Decolonising Men and Masculinities Research in South Africa

ABSTRACT

The calls for knowledge decolonisation pervade most academic disciplines in South Africa today. In this paper I argue for epistemological decolonisation within men and masculinities studies through “delinking” from western gender paradigms. The paper draws on the Xhosa concept of manhood called indoda to illustrate African-centred ways of decolonising and theorising masculinities research which cater to the needs of indigenous African communities. The evidence suggests that masculinities in Xhosa culture centre on the rites of passage to manhood called ulwaluko, which involve physical alteration of the penis through circumcision. As ulwaluko inserts a fixed bodily mark of Xhosa manhood identity it challenges theories which perceive masculinities as mere “scripted performances” with no permanent bodily impact, and those which argue that masculinities are multiple and unstable. Although multiple masculinities coexist, they are rooted in ulwaluko as primary evidence of manhood. The paper concludes by showing the benefits of decolonised, African-centred scholarship for intervention programmes aimed at fighting gender oppression in South Africa.

KEYWORDS:

• Decolonisation
• masculinities
• South Africa
• indoda
• Xhosa

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Space does not allow for a detailed discussion of pre-colonial gender regimes in Africa. For an extended discussion of this topic, see Mfecane (2018).

2 For more detailed discussion of pre-colonial African gender regimes see Morrell (1998), Oyěwùmí (1997) and Mfecane (2018).

3 For detailed descriptions, see Ntombana, Mayekiso (2016).

4 In the 1980s the village was the subject of an ethnographic study by McAllister of Xhosa drinking rituals.

5 Lushaba spoke at the opening of a “Working Group on African Masculinities” (17–18 August 2018).