Robert Morrell

• BJourn, BA Hons (Rhodes), MA (Wits), PhD (Natal).
• Managing Director at University of Cape Town

SIGNIFICANCE: Universities and their academics are faced with increasing pressure to contribute to knowledge. These pressures produce conditions for shortcuts and, worse, the production of unreliable research that has little value. This is the world of the fake, where universities are corrupted and their integrity undermined. We argue that the scho...

Questions of inclusivity and transformation are central in higher education. In South Africa, these imperatives have the additional weight of post-apartheid redress. Attempts to address these questions seldom contemplate how transformation will be achieved. Efforts to achieve transformation often don’t attend to the critical question of how to nurt...

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 t...

The study of masculinity in South Africa scarcely existed in 1990. A minor interest in gender was focused on women and inequality. South Africa was emerging from four decades of apartheid. It was into this environment that Raewyn Connell’s ideas were introduced, adopted and adapted. Raewyn herself made a number of trips to South Africa in the 1990s...

Ninety percent of the world’s youth live in Africa, Latin America and the developing countries of Asia. Despite this, the field of Youth Studies, like many others, is dominated by the knowledge economy of the Global North. To address these geopolitical inequalities of knowledge, The Oxford Handbook of Global South Youth Studies offers a contributio...

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 quantita...

The system of academic promotion provides a mechanism for the achievements of staff to be recognised. However, it can be a mechanism that creates or reflects inequalities, with certain groups rising to the top more readily than others. In many universities, especially in the global North, white men are preponderant in senior academic ranks. This le...

This book is about knowledge, the making of knowledge, and the politics of knowledge, in a world context. We examine three new fields of knowledge as they have come into existence—not in the global centres, but in countries of the Southern tier: Brazil, South Africa, and Australia. We address massive problems of inequality in the knowledge economy,...

Within his social millieu, Aubrey Langley was lauded as one South Africa’s finest headmasters. He served as headmaster of Durban High School (DHS) from 1910 to 1939. He was feared and loved with a reputation for fierce discipline, devotion to the game of rugby and a love of classical education. In this paper we explore his place in the history of c...

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 workin...

Abstract 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,...

Research about HIV constitutes a global domain of academic knowledge. The patterns that structure this domain reflect inequalities in the production and dissemination of knowledge, as well as broader inequalities in geopolitics. Conventional metrics for assessing the value and impact of academic research reveal that “Northern” research remains domi...

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 qu...

The late twentieth century saw a steep rise in published works on gender in South Africa. This article is based on a quantitative analysis of the production of gender research. The theoretical backdrop is current interest in Southern theory, theory produced to analyse and challenge existing global knowledge inequalities. As a domain of research, So...

Bu galibiyet, uzun zamandır Kral Shaka’ya ithaf edilen amansız zaferin şanını sadece güçlendirmemiş, aynı zamanda Zulu erkeklerinin doğuştan katil oldukları fikrini de sansasyonel hâle getirmiştir. Biz de dövüş kültürünün ‘Şakan (Shakan)’ versiyonunu ve Zulu erkeklerinin belirleyici mücadelesiyle meşhur bağlantısını inceleyerek bu stereotipi yenide...

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...

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...

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 c...

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...

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 So...

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...

This article reports the findings of research conducted with a randomly selected sample of men aged 18–49 years from the general population of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, who were asked in an anonymously conducted survey about their rape perpetration practices, motivations, and consequences thereof. Overall 27,6 per cent (466/1686) of men h...

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 seeki...

In Paulshoek, Namaqualand, three research projects focusing on medicinal plants were developed concurrently. The projects were based in the disciplines of anthropology, botany and chemistry. In this paper, we explore how these projects related to one another and describe the conversations that occurred in the process of searching for transdisciplin...

Studies of rape of women seldom distinguish between men's participation in acts of single and multiple perpetrator rape. Multiple perpetrator rape (MPR) occurs globally with serious consequences for women. In South Africa it is a cultural practice with defined circumstances in which it commonly occurs. Prevention requires an understanding of whethe...

