers in African black families is high. Therefore research to understand how this impacts identity formation, the economic survival of households and generally how the phenomenon is understood by those who experience this absence, has been on the increase in South Africa. Nevertheless, there is little agreement on the meaning of the term, father absence. In an attempt to correct this, a study was undertaken in Mpumalanga provinces in South Africa among women aged 14 to 36. Through domain analysis of narratives collected from 20 the young women, this article provides multiple conceptualizations of father absence as experienced by the young women. The various categories emerging from the data provide the following types of understandings of father absence: absent and unknown; absent but known; absent and undisclosed; and unknown and deceased. From a detailed discussion of these understandings, this article shows that the concept father absence is embedded in socio-economic and political contexts and therefore it is complex, and thus should be defined with care. It is thus hoped that the conceptualization provided here will allow researchers and practitioners to better understand the phenomenon of father absence.

What middle class? The shifting and dynamic nature of class position

Class categorisation should not only be informed by academic pursuits but by the lived experiences of those being categorised. A human or community-centred definition of class will illustrate the complexities of class experience and will thus present a dynamic conceptualisation. Through two life-history interviews of two black women from South Africa, this article illustrates that middle-classness for blacks during apartheid was marred with constant shifts related to the socio-economic and political impermanence of class position. Continuous negotiation driven by the need to be included in ones own community and the effects of being racially othered in interaction with whites and white spaces influences these shifts. In conclusion, the article argues that being middle class and black is heterogeneously experienced and thus complex.

Money and gender relations in the south african maintenance system

ABSTRACT Policy makers, in their endeavour to craft the state, treat social relations and legislation as neutral and impersonal. This detached engagement with social life is undertaken to facilitate a particular social order (Manicon 1992). In the maintenance system, this shaping of social life is also undertaken in how maintenance money is dealt with, in purely economic terms. Through a discussion of in-depth interviews with women and men who use the maintenance system, this article illustrates how maintenance money is naturalised in conceptions of gender in general and in terms of fatherhood, within the maintenance system. Maintenance money is central in influencing relationships between women and men, men and their children, and (most significantly) in the smooth operation of the maintenance system. This article demonstrates that the use of the maintenance system shifts the negotiations for mens money to the state, thus challenging the bases of traditional gender relations and the notions that men are eager providers. It illustrates that by using the maintenance system, women use the state to claim their power. This they do by accessing mens money, without engaging in the matching traditional obligations. The article concludes that the maintenance system with its neutral position on maintenance money provides a platform for already-existing relationship tensions between women and men to be played out.

Making love possible: cell phones and intimate relationships

The cell phone plays a significant role in the constitution and maintenance of intimate relationships. It enables individual women and men to conceive and end relationships over great distances. It allows them to break the ice on initiation of relationships, whilst it also ‘softens’ their sense of appropriate gender roles, language and posture customary to face to face interactions. Recent research indicates that as much as cell phones influence intimate relations they are also equally shaped by social relations. This article illustrates how the cell phone challenges traditional notions of intimate relationships. It demonstrates how cell phones aid the commencement of relationships without the fear of rejection. Moreover, cell phones make breaking-up inconsequential since it can be done over long distances without the responsibility of having to deal with the hurt and frustration of the other. Because the cell phone is also seen as a ‘representative of the self’ it leads to sensitivities around privacy, thus leading to new kinds of conflicts in relationships. Cell phones, the article concludes, are implicated in already existing relationship challenges.

Men's health: An analysis of representations of men's health in the Sowetan newspaper

Abstract Recent messages on mens health suggest a crisis in the health of men in general. Most of these present men from a hegemonic view, denoting that men are uncaring, indifferent to their healthcare needs and generally risk takers. The limit of such a conception is its uncritical reference to hegemonic masculinity, without an acknowledgement of different experiences by men. Through a content analysis of articles on men and health from the Sowetan newspaper, this article shows that representations of men in relation to health fail to account for the complex and varied practices of men with regard to their health. This representation is influenced by the contested and constantly shifting role of the media. Although the media play an important role in informing the masses, the article shows that such information is not about all men, nor is it accessible by all men. As a result of socio-economic inequalities and other significant differences among men, the presentations in these newspaper articles limit our view of men to that of a hegemonic one, with negative consequences for mens health. In conclusion, it further limits the facilitation of improving intervention for the health needs of all men.

