Young people’s discursive constructions of fatherhood in South Africa

ABSTRACT

The voices of young people remain, for the most part, under-considered within research on South African fathers. The present study relies on photo-elicitation interviews to explore how isiXhosa-speaking adolescents construct fathering roles and responsibilities in South Africa. Using discursive psychology, it was found that participants drew on the ‘Essential Fathering’ and ‘Social Fathering’ discourses to construct South African fatherhood. The discourses appeared to valorize biological fatherhood situated within the nuclear family, while - at the same time - valuing socialized paternal formations that need not be constituted biologically. It is suggested that although genuine paternal abandonment should not be excused, policy, parental programmes and legislation in South Africa must consider the voices of young people as well as the myriad parenting modalities that exist outside of hegemonic family forms.

KEYWORDS:

• Discourse
• fatherhood
• Photovoice
• adolescents
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

The assistance and photographic training provided by Brittany Everitt-Penhale and Professor Kopano Ratele made for invaluable contributions to this project. Professor Shahnaaz Suffla also provided assistance at various stages of the study, as did Dr Samed Bulbulia. We wish to acknowledge all the young people who participated in this study, as well as the Institute for Social and Health Sciences, University of South Africa and the South African Medical Research Council-University of South Africa Violence, Injury and Peace Research Unit, which helped facilitate the research process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Under apartheid’s Population Registration Act of 1950 (repealed in 1991), everyone living in South Africa was categorized as either ‘Black’, ‘White’, or ‘Coloured’. Later, ‘Indian’ was included as a fourth category. The use of racial categories in this article denotes this process of racialization undertaken by the racist apartheid State. Therefore, while we acknowledge the socially constructed and oppressive functionality of ‘race’, it is nonetheless necessary to use racial categories insofar as they demonstrate the deep structural divisions and inequalities that exist in South Africa today.

Additional information

Funding

This work is based on research supported in part by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (IFR2011040100041). The funder had no involvement in the study design, the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, the writing of the report, or the decision to submit the article for publication.