Citation

Dery I. J. Interpers. Violence 2019; ePub(ePub): 886260519869066.

Affiliation

South African Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0886260519869066

PMID

31422730

Abstract

Critical studies on men and masculinities have gained significant momentum in feminist scholarship in the past decades. The growing interest in feminist scholarship has focused broadly on how male-bodied people construct, negotiate, and express masculine identities. Despite this growing interest, insufficient attention has explored how rurally based Ghanaian men construct and negotiate their masculinities in intimate relationships. Situated within critical discursive psychology and drawing on 16 semi-structured in-depth interviews and 6 focus group discussions with adult men in northwestern Ghana, the results show that dominant notions of masculinity provide a broad context through which participants' narratives, negotiations, and experiences on intimate partner violence could be understood.

FINDINGS suggest that various cultural narratives and metaphors were deployed to support men's controlling behaviors and/or intimate violence against women. The implications of how harmful masculine ideologies could frustrate efforts that target the development and promotion of a socially just and less oppressive society are presented and discussed.

Language: en

Keywords

Ghana; controlling behavior; gender norms; intimate partner violence; masculinities