For at least the past two centuries, rural Zulu boys and young men, like their counterparts in neighboring Swazi, Sotho and Xhosa communities, have reinforced their gender identity through competitive stick fighting. This contact sport tested male prowess and helped determine social rankings. Winning one-on-one bouts enhanced a Zulu boy’s status in...

The knowledge focus In this book we question how knowledge is made in African contexts, as a way of exploring the nature of what we term Africa-centred knowledges. Africa-centred knowledges are predicated on the recognition that Africa is highly diverse but, at the same time, there is a geopolitical and historical unity that continues to underpin i...

Background: In sub-Saharan Africa the population prevalence of men who have sex with men (MSM) is unknown, as is the population prevalence of male-on-male sexual violence, and whether male-on-male sexual violence may relate to HIV risk. This paper describes lifetime prevalence of consensual male-male sexual behavior and male-on-male sexual violenc...

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...

South African national education policy is committed to promoting gender equality at school and to facilitating the successful completion of all young people's schooling, including those who may become pregnant and parent while at school. However, the experience of being pregnant and parenting while being a learner is shaped by broader social and s...

Multi-Country Qualitative Study of Men in Non-Traditional Caregiving Roles

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 th...

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...

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 con...

South African policy makers are reviewing legislation of prostitution, concerned that criminalisation hampers HIV prevention. They seek to understand the relationship between transactional sex, prostitution, and the nature of the involved men. 1645 randomly-selected adult South African men participated in a household study, disclosing whether they...

Sex motivated by economic exchange is a public health concern as a driver of the Sub-Saharan African HIV epidemic. We describe patterns of engagement in transactional sexual relationships and sex with women in prostitution of South African men, and suggest interpretations that advance our understanding of the phenomenon. Cross-sectional study with...

The concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ continues to be used widely in gendered studies of men and masculinities, though this does not signify consensus on its meaning and conceptual value. In this article we introduce some different ways in which the concept has been used theoretically, and compare two different political and conceptual locations i...

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 focuse...

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 cu...

Violence that occurs in schools is antithetical to the function of schools as places for educating children and young people in conditions of safety, tolerance and reverence for knowledge. Ever since the English public schooling system was described by Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown’s School Days (1857), the existence of robust, hierarchical and often...

To describe the prevalence and patterns of rape perpetration in a randomly selected sample of men from the general adult population, to explore factors associated with rape and to describe how men explained their acts of rape. Cross-sectional household study with a two- stage randomly selected sample of men. 1737 South African men aged 18-49 comple...

To investigate the associations between intimate partner violence, rape and HIV among South African men. Cross-sectional study involving a randomly-selected sample of men. We tested hypotheses that perpetration of physical intimate partner violence and rape were associated with prevalent HIV infections in a cross-sectional household study of 1229 S...

In South Africa, both HIV and gender-based violence are highly prevalent. Gender inequalities give men considerable relational power over young women, particularly in circumstances of poverty and where sex is materially rewarded. Young women are often described as victims of men, but this inadequately explains women's observed sexual agency. This p...

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between men who engage in carework and commitment to gender equity. The context of the study was that gender inequitable masculinities create vulnerability for men and women to HIV and other health concerns. Interventions are being developed to work with masculinity and to 'change men'. Rese...

The Men and Gender Equality Policy Project is a multi-year, multi-country effort to leverage evidence from existing policies and, through formative qualitative and quantitative research, raise awareness among policymakers and program planners of the need to involve men in gender equality, health and development agendas.The research provides insight...

South African law forbids excluding pregnant teenagers from school and permits young parents to continue with their schooling. However, the existence of progressive policy and law does not by itself ensure that pregnant teenagers and young parents remain in school or experience as little disruption to their studies as possible. Two of the factors i...

Research shows that gender power inequity in relationships and intimate partner violence places women at enhanced risk of HIV infection. Men who have been violent towards their partners are more likely to have HIV. Men's behaviours show a clustering of violent and risky sexual practices, suggesting important connections. This paper draws on Raewyn...

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 pa...

Two of the most pressing educational concerns in sub-Saharan Africa — violence and HIV/AIDS — are directly related to the ways in which gender is socially constructed. In developing contexts gender has stubbornly remained a one-sided topic with the focus firmly (and justifiably) on the plight of girls in schools. In the African context where girls...

