Negotiating Gender and Personhood in the New South Africa

Abstract

This article examines the shifts in young men's and women's racial and gendered identities in Manenberg, a predominantly coloured, Afrikaans-speaking township in Cape Town, South Africa. It explores how male and female youth destabilizes, renovates and transforms local racial and gendered identities in relation to the local histories, repertoires and ideals of masculinity and femininity and in relation to global cultural forces such as soap operas, rap music and international brand name clothes. Youth obtains access to these global features through electronic media such as television, radio or visits to trendy city nightspots and cosmopolitan beachfront neighbourhoods. This study challenges the idea that cultural flows from the North necessarily lead to cultural hegemonization and homogenization in the South. Instead it suggests that the meanings that these cultural forms assume in this non-western context are shaped by specific local histories and cultural practices.