Symons, Stephen2020-11-302020-11-302020-11Symons S. ‘Casting Shadows’: Militarised boyhoods in apartheid South Africa during the 1980s. Childhood. 2020;27(4):514-529. doi:10.1177/0907568220922877.0907-5682 (print)1461-7013 (online)10.1177/0907568220922877http://hdl.handle.net/2263/77197This article provides a series of insights into the structures and scaffolding of militarising White South African adolescents during the 1980s, including the processes of militarisation from childhood up until induction into the former South African Defence Force. Although this article traces the process and presents personal accounts of militarised childhoods, it ultimately questions how these indeterminate memories attempt to navigate a contested present, namely, a post-apartheid space.en© The Author(s) 2020ApartheidConscriptionCounter-memoryMasculinitiesMemoryMilitarisationNostalgiaSouth African Defence Force (SADF)WhitenessPostprint Article