1 8th Global Conference – Violence & the Context of Hostility Budapest 2009 Logics of Brutality: Gender and Violence in South African Men’s Prisons

My presentation draws on research we‟ve conducted over the last few years at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) in South Africa in attempt to understand sex and sexual violence happening in our men‟s prisons. I‟ll be focusing on constructions of gender and sexuality in male prisons and will argue that particular notions of „masculinity ‟ structure a context of intense hostility in which violence is common and the logical outcome of these notions. Also, it‟s important to acknowledge at the outset that although my talk is focused on a dominant pattern of sexual violence, this does not account for all sexual interaction amongst inmates. Nevertheless, while things may not always happen strictly in accordance with the pattern our respondents tell that most mostly they do. Underpinning it all is the fact that male prison populations tend to be divided into people who the dominant inmate culture defines as „men ‟ and others who are identified as „women‟. This division of male inmates into “men ” as “women ” is central to sexual violence behind bars. Those who are labelled as „women ‟ are seen primarily as the means to the sexua