“To Show Like the People That There Can Be Good Fathers … Here in Our Place”

This chapter draws on a research study conducted with young people in a previously “Coloured”, ¹ working-class, high-violence community in South Africa about their views on fathering. The central focus of the chapter is to demonstrate the ways in which the use of an alternative and participant-focused methodology allowed participants to “speak back” to particular constructions of fathering in their community and constructions of themselves as members of this community. We also attempt to situate this speaking back within a broader social context, which is raced, classed and gendered in significant ways. This process of speaking back, and thereby reconstituting community and self-identities in more positive ways, is of particular significance in communities which have been historically marginalized and continue to be represented in negative ways.