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...

Executive Summary Understanding men's health and use of violence: interface of rape and HIV in South Africa Introduction South Africa has one of the highest rates of rape reported to the police in the world and the largest number of people living with HIV. The rate of rape perpetration is not known because only a small proportion of rapes are repor...

Incl. bibl., index

Since the promulgation of the South African Schools Act in 1996 it has become illegal to exclude pregnant girls from school. Influenced by feminist research, policy has sought to assist pregnant girls and young parents to continue and complete their schooling on the understanding that having children often terminates school-going limiting future em...

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 ...

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...

The last decade has seen a growth in academic work on men and masculinity in Southern Africa. Inspired by a global trend, local studies have extended their range, empirical depth and analytical sophistication. The major consequence of this turn to the study of masculinities and men has been an enhanced understanding of gender relations in Southern...

In the global literature on HIV/AIDS, much attention has been paid to the role of gender inequalities in facilitating the transmission of HIV. For women, gender inequality may be manifested in sexual coercion, reduced negotiating power and partnering with older men, all practices that heighten risk for HIV. Less attention, however, has been paid to...

BOY SCOUTS IN AFRICAN HISTORY Race, Resistance and the Boy Scout Movement in British Colonial Africa. By TIMOTHY H. PARSONS. Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 2004. Pp. xviii+318. $59.95 (ISBN 0-8214-1595-6); $26.95, paperback (ISBN 0-8214-1595-4). - - Volume 47 Issue 1 - ROBERT MORRELL

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 ena...

In this article we argue that, almost unnoticed, teachers are dealing with the consequences of HIV/AIDS in their schools and classrooms. By focusing on the pastoral care of teachers work with learners, we explore the ways that teachers understand the care component of their school work, and describe what they actually do for learners who are either...

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 identity is shaped by cultural forces. The editors believe that to tackle the important questions in Africa-the many forms of violence (wars, genocid...

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It is a curiosity that with the burgeoning of work on gender in Africa, and particularly the work on women, the subject of masculinities in Africa remains neglected.1 There are two contributions that Afircan Masculinities: Men in Africa from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present seeks to make: the first is to address the subject of masculiniti...

Since the ending of Apartheid in 1994, South Africa has passed a constitution that is amongst the most progressive in the world. It forbids discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, race, class, age, and creed. The new policies and laws have understandably not overthrown patriarchy or removed men from their domination of public l...

The article examines understandings of class, race, gender and sexuality in the writings of secondary school students in two working-class schools in Durban. The analysis of students' questions and responses to a problem page ‘agony aunt’, indicate how class and race come to be expressed through accounts of sexuality. In the letters many children h...

The Fatherhood Project is a research and advocacy intervention. Its goals include promoting the concept of fatherhood, initiating debate about how fathers might better relate to their children and researching how South African men historically discharged and currently discharge the fatherhood role. Being a father is related to a man's sense of his...

As Edward Kirumira points out in the interview he gave for this special issue, social relationships cannot be separated from the incidence and prevalence of HIV/AIDS. It is now widely acknowledged that the gender dimension of the AIDS pandemic is critical both for the understanding of its impact and to the successful implementation of prevention an...

Incl. graphs and bibl. The ten essays in this volume look at the many and complex relationships between HIV/AIDS and education. It is clear that education in an AIDS-infected world cannot be the same as that in an AIDS-free world. It is imperative to adapt educational planning and management principles, curriculum-development goals, and the provisi...

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 fat...

In South Africa where there is a very high HIV infection rate among teenagers and young adults, it is surprising to find that students and teachers are very unwilling to talk about the possibility of being or becoming HIV positive. While AIDS messages dominate public discourse, there is a silence in schools about the personal in relation to AIDS. T...

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...

Media coverage of schooling around the world from the US and the UK to South Africa convey images of violence. Many academic texts confirm the seriousness and prevalence of violence in schools. An obvious conclusion to be drawn is that schools, far from being peaceful and safe places of learning are sites of violence. Some views go so far as to sug...

Guest editors RELEBOHILE MOLETSANE, ROBERT MORRELL, ELAINE UNTERHALTER and DEBBIE EPSTEIN introduce the issue

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