“Fighting to Be a Real Man”: Constructions of Respectability and Contestations among African Migrant Men in Johannesburg

Abstract

ABSTRACT Migrants have largely been viewed as forging solidaristic relationships in host countries as a response to unwelcoming attitudes from local populations. Yet, because they are gendered social actors embedded in multiple and diverse relationships within these contexts, they engage in identity constructions that sometimes result in contestations among them. In this article I show how divergent constructions of masculine respectability disrupt relations among African migrant men in Johannesburg. Based on individual in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with 20 young men from Ghana, Nigeria, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), I show that common beliefs about the provider role allow for homosocial bonding among them. However, in mobilising elements of distinction hinged on multiple intersectionalities such as age, marital and fatherhood statuses, work ethic around industriousness and laziness, class and economic hierarchisation, and educational levels, the men create and co-create each other as respectable entities, resulting in intra- and intergroup contestations. These findings contribute to research on men and African migration by exposing the complexities in migrant–migrant relations in the social spaces that masculine identities occupy in host countries. The article also nuances dominant narratives of local–migrant masculine contestations, particularly those associated with xenophobic attitudes in South Africa.