Editorial: South Africa's emergent middle class

Given the significance of the black middle class for the consolidation of South Africa’s democracy, studies on class have focused on the black middle-class experience. However, as with many other social phenomena, conceptualisations from these studies have differed considerably. The challenge is the tendency of many of these conceptualisations to reduce black middle-class experiences to the ahistorical, homogeneous experiences of a group of conspicuous consumers. This is based on the limiting notion that black experience is traditional and uncomplicated, and this approach is then extrapolated to the experiences of the black middle class.

Shaming Fathers into Providers: Child Support and Fatherhood in the South African Media

The media influence societys understanding of gender and other social phenomena including how we view fatherhood. Fatherhood is rarely presented positively in both visual and print media. Through an analysis of newspaper articles from The Sowetan, City Press, The Daily Sun and The Pretoria News, this article shows how shaming is used to represent fatherhood and child support in the South African print media. These representations, the article argues are limiting and provide fewer positives for fathers and fail to account for socio-economic challenges experienced in relation to fatherhood. In conclusion, the article illustrates that the media could play an important role in presenting a balanced sense of fatherhood, where affirmation of positive fatherhood is used as a more effective way of representing fatherhood in the media.

Are you your father's child? Social identity influences of father absence in a South African setting

This study explored social identity influences of father absence on black South African young adults, including use of paternal surname. Informants were six young women and men between 21 and 35 years of age from a historically disadvantaged South African township. Data were collected through one-on-one in-depth interviews, and analyzed using thematic content analysis. Father absence was associated with lower self perceptions and non-use of paternal surname with diminished sense of identity. Use of maternal surname sufficed as an identity for some. Patriarchal norms explained childrens perceived and experienced social identities in a historically disadvantaged black community.

Book Review: The New Black Middle Class in South AfricaSouthallRogerThe New Black Middle Class in South Africa. Melton, UK: James Currey. 2016. 296 pp.

The emergence of the new black middle class has gained momentum in postapartheid South Africa. Studies of the black middle class, and the academic debate on its constitution and significance, are only recently gaining momentum. Roger Southall’s book The New Black Middle Class in South Africa is one such study. This book offers a sociological, multitiered historical overview of the black middle class in South Africa. Southall explicates the complexity and contradictory role of the black middle class as a vital element in the building of South Africa’s democracy. The intricacy Southall illustrates is mainly a result of the history of this class. Southall asserts that the origins of the black middle class took root earlier than the era of apartheid, thus he offers an historical overview of colonization (1910–1948) and apartheid (1948–1994). “African elites” were those who had been afforded limited education sufficient to allow them to function as intermediaries and liaisons between whites and black laborers. Southall also notes that during apartheid, the black middle class benefited from their class category by gaining access to bigger houses, yards, and expensive cars; nevertheless they were still restricted by their race in terms of where they could enjoy these benefits. Southall shows that although they were marginalized in the colonial hierarchal structure, in relation to other black people, their class status provided them with certain material rewards and social prestige. He notes that the South African black middle class has always been politically progressive as the leaders for their communities and that they played a significant role in the black liberation movement. Southall further asserts that the significance and contradictory position of this older black middle class becomes more challenging to understand and explain in postapartheid South Africa with the emergence of the “new” black middle class. Despite the growth of the new black middle class, Southall highlights that this class cohort is in a precarious position that does not afford them stability. Whites had several generations to build a solid wealth foundation on the basis of education, income, and property ownership, making them able to pass their wealth from one generation to the next. Because accumulated generational wealth is a factor in defining “middle class,” achieving that status will be difficult for the new black middle class because they are starting from scratch (p. 165). Additionally, Southall shows that high-quality education is still not accessible to all, because access still depends on “wealth, socio-economic status, geographic location and language” (p. 104). Southall notes an additional nuance in the complexities of conceptualizing the black middle class when he discusses the “social world of the black middle class” (p. 164). He illustrates that “while the new middle class might be new, it has important roots in households of the past.” The roots of the middle class influence its consumption, debt, changing residential patterns, and precarious position. Another entanglement is, of course, the racial history of South Africa, which influences the lived experiences and construction of the black middle class. The category “black” in South Africa refers to Africans, Coloureds, and Indians; however, this grouping cannot be recognized as homogenous given its components’ different levels of oppression during apartheid and experiences after apartheid. Therefore, Southall focuses on how the intersections of class and race shape the social realities and structures of the black middle class. 793650 SREXXX10.1177/2332649218793650Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 4(4)Book Review research-article2018