Making masculinities on the street: exploring street boys’ everyday relationships on the streets of Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo

TY - JOUR

T1 - Making masculinities on the street

T2 - exploring street boys’ everyday relationships on the streets of Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo

AU - Hlabana, Thandie

AU - van Blerk, Lorraine

AU - Hunter, Janine

PY - 2021/12/1

Y1 - 2021/12/1

N2 - Raewyn Connell’s seminal texts, including Masculinities (1995), The Men and the Boys (2000), and others have contributed to a nuanced understanding of masculinities as both contextual and relational, including gendered power relations, division of labor, emotional relations, and symbolism. This article seeks to extend Connell’s approach by using this nuanced lens of masculinities to examine the lives of boys living on the streets of a city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The article highlights the experiences of everyday relationships over three years for 19 street boys, aged 13–18, and the role of city spaces in their lives. It suggests that the spatiality and temporality of street boys’ relationships shape their masculine practices and identities, as played out in their everyday interactions with each other and with girls, women, and men as part of their daily survival. A mosaic of street masculinities emerges, that is both fluid and complex, shedding light on previously unexplored masculinities in an understudied group and part of the world.

AB - Raewyn Connell’s seminal texts, including Masculinities (1995), The Men and the Boys (2000), and others have contributed to a nuanced understanding of masculinities as both contextual and relational, including gendered power relations, division of labor, emotional relations, and symbolism. This article seeks to extend Connell’s approach by using this nuanced lens of masculinities to examine the lives of boys living on the streets of a city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The article highlights the experiences of everyday relationships over three years for 19 street boys, aged 13–18, and the role of city spaces in their lives. It suggests that the spatiality and temporality of street boys’ relationships shape their masculine practices and identities, as played out in their everyday interactions with each other and with girls, women, and men as part of their daily survival. A mosaic of street masculinities emerges, that is both fluid and complex, shedding light on previously unexplored masculinities in an understudied group and part of the world.

KW - masculinities

KW - street boys

KW - relationality

KW - spatiality

KW - temporality

KW - Democratic Republic of Congo

U2 - 10.3167/bhs.2021.140202

DO - 10.3167/bhs.2021.140202

M3 - Article

SN - 2375-9240

VL - 14

JO - Boyhood Studies

JF - Boyhood Studies

IS - 2

ER -