The Cape Town boyfriend and the Joburg boyfriend: women's sexual partnerships and social networks in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. (3rd May 2016)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- The Cape Town boyfriend and the Joburg boyfriend: women's sexual partnerships and social networks in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. (3rd May 2016)
- Main Title:
- The Cape Town boyfriend and the Joburg boyfriend: women's sexual partnerships and social networks in Khayelitsha, Cape Town
- Authors:
- Swartz, Alison
Colvin, Christopher
Harrison, Abigail - Abstract:
- Abstract : In South Africa, young people's "multiple" or "concurrent" partnerships have been increasingly prominent in public health discourses – as drivers of HIV transmission. Multiple partnerships are typically framed in moralising, negative terms and depicted primarily as male-driven, within a broader framework of women's vulnerability and use of sex for survival and material gain. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with adolescents and young adults in Khayelitsha township near Cape Town, this article investigates young women's partnerships by exploring their complex interpersonal and social dynamics. We unpack women's multiple motivations for, and careful management strategies of, both sexual and social relationships in a broader context of socio-economic exclusion, threats to health and well-being, social obligations and relationships of care. The meanings and practices associated with young people's relationships are more than the sum of individual sexual behaviours, rigid cultural scripts or simply a locus of "risk." The data presented here highlight some of the limitations of "prevention" approaches that do not take into account this nuanced and multilayered view of such relationships. The affective and empathetic dimensions of young peoples' relationships, as well as the socio-economic contexts in which they occur should also be considered. Without accounting for this context, standard "prevention" approaches are less likely to succeed.
- Is Part Of:
- Social dynamics. Volume 42:Number 2(2016)
- Journal:
- Social dynamics
- Issue:
- Volume 42:Number 2(2016)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 42, Issue 2 (2016)
- Year:
- 2016
- Volume:
- 42
- Issue:
- 2
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2016-0042-0002-0000
- Page Start:
- 237
- Page End:
- 252
- Publication Date:
- 2016-05-03
- Subjects:
- concurrency -- sexual relationships -- South Africa -- ethnography -- HIV
Africa -- Culture -- Periodicals
African literature -- Periodicals
Developing countries -- Politics and government -- Periodicals
960.05 - Journal URLs:
- http://www.africanstudies.uct.ac.za/default.php?pageName=social.php ↗
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t791476125~db=all ↗
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rsdy20/current ↗
http://www.tandfonline.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1080/02533952.2016.1194591 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0253-3952
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 8318.081000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 1114.xml