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Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness

Volume 27, Issue 1, 2008

“Injuries are Beyond Love”: Physical Violence in Young South Africans' Sexual Relationships

“Injuries are Beyond Love”: Physical Violence in Young South Africans' Sexual Relationships

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DOI:
10.1080/01459740701831427
Kate Wooda, Helen Lambertb & Rachel Jewkesc

pages 43-69

Available online: 11 Feb 2008
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Abstract

South Africa's complex social and political history has produced conditions for interpersonal violence of multiple kinds to flourish. Violence experienced by girls and young women, including within their sexual relationships, has become an area of intense research and policy interest since the end of apartheid. Drawing on a long-term ethnographic study of young people in an urban township, this article explores how violent practices are variously construed, differentiated, and legitimated, in particular through the assignment of blame and the significance accorded to bodily marking. Pointing to the cultural embeddedness of disciplining techniques in this setting, the article examines local understandings of gender hierarchy and power, young men's vulnerabilities in relation to their partners' actions, and the links between disciplining action and notions of anger, love, and shame. Violence is shown to configure lives and subjectivities and to be productive of relationships, in particular playing a part in the organization of inequality within sexual relationships.

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  • Citation information:
  • Available online: 11 Feb 2008

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Author affiliations

  • a Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, Woburn Square, London, U.K.
  • b Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, U.K.
  • c Gender and Health Research Unit, Medical Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa

Author notes

  • Kate Wood -

    DR. KATE WOOD is a medical anthropologist specializing in sexual health, sexuality, and HIV/AIDS in developing countries. She is currently a research associate at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London. She may be reached at Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, 27/28 Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AA, U.K. E-mail: k.wood@ioe.ac.uk

  • Helen Lambert -

    DR. HELEN LAMBERT is a senior lecturer in medical anthropology who has worked on a range of public health issues in South Asia, South Africa, and the UK. Her research interests include sexual and reproductive health, medical pluralism, and notions of evidence in medicine and anthropology. She may be reached at the Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Canynge Hall, Whiteladies Road, Bristol, U.K. E-mail: h.lambert@bristol.ac.uk

  • Rachel Jewkes -

    PROF. RACHEL JEWKES is the director of the Gender and Health Research Unit at the Medical Research Council in Pretoria, South Africa. She has spent over a decade researching gender − based violence and sexual health in South Africa. She may be reached at Gender and Health Research Unit, Medical Research Council, Private Bag X385, Pretoria 0001, South Africa. E-mail: rjewkes@mrc.ac.za

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