Making Masculinities on the Street

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Daily Survival ◽  
The World ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
Gendered Power ◽  
Nuanced Understanding

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.

scholarly journals Revisiting Konzo Risk Factors in Three Areas Differently Affected by Spastic Paraparesis in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo Discloses a Prominent Role of the Nutritional Status—A Comparative Cross-Sectional Study

Nutrients ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 2628
Author(s):  
Marius Baguma ◽  
Espoir Bwenge Malembaka ◽  
Esto Bahizire ◽  
Germain Zabaday Mudumbi ◽  
Dieudonné Bahati Shamamba ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Nutritional Status ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Sectional Study ◽  
Cyanide Poisoning ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
High Prevalence ◽  
Republic Of The Congo

This comparative cross-sectional study aimed to better understand the respective contributions of protein malnutrition and cassava-derived cyanide poisoning in the development of konzo. We compared data on nutritional status and cyanide exposure of school-age adolescent konzo-diseased patients to those of non-konzo subjects of similar age from three areas in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Our results show that konzo patients had a high prevalence of both wasting (54.5%) and stunting (72.7%), as well as of cyanide poisoning (81.8%). Controls from Burhinyi and those from Idjwi showed a similar profile with a low prevalence of wasting (3.3% and 6.5%, respectively) and intermediate prevalence of stunting (26.7% and 23.9%, respectively). They both had a high prevalence of cyanide poisoning (50.0% and 63.0%, respectively), similar to konzo-patients. On the other hand, controls from Bukavu showed the lowest prevalence of both risk factors, namely chronic malnutrition (12.1%) and cyanide poisoning (27.6%). In conclusion, cassava-derived cyanide poisoning does not necessarily coexist with konzo outbreaks. The only factor differentiating konzo patients from healthy individuals exposed to cyanide poisoning appeared to be their worse nutritional status. This further suggests that, besides the known role of cyanide poisoning in the pathogenesis of konzo, malnutrition may be a key factor for the disease occurrence.

Redifining Gender Role During Wartime: Power Relations, Disparities and Impacts

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Made Fitri Padmi
Keyword(s):  
Gender Role ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Gender Disparities ◽  
Gender Construction ◽  
The World ◽  
Gender Perspectives ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Specific Impact

AbstrakKarya tulis ini mencoba untuk membuat suatu hubungan antara manusia dan peperangan, dan menganalisa peran dari suatu gender dalam masa perang. Perspektif gender memiliki peran yang signifikan, tidak hanya dalam membentuk dan menjalankan perang, tetapi juga terhadap dampak dari perang. Di berbagai budaya, masyarakat menentukan perannya berdasarkan perbedaan gender, termasuk di dalamnya peran masyarakat pada masa perang. Perang dan militarisasi dipandang sebagai produk maskulin, dan juga bagaimana “memaskulinkan” masyarakat. Sedangkan, Feminisme membawa perspektif yang berbeda untuk memahami peperangan. Pasifis atau karakter damai dari perempuan digunakan untuk menganalisa perdamaian pasca perang. Sebagai hasil, tulisan ini berpendapat bawah suatu hal yang penting untuk memberikan pemahaman yang lebih baik bahwa peperangan bukanlah fenomena yang bebas dari atribut gender. Peperangan juga berperan besar dalam mengkonstuksi hubungan antar gender.Kata kunci: Gender, Feminisme, Maskulinitas, Perang, Militerisasi.AbstractThis paper tries to make correlation between war and people, and to analyse the role of gender perspectives during wartime. Gender perspective plays a significant role not only in shaping and executing warfare, but also in giving the specific impact of war. In many cultures in the world, people determine social roles based on gender disparities, including roles during wartime. War and militarisation are products of the masculine and, at the same time, means of masculinizing people. However, Feminism bring different levels of perspectives on how to understand the war. Pacific or peace characteristics of women are often used to analyse the peace prospect after war. As result, this paper argues that, it is a significant attempt to create better understanding that war is not gender neutral. War plays a massive role in gender construction and impacts greatly on gender relations.Keywords: Gender, Feminism, Masculinity, War, Militarisation

scholarly journals Boundary objects, power, and learning: The matter of developing sustainable practice in organizations

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 292-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beverley Hawkins ◽  
Annie Pye ◽  
Fernando Correia
Keyword(s):  
Power Relations ◽  
Middle Managers ◽  
Boundary Objects ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Sustainable Practice

