Loss, Survival, and Redemption

Abstract

Using an interpretivist approach, this article explores young African American men’s (n = 20) reflections on coming of age and the meanings of father loss. Based on focus groups, the authors found that it was through autobiographical narratives of loss, survival, and redemption that young men positioned themselves ideologically and constructed the type of man they wanted to become. These emergent narratives reflect the complex ways young men worked out the meaning of father loss and the defining intragenerational and intergenerational lessons about manhood learned from their relationships with fathers and others. Within these narratives, young men also constructed both wanted and unwanted possible selves and evoked the discursive tropes of respectable manhood and deadbeat daddies.

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