Location, location, location: reckoning with margins and centres of masculinities research and theory in an inter/trans-national South Africa–Finland project on youth

Abstract

Grounding itself in an international South Africa–Finland collaborative project, ‘engaging South African and Finnish youth towards new traditions of non-violence, equality and social well-being’, this reflective paper considers how our locatedness as researchers potentially influences our research choices, perspectives and sociopolitical work. The paper contends that the researcher of men is always already located on at least three terrains: first, the researcher is positioned in relation to ‘objects’ of the study; second, in relation to methods and theories that prevail in the field; and third, in relation to the global and local geographic, economic, political and cultural world at large. It calls for the constant need for masculinities researchers and those who would engage men to be more critical of their own locatedness and perspectives in trying to understand masculinities. It suggests that those researching and writing and working with men from places in the global South like South Africa need to move towards less extroverted/extraverted perspectives and that those researching and writing and working with men from the global North need to move towards a less introverted/intraverted approaches.

Keywords::

• extraversion
• Finland
• introversion
• location
• South Africa
• youth

Additional information

Funding

This article results from a 3-year collaborative transnational research project ‘Engaging South African and Finnish youth towards new traditions of non-violence, equality and social well-being’, funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa, and the Academy of Finland.

Notes on contributors

Kopano Ratele

Kopano Ratele is Professor in the Institute for Social and Health Sciences at the University of South Africa (Unisa) and Researcher at the South African Medical Research Council-Unisa's Violence, Injury & Peace Research Unit. He is past president of the Psychological Society of South Africa and chairperson of the board of Sonke Gender Justice. He writes on masculinity in relation to violence, tradition, culture, race and sexuality.