In the above excerpt, Hugo Canham (2015) describes the practice of collecting and selling scrap metal by women in the town of Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape. Throughout the Eastern Cape province, particularly in the former Transkei region, there are groups of women sitting, next to mounds of scrap metal (See Figure 1), by the roadside of the N2 waiting for transport to take them to Durban in KwaZulu Natal where they sell the old metal. These women ‘hitchhike’ delivery trucks that are on their way back to Durban after delivering cargo elsewhere along the N2. Using the sustainable livelihoods framework, Schenck et al. (2018:656) conducted a case study of this practice where they argued that these “women have fashioned a livelihood practice in the context of widespread rural poverty, isolation from recycling markets, and limited community assets”. The scrap material is then transported to Durban in the province of KwaZulu Natal. An SABC news bulletin reported that finding transport is a huge problem for these women.

As per the above excerpt from Canham’s blog, the transport has no time or date of arrival thus these women spend days and nights next to the N2 highway, guarding their metal, whilst hitchhiking. These women rely on delivery trucks that are on their way back to Durban after delivering their cargo elsewhere along the N2. There are few women from my own rural area (Mgqumo) outside Mthatha who partake in the scrap metal economy. Some of them have husbands who, due to an intersection of factors such as illiteracy, rurality and the low employment opportunities in the province, have no jobs. In these households, the women leave their husbands behind for weeks on end as one of the women commented, “we sleep here on the roadside for weeks. We are at risk … [but] we cannot leave our scrap metal here because some people with bakkies might steal it” ( Ntshongwana, 2018). Their children and husbands are responsible for bringing them food for the days when they are waiting for transport by the N2 roadside. Some of the women I have seen outside Mthatha build makeshift shelters with the same scrap material and bring with them paraffin stoves to make food. Canham’s writing about these women, which he calls ‘iron ladies’, supports my observation in this manner:

At the time writing this, it was reported that the trucks charge them from R400 to R700 to transport them to Durban ( SABC, 2018). Upon arrival in Durban, the scrap material is weighed by the buyer thus the money one gets in return depends on the weight of their collection. “Sometimes we come back home with only R300.00 and sometimes with R400.00 and end up being unable to pay the transport and we get helped by other women to return back home,'' said one of the women during an interview with the SABC (2018).

The Eastern Cape is one of the nine provinces that make up the Republic of South Africa. It covers an area of about 13.9% of South Africa’s land, making it the second largest province in South Africa after the Northern Cape ( Hamann & Tuinder, 2012). Prior to the democratic dispensation which began in 1994, the Eastern Cape was divided into the Cape province, reserved for white people, and the two black homelands of Ciskei and Transkei designated for the Xhosa speaking people. Westaway (2012: 116) writes that, “the Eastern Cape was demarcated in 1994, as a separate part of the former, much larger, Cape Province”. Today, the Eastern Cape province remains one of the poorest provinces in South Africa with the two former ‘black’ homelands experiencing multidimensional poverty ( DispatchLive, 2017). After the 2011 national census, Noble et al. (2014) argues that the former Transkei in the Eastern Cape presented the highest rates of deprivation in the domains of material possessions, employment opportunities, access to education and the living environment conditions.

Similarly, Westaway (2012: 117) argues that the Ciskei and Transkei today are characterised by pervasive chronic poverty, low levels of economic activity, a dearth of employment opportunities, and high levels of dependency on welfare. Recently, the 2018 World Bank report similarly observes, “multidimensional poverty remains concentrated in previously disadvantaged areas, such as the former homelands with the 10 poorest municipalities located in the former homelands of Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal” ( Hurlbut, 2018). It is this plight of absolute poverty and deprivation, particularly in the former Transkei and Ciskei, that has led these women to risk their lives by the roadside selling scrap material. More research is, however, needed to interrogate why this an economic activity that involves risk and strength - which we are told are attributes of hegemonic masculinities ( Connell, 1995) - has become gendered in the way that it has. Why is it not the men who are doing the lifting of metal and risking their lives by the roadside?