This article develops an understanding of the agential role of boundary objects in generating and politicizing learning in organizations, as it emerges from the entangled actions of humans and non-humans. We offer two empirical vignettes in which middle managers seek to develop more sustainable ways of working. Informed by Foucault’s writing on power, our work highlights how power relations enable and foreclose the affordances, or possibilities for action, associated with boundary objects. Our data demonstrate how this impacts the learning that emerges as boundary objects are configured and unraveled over time. In so doing, we illustrate how boundary objects are not fixed entities, but are mutable, relational, and politicized in nature. Connecting boundary objects to affordances within a Foucauldian perspective on power offers a more nuanced understanding of how ‘the material’ plays an agential role in consolidating and disrupting understandings in the accomplishment of learning.

scholarly journals Violence, Well-Being and Level of Participation in Formal Education among Adolescent Girls in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo: The Role of Child Marriage

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debbie Landis ◽  
Kathryn Falb ◽  
Ilaria Michelis ◽  
Theresita Bakomere ◽  
Lindsay Stark
Keyword(s):  
Formal Education ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Child Marriage ◽  
Safety Education ◽  
Logistic Regression Models ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Republic Of The Congo

Child marriage is a well-recognized barrier to education, and exposes girls to an increased risk of violence along with other negative health and developmental outcomes. A quantitative survey was conducted with girls selected from 14 communities in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Data from 350 girls (ages 13-14) were analyzed using mixed effects logistic regression models. Findings revealed that child marriage was associated with lower levels of participation in formal education as well as higher rates of physical, sexual and emotional violence. In particular, when adjusting for age and girls’ level of participation in formal education, being married was associated with more than a three-fold (OR: 3.23) increased risk of experiencing sexual violence (p<0.001). Married girls were also significantly more likely to affirm the belief that they would be forced to marry their perpetrator in the event that they were raped (p=0.017), suggesting that a portion of girls within this sample may have experienced this occurrence. Although higher levels of participation in formal education were associated with a reduced risk of violence among non-married girls, these differences were not observed for girls who were married. Findings reveal that child marriage has a significantly negative effect on the relationship between girls’ level of participation in formal education and experiences with violence. Taken cumulatively, findings from this study suggest an overall harmful relationship between child marriage and girls’ safety, education and well-being, and that efforts to prevent its occurrence in the DRC and beyond are urgently needed.

Criminal groups hinder international peacebuilding

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Private Investment ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Conflict Zones ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Economic Opportunities ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
International Peacebuilding ◽  
Criminal Groups

Subject The role of criminal organisations in conflicts. Significance Criminal organisations operate in conflict zones in and across countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Colombia, Mali, Libya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They have come to shape conflicts and the states involved in them. Impacts Corruption and penetration by criminal organisations undercut governments' legitimacy. This makes it difficult for them to attract private investment that would provide legal economic opportunities. Criminal organisations reduce the profit margin of legal business activities, making many unviable. Local communities then can gradually turn to illicit economic opportunities, indirectly helping to fuel conflict.

Lending a Voice to the Voiceless: The Quest for Justice in Umutesi's Narrative

2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 103-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aloys Habimana
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Great Lakes Region ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
African Great Lakes ◽  
The Core ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
The World ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
The Many ◽  
Simple Narrative

Surviving the Slaughter is a powerful narrative that takes us into one of the many tragedies of the African Great Lakes region that affected tens of thousands of helpless Rwandan civilians in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide inside Rwanda. Through the eyes of an ordinary, but also remarkable, woman, we learn the horrifying details of the ordeals that Rwandan refugees in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) went through after their camps were destroyed manu militari. The value of this book goes beyond that of a simple narrative. As we read it, we are absorbed by an account of a breathtaking and excruciating journey of tens of thousands of people as they are hunted down in the dense rainforests of the Congo. At the core of this account is one woman's protest against the absurdity of mass violence and the inhuman brutality of military regimes.At first glance, the book stands out as a strong stand against the corrosive tradition of silence that often accompanies gross violations of human rights, especially those unfolding beyond the scrutiny of the major world media. In a simple but engaging style, Umutesi strips off the usual veneer of reserve that characterizes Rwandans in general and Rwandan women in particular. Rwandans don't usually talk about their experiences, let alone write about them. And writing about the plight of people whom the world has often considered pariahs since the 1994 genocide requires a strong personality.

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