Cellphones and romantic relationships of young women in urban informal settlements in South Africa

Abstract

Cellphones have impacted on people’s intimate sexual relationships. Using the framework of relationship formation, maintenance and ending, we explore how cellphones and attendant social media have impacted on relationships among a group of young women living in urban informal settlements in Durban, South Africa. We conducted in-depth repeat interviews with 15 women enrolled in the Stepping Stones and Creating Futures trial, as well as group discussions and light-touch participant observation. Our data show that cellphones and social media are central to women’s sexual relationships and allow women greater control over relationships – particularly their formation. However, cellphones and social media also enable greater control and monitoring by partners. In this study, cellphones were central in establishing (or not) trust in relationships, as well as being gifts, sometimes given by men to demonstrate love, but often becoming a snare for women who then struggled to end relationships because the phones ‘remained’ the property of the man. We conclude that while cellphones have created new spaces and opportunities for women’s agency, overall the wider social and material forces of women’s existence were deeply constraining and were the main driver of patterns in women’s relationships.

Keywords:

• Intimate partner violence
• technology
• South Africa
• women
• urban

Acknowledgements

We thank Nolwazi Ntini, who conducted the interviews and the participant observation, for her work, as well as the participants who provided their time and information. We also acknowledge the important contribution of the broader research team which enabled this project to happen.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Data collection was funded through the ‘What Works To Prevent Violence? A Global Programme on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)’ project funded by the UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID) (www.whatworks.co.za) and managed by the South African Medical Research Council (www.mrc.ac.za). The analysis described in this paper was funded by the ‘Context and Health - An inter-disciplinary approach to understanding and intervening on contextual factors that shape HIV-risk for young women and men in South Africa’ project (MR/T029803/1), funded by UK Research and Innovation, and managed by the South African Medical Research Council.