Articles · Vol. 18 No. 2 (2014): African Sociological Review · Pages 82 - 94

4 - A Few Good Men in a World of Gangsters: Discourses of Respectability and Risk amongst Student Teachers in the Western Cape, South Africa

Vol. 18 · 2014 No. 2 African Sociological Review ASR

Abstract

This paper considers the concurrent discourses of risk and respectability which are prominent in South  Africa’s Western Cape region and asks how one becomes a ‘respectable’ man in a community which values strong masculine role models and in which there are endemic levels of violence. Through a process of risk ‘mapping’ we explore the means through which a group of young male student teachers consciously ‘locate’ risk in their built environment. We look at the strategies these young men use to negotiate risk in their lives, and the close connection between risk and respectability which they articulate on an ongoing basis.

Keywords

discourse male risk respectability violence masculinity

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Author Biography

  • Brian van Wyk, School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape, South Africa

    Brian van Wyk is a research psychologist with a passion for postgraduate supervision and teaching and innovation in health research methods.

    Prior to joining SOPH as a lecturer in January 2006, he was a Chief researcher in the Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS and Health research programme at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). He trained in the Health Systems Research Unit of the South African Medical Research Council from 2000-2003, where he conducted his doctoral research on the effects of health reforms on organization of care and team functioning in a primary health care setting. In 2006-7, he was a Fogarty training fellow in the Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS and TB at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in the City of New York, NY. Brian merges his training in Health Systems Research and experience in researching social and behavioural aspects of HIV/AIDS, in his current research which aims to improve adherence and treatment outcomes for adolescents on HIV treatment.

    Brian served as Deputy-dean of Research and Postgraduate studies in the Faculty of Community and Health Sciences from 2013-2016. He is currently serving as vice-chairperson on UWC Biomedical Research Ethics committee, and as representative of UWC Senate on UWC Institutional Forum.

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