The purpose of this briefing is not to present data but rather to raise debate and discussion about different lens and possibilities through which masculinities, particularly in poverty-stricken contexts such as rural Eastern Cape, can be studied and analysed. To this end, I have not collected data for this briefing. Instead, like Mfecane's (2016: 206) paper on theorising Xhosa masculinity where he draws on his own encounters with the practice of ulwaluko ⁱ , I draw on an intimate knowledge of the region as a connected insider, and published papers and newspaper articles about the women selling scrap metal. Secondly, I deliberately write this briefing in the first person to underscore my intimate knowledge of the area, and illustrate my implicatedness in the messiness of analysis and the choices that I, and other scholars, must take in the process of knowledge production. I am also refusing to posture as an objective positivistic outsider while I am deeply rooted in the context and live with some of these women as my neighbours in my rural home.

In this section, I wish to use this case study of women selling scrap metal to make an argument about the unsuitability of wholly relying on Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinities as framework to study and analyse masculinities at the margins such as the poverty-stricken, unemployed, often illiterate, and rural IsiXhosa men in the Eastern Cape. While I acknowledge the utility of Connell’s framework and conceptualization, I propose that in analysing masculinities in poverty-stricken localities and rural areas, researchers should rather follow Ratele’s (2016) framework of ‘dominance at the peripheries’ or dominance without hegemony. The feminist influences within the field of men and masculinities has meant that men and masculinities are not studied and investigated independently but in relation to women; men as perpetrators of gender based violence ( Boonzaier, 2005; Dery, 2018; Gqola, 2015), men as sexual partners ( Hunter, 2005; Onoya et al., 2015), and men as providers/breadwinners ( Khunou, 2006; Malinga, 2015). It is for this reason that I have decided to focus on a case study about rural women in the Eastern Cape selling scrap metal by the roadside to illustrate the shortcomings of the theory of hegemonic masculinities in analysing men on the margins. In this regard, it is my argument that women's lives and livelihoods, relations, and activities can shed light and lessons on masculinities and subsequently how scholars employ Connell’s framework in their analysis.

I have deliberately chosen this practice in the Eastern Cape because scholarship about Xhosa men and masculinities is predominantly analysed through the prism of ulwaluko to the exclusion of women's role in the construction and negotiation of manhood identities. Additionally, some scholars have approached the practice of ulwaluko, in the Xhosa context, as a gateway through which hegemony, as conceptualized by Connell, is achieved ( Magodyo et al., 2017; Ntozini & Ngqangweni, 2016). The point I am arguing in this briefing is that if hegemony is achieved through completion of ulwaluko, as implied in these studies, then the scores of traditionally circumcised men in the Eastern Cape are hegemons without power, jobs, money, independence and it is my view that that is a contradiction in terms. It is for this reason that I argue that the use of the framework requires caution and revision.

Connell explicitly emphasized geographical location both in earlier ( Connell, 1995) and rethought ( Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005: 832) presentations of the theory and further explained that the concepts capture power relations between groups of men in the Western gender order. However, the notion of hegemonic masculinities has garnered wide application, more so without a critical evaluation of its position in the South African context which is the focus of this briefing. Mfecane (2018a: 30) notes, “today, Connell is the leading intellectual authority among South African masculinity scholars and his theory of hegemonic masculinity is applied in such diverse fields of study…”. However, there is an emerging postcolonial scholarship of masculinities in Africa and there seems to be consensus amongst leading scholars that Connell’s theory is both ‘useful and unhelpful’ ( Dery, 2018:22) in theorizing the full extent of manliness in the many African cultures as it is primarily grounded in western epistemologies ( Dery, 2018; Dery & Ganle, 2019; Mfecane, 2016; Mfecane, 2018a; Mfecane, 2018b; Ratele, 2016). Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinities draws influence from Antonio Gramsci’s conceptualisation of class and power relations through the concept of hegemony ( Connell, 1995). Connell (1995: 77) defines hegemonic masculinity as the “the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position of men and the subordination of women over time and space”.

For the purposes of this briefing, I focus on the attributes of hegemonic masculinities which ostensibly require men to be independent, providers or breadwinners for their families. In recognition of the diversity of masculinities within and across contexts, scholars within the field of masculinities have composed a list of hegemonic masculinist virtues, most common of which include independence, strength, power, competitiveness, assertiveness, competence, and leadership ( Connell, 1995; Krane, 2001; Morrell et al., 2012). Malinga (2015), in her study on urban male roadside work-seekers, points out that the need for self-dependence is a motivating factor for the men as they do not want to find themselves depending on others. She goes on to argue that “this is common of hegemonic masculinities that require men to be strong, have paid work, and be the providers rather than being provided for” ( Malinga, 2015: 222).

