Touch Rugby, Masculinity and Progressive Politics in Durban, South Africa, 1985–1990.

Rugby is a sport frequently considered to be highly competitive and even violent. In the history of South Africa under apartheid it was a bulwark of white minority, authoritarian, nationalist rule. So was it possible for an alternative masculinity to develop and express itself on the country’s rugby playing field? This paper seeks to answer this question by examining an informal weekly game of touch rugby played in the five years prior to the unbanning of the liberation movements in 1990. The game was played largely by white men who were explicitly opposed to the system of apartheid and in most cases were actively working for its termination. What implications did their commitment to a non-racial democracy have for their participation in the game and particularly for their gendered relations? This paper argues that there was an alignment between their politics and their gendered behaviour but that such alignment was not exact and even though alternative masculinities were nascent, equally were expressed conventional passions for the game. But these passions were not violent or misogynistic even as they endorsed the male body as a site of physical sporting pleasure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]