The Fathers of Destiny

This study utilised textual analysis to characterise the representation of fatherhood in the eight issues of Destiny Man magazine published in 2014. Stories that pertained to fatherhood and that were related to aspects of contemporary family construction, work, and identity formation were included for detailed text analysis. Our findings suggest that fatherhood is defined by access to wealth, and is inextricably linked to features of modern-day neoliberal capitalism with its bias towards wealth accumulation and economic standards of identity. Additionally, matters such as race and origin seem to be the primary classification criteria when it comes to self-identification as a father figure. From these data, we conclude that the notion of fatherhood is fluid; it changes continuously depending on the social class position of the incumbent male.

 

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Prof. Malose Langa is an Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in the School of Community and Human Development, Department of Psychology, at the University of Witwatersrand and Senior Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Recompilation.