Dery and Ganle (2019), Dery (2018), Mfecane (2016), Ratele (2016) and other researchers of masculinities in Africa have questioned the uncritical applications of Connell’s framework to study men in contexts outside the west. Mfecane has advocated for the utility of the concept of indoda ⁱⁱ and local idioms in the study of IsiXhosa manhood. Indoda, when studied through the prism of Connell’s framework, would seem to fit the hegemonic attributes as indoda is the culturally exalted way of being a real man. Indoda is one who has successfully completed the traditional initiation process of ulwaluko (circumcision) amongst the IsiXhosa people. Thus, in this way “hegemony in the indoda discourse is primarily achieved by having a traditionally circumcised penis ( Mfecane, 2016: 209). However, when we consider other factors such as rurality and poverty, as is the case with this case study, we soon realise that the theory of hegemonic masculinities does not accurately describe indoda or other masculinities in the margins. Amadoda (plural for indoda) - used to mean husbands here - of these scrap metal sellers are not working thus not breadwinners; they are not independent but rather dependent on their wives. As mentioned above, I personally know of married women from my own village who partake in this practice of selling scrap metal. While in the past, men - particularly in the rural Eastern Cape - were the labour migrants who left their homes and wives behind in search of work, we now see, through this practice, a reversal of these roles. In these cases, it is the women who leave their husbands behind to take care of both the homestead and the children while they are away searching for scrap metal in the first instance and waiting to sell it by the roadside in the second instance. In a world of Connell’s hegemonic masculinities, the men in these cases would be the ‘providers and protectors’. The men would be the ones partaking in this risky economic practice while the women would be “ sitting pretty ⁱⁱⁱ ” waiting for provision from their husbands. Therefore, I argue that this practice, as scholars and researchers, in these cases, is unhelpful to the study these men through a ‘wholesale application’ ( Dery, 2018) application of Connell’s hegemonic masculinities.

However, this briefing does not seek to deny the usefulness and significance of the Connell’s framework in the study of men. The husbands of these scrap metal sellers may have dominance because of the ‘patriarchal dividend’ ( Connell, 1995; Connell, 2005: 79) afforded to them by virtue of being men. They have dominance, as the culture prescribes, in terms of decisions regarding ritual ceremonies, communicating with the ancestors, when to send their sons for initiation, when to slaughter for those who have stock, and in lobolo and intlawulo ^iv negotiations for their daughters when they marry or fall pregnant outside wedlock, respectively. Therefore, I am in no way disputing the dominance that IsiXhosa men have in their households.

The intention of this briefing, however, is to point out that our contexts are replete with examples, narratives, and concepts that contest, and expose the unsuitability of wholesale application of Western scholarship in our analyses. This is not, however, a suggestion that we should seek to position local examples, narratives and concepts as “sites of immutable truths” ( University of Pretoria, 2016), but as avenues through which we can contest the hegemony of Western scholarship. Similar to Ifi Amadiume’s (1987) ground-breaking book Male wives and female husbands, I am of the view that a closer interrogation of this practice not only exposes the unsuitability of the theory of hegemonic masculinities but also highlights the flexibility of gendered practices and further complicates normative ideas we hold about gendered division of household work between wives and husbands.

Available scholarship informs us that some of the key attributes of hegemonic masculinities include the possession of power and wealth. Carrigan and colleagues (1985: 592) describe hegemonic masculinity as a question of how particular groups of men inhabit positions of power and wealth which they use to legitimate and reproduce the social relationships that generate their dominance. It is therefore my argument that the practice of scrap metal selling by women is one of many case studies which we can look into to contest the theory of hegemonic masculinities as intellectual authority in this context as these men exist outside above-mentioned hegemony. Ratele (2016) has already argued that hegemonic ideals about manhood in the South African context are complicated by the marginality of African countries in juxtaposition to powerful multinational capitalist ideologies. Therefore, the practice of scrap metal selling should be considered, by researchers and scholars alike, as an indication that the men, albeit not all, in these contexts are outside the hegemony insofar as power, wealth, independence and breadwinning are concerned. Therefore, approaching them from a theoretical angle of dominance without hegemony rather than hegemonic masculinities would allow for a more careful consideration of how multiple currents, including age, gender, location, poverty, and abled-bodiness are likely to shape masculinities ( Dery & Ganle, 2019: 5).