Flexible cultural repertoires: Young men avoiding offending and victimization in township areas of Cape Town

Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard, Francisca Zimmermann

    5 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Despite extensive studies of street culture and the risks of offending and victimization in urban marginalized areas, little is known about the role of cultural repertoires for variation in victimization risks among young men not involved in crime. Based on two ethnographic studies, conducted independently of the authors in neighbouring township areas of Cape Town, we offer insights into patterns of victimization among young men not involved in crime who live and attend school in the townships. Young men who perform decent cultural repertoires are highly exposed to victimization due to their moral rejection of crime-involved youth. Young men who perform flexible cultural repertoires, by incorporating and shifting between gang and decent repertoires, experience low victimization due to their adaptation to crime-involved youth. Findings emphasize the importance of detailed investigations of the way varying cultural repertoires, in particularly heterogeneous flexible repertoires, influence offending and victimization patterns among young men in high-risk settings.

    Original languageEnglish
    JournalEthnography
    Volume18
    Issue number2
    Pages (from-to)193-220
    ISSN1466-1381
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2017

    Keywords

    • Faculty of Social Sciences
    • flexible cultural repertoires,
    • street culture,
    • code-switching
    • decent
    • victimization and offending
    • violence
    • gang
    • mobility
    • young men
    • urban marginalized areas
    • South Africa

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Flexible cultural repertoires: Young men avoiding offending and victimization in township areas of Cape Town'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this