Papers by Christian Groes
The article explores how young Mozambican women's migratory trajectories towards Europe are shape... more The article explores how young Mozambican women's migratory trajectories towards Europe are shaped by sexual relationships with older white men and obligations towards female kin. Triads of exchange between young women known as curtidoras (women enjoying life) and their partners and kin in Maputo are understood through theories of patronage and exchange moralities. Searching for respect, adventure, and consumption in the sexual economy, young women at the same time struggle to ensure their families' well-being by redistributing the money they extract from white men. Sexual-monetary transactions, love, and desire must be understood as part of broader moralities of exchange in which migration to Europe and sending of remittances is also a kinship project. The forms of patronage available in Maputo's sexual economy become stepping stones as well as obstacles to migration northwards.
Eroticism, kinship, and gender all intersect in transactional sexual relationships between young ... more Eroticism, kinship, and gender all intersect in transactional sexual relationships between young women known as curtidoras and older white men in Maputo, Mozambique. I draw on postcolonial feminism to argue that curtidoras’ erotic powers are a central part of sexual–economic exchanges with men and that senior female kin are deeply involved in processes of seduction and extraction of money. I conceptualize relationships between curtidoras, female kin, and male partners as “gendered triads of reciprocity” to unsettle Western stereotypes of female victims and patriarchal structures in Africa. Transactional sex often makes the partners mutually dependent and emotionally vulnerable, and, although moralities of exchange collide, young women tend to redistribute accumulated money from men among female seniors and kin.
Young: Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 2011
In the Mozambican capital of Maputo, young women's sexuality has become an issue of public concer... more In the Mozambican capital of Maputo, young women's sexuality has become an issue of public concern, as popular culture as well as changing socio-economic landscape change female identities and pave the way for emerging forms of female agency and sexual assertiveness. In this article, I analyze how a highly erotic concert performance in 2007 by the pregnant music star Dama Do Bling accentuated certain ideals of femininity and revealed a set of ideological contradictions concerning sexuality and femininity in Mozambique. 'The Bling scandal', as it was called, served as a can opener in terms of making women's sexuality publicly debatable among and between young women as well as among the media, politicians, organizations and religious leaders. While some young women see 'the Bling scandal' as a denigration of womanhood others see it as a sign of increasing freedom for women that involves transactional sexual relationships with sugar-daddies.
Men and Masculinities, 2012
Masculinity studies in Africa have often highlighted young men's tendencies to be dominant, viole... more Masculinity studies in Africa have often highlighted young men's tendencies to be dominant, violent, and selfish in relation to female peers. This article introduces the concept of ''philogynous masculinities'' as part of an exploration of more gender equitable tendencies among young men in secondary schools in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. Findings from fieldwork in schools and student's neighborhoods reveal that understanding alternative notions of manhood requires sensitivity to the contexts in which these are accentuated. While the bom pico notion, stressing men's sexual satisfaction of women, received emphasis in the context of sex education, the ndota notion of restraint and antiviolence was activated under homely circumstances. Discussing multiple male subjectivities across contexts rather than classifying individual men allows for alternative configurations without ignoring their contradictory manifestations. The article urges masculinity studies to move beyond dichotomies between modern and traditional forms and to explore entanglements of hegemonic and alternative masculinities.
Anthropological Theory, 2010
In this article I explore socially marginalized young men's excessive acts of violence, drug use,... more In this article I explore socially marginalized young men's excessive acts of violence, drug use, death race and unsafe sex against the background of George Bataille's anthropology of transgression. When young men in the Mozambican capital engage in dangerous sex or violent riots, the findings indicate, it is less a sign of ignorance about HIV or indifference towards the rule of law than an expression of living in a 'state of emergency' where transgressive defiance of danger and death become attractive. Everyday transgressions of young men who call themselves moluwene (wild, unruly) are moulded in narratives and acts which at once oppose a smouldering socialist ideology of education and a neoliberal regime exiling marginalized young men from the realms of work and consumption to permanent unemployment, poverty and orgies of the moment.
Medical Anthropology, 2012
Nordic Journal of Migration Studies, Jun 2009
The article explores theoretical implications of sexual and violent practices among disenfranchis... more The article explores theoretical implications of sexual and violent practices among disenfranchised young men in Southern Africa. Ethnographic findings from Maputo, Mozambique indicate that massive unemployment caused by neo-liberal reforms have led to a growing number of young men basing their authority vis-à-vis women on bodily powers, understood as abilities and physique of the male body, rather than on economic powers and social status. While young men from the city's growing middle class enact hegemonic masculinities in relationships