This dissertation examines how Black and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM) are making sense of the contemporary HIV/AIDS epidemic and their relation to it. Black and Latino MSM in the United States are disproportionately impacted by HIV. Interdisciplinary scholarship on the matter has conceptualized risk as an intrinsic facet of HIV. However, this research has paid little attention to the process by which Black and Latino MSM form their HIV risk perceptions. In this dissertation, I advance the “risk ecology framework” as a novel socioecological approach for understanding risk perception. This framework conceives of HIV risk perception as emerging from individuals’ relationship to HIV as shaped by the intersecting influences of the broader social environment. I base my analysis on 40 in-depth semi-structured interviews with HIV-negative Black and Latino MSM in New York City, as well as a year of participant-observation with a health advocacy group that serves this community. I find respondents form their risk perceptions by reflecting on HIV vis-à-vis their respective and distinctive social locations. The intersections of race, class, and sexuality come to be associated with HIV risk across the ecological levels of an individual’s lived experience, revealing a risk ecology, or a set of interrelated potential threats posed by HIV. I find this risk ecology to be reflected in Black and Latino MSM’s framing of HIV as a risk to their bodily health and social wellbeing, on the one hand. Or, its framing as personally irrelevant, on the other. Relationships and interactions with family, friends, and romantic/sexual partners inform what Black and Latino MSM understand HIV to potentially threaten. Respondents and the people in their lives draw upon culturally-available discourses, rhetoric, and beliefs concerning HIV that reflect how the institutionalization of racial, social, and sexual inequalities structure risk perception. With respect to health-relevant behaviors, I demonstrate how the analysis of risk perception formation clarifies the ways in which Black and Latino MSM make use of preventative tools and construct meanings about sex. I conclude with a discussion of the broader implications of the risk ecology framework for future health policy and further sociological research. By interrogating what it means to be at-risk, this dissertation lends crucial insight into the persistence of the HIV epidemic at a time when the means to end it are available, and also enriches sociological understandings of risk both within and beyond the public health domain.

AAMSM (African American men who have sex with men) endure homophobia and racism in their political realities because of their identity. How do multiple oppressions impact the experiences of AAMSM participating within Black churches? Despite the Black church's legacy for liberating African Americans, AAMSM feel demonized and alienated while enduring religion-based homophobia espoused within many Black churches. In the church, AAMSM are pushed further down the hierarchy of oppression and privilege. In response to these observations, this thesis employs a sexual discourse of resistance. I engage this discourse with a literature review in order to discover links between homophobia and AAMSM in an interdisciplinary manner. Jungian psychology is then utilized to interpret internalized oppression. This leads to a discussion of social and religious justice for AAMSM in the Black church through the lens of liberation theology. While the oppressed have become oppressors within the Black church as regards AAMSM, liberation theology affirms all of humanity. Liberation theology provides a message of love for AAMSM and a source of Christian ethics for the Black church.

Text in English / This study explored the lived experiences of black African men who grew up in absent-father homes. A phenomenological approach and qualitative exploratory design were used. The research participants were recruited in the Pretoria, South Africa through purposive sampling. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyse the information. The findings of this study indicate the following: the participants experienced various challenges in growing up in absent father homes. These included financial challenges, feelings of rejection, lack of guidance and protection. They had to rely on their single mothers for provision as well as the extended family and the community for support. These men were self-reliant, persevered and worked hard to achieve their goals in life. Resilience also played a role in making them thrive. They in turn wanted to be good fathers and husbands to their wives and children. Further research on resilient men who grew up in absent-father homes is recommended. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

This thesis provides a sociological understanding of how conventional knowledge of sexuality negates the identity formation of black gay men in contemporary South Africa. It investigates the coming out experiences of six black gay men in order to reveal the disjunctures between being black and being gay. The theoretical formation of disjuncture is pursued through examining a number of sociological, historical, psychoanalytical, and feminist approaches to identity, sexuality, and society; featuring specifically the theories of George Herbert Mead, Michel Foucault, and Judith Butler. The chosen research paradigm is symbolic interactionism, postulating both „pragmatist‟ and „empiricist‟ trends that lead to both interactionist and structuralist forms of argumentation. The interactionist approach to sexuality is central to the deconstruction of sexual conventions. It involves conceptualising modern sexuality in the landscapes of African colonial history and the global gay and lesbian movement. The prescribed literature on homosexuality is thus reviewed in conjunction with the South African gay and lesbian struggle, so as to spawn themes and perspectives for conducting life story interviews. The use of the life story interview favours the participants‟ own view of the studied phenomenon, yet aims to depict the structural influence on homosexual identification. Following the qualitative research tradition, the data analysis is based on the interpretation of narratives. It illustrates interpersonal relationships and microscopic experiences that lead to the self-acceptance and self-actualisation of homosexuality. Within these processes, various disjunctures that exist between the cultural sanction of lifestyle and individual choice, between parents and children, between religious belief and personal desires, and between gender identity and sexual orientation are disclosed. The findings are associated with the historical transformation of masculinity in South Africa, sex role performance, and the heterosexualisation of desire. The solution to the proposed research problem is discussed through concepts of socialisation and gender conformity.

This study concerns itself with how Afrikan masculinities were (perspective on the past), what they are now (perspectives on the present) and what they can, ideally, become (perspectives on the future). By employing a decolonial and Afrocentric approach of deconstructive and critical theory, transdisciplinarity and Afrikological perspectives, the study’s objective is to understand the impact of coloniality on Afrikan masculinities. Coloniality, in this context, refers to the impact of historical colonization, enslavement, Apartheid on (South) Afrikan societies, including how the after-effects and their multiple consequences for changes in (South) Afrikan culture, economy, politics, communities, families and individuals have impacted on the notions about, and roles of, Afrikan men. Further to this, the study seeks to understand the role of Afrikan culture in shaping solutions to problems identified, in the form of an innovative philosophy of education towards relevant Afrikan masculinities. Applying Participatory Action Research (PAR) as research methodology, the study examines how Afrikan masculinities are seen, understood and envisioned by Afrikan men and women. Empirical research was conducted with a co-research team in Mangaya village, Thulamela Municipality in Limpopo Province, South Afrika. Findings from the study were coded, cross-analysed, triangulated with literature and a number of discussions and dialogues, and eventually developed into concepts for emerging theory and practical interventions. The study found that many Afrikan men are caught between expectations to what they should become and systemic obstacles to fulfil these expectations. As a result of colonial injustices – and their many after-effects, many Afrikan men have become confused about their identity, irresponsible in their behavior, “broken” in their self-perception (and in the eyes of the world) and in deficit of Afrikan values as guidelines for meaningful, Afrikan manhood. Essential solution-concepts found were for Afrikan men to deepen their self-knowledge, seek healing, empowerment and engage in re-learning of indigenous guidelines. These concepts have been expressed through nine lessons, serving as an innovative, educational philosophy for Afrikan manhood. A mixtape featuring brief, motivational messages for young Afrikan men against a musical soundtrack was produced as a direct outcome of the study. / Educational Studies / D. Ed. (Philosophy of Education)