Citation

Lau U, Stevens G. Fem. Psychol. 2012; 22(4): 423-442.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0959353511434416

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study examined how men accounted for their violent behaviours against their intimate female partners. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 12 men from three men's groups in Johannesburg, South Africa. All the men self-reported that they had committed acts of intimate partner violence previously, and the majority were from low-income, township settings. Dissociations, justifications and confessions featured as the predominant accounting forms that worked to transform participants' subject positions from the 'violent abuser' to the 'legitimately violent partner' and even to the 'changed man'. Attention is accorded to how gender ideologies and heteropatriarchal discourses legitimating male violence against women were reinforced, yet were at times challenged within their talk and through rhetorical devices. In line with a poststructuralist reading, the study highlights the complexities underpinning men's varied meanings of violence. On the one hand, it reveals the agentic shifting of identities. On the other, it highlights the social discourses that are embedded in men's talk and therefore inscribed into male subjectivities.

Language: en