Smoking sugars in Wentworth, South Africa: drugs, masculinity, and ‘coloured’ identity: Fid-Bau Portal

Smoking sugars in Wentworth, South Africa: drugs, masculinity, and ‘coloured’ identity

Chen, Henry E.

In South Africa, many historically ‘Coloured’ (mixed-race) communities have inherited a drug crisis precipitated by the social and economic inequalities of apartheid. This article locates evidence from 35 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with men using heroin and other drugs within the complicated history of labour, vice, and race in Wentworth, a former Coloured township in Durban, South Africa. Narratives of life in Wentworth evince the social, economic, and structural inequalities that contribute to drug use in the community while also illuminating some shortcomings of post-apartheid life for its denizens. Community imaginings of archetypal drug users – particularly the so-called ‘sugarhead’ – alert us to the heterogeneous nature of Coloured identity in Wentworth. Moreover, men describe economic activities that signal a burgeoning informal economy in the context of rampant post-apartheid unemployment. Finally, respondents’ experiences with recovery programmes underscore the need for community-based and culturally competent rehabilitation. Together, these narratives elucidate the trials of life in an underserved township and offer insight into the ever-changing valances of masculinity, race, and identity in a post-apartheid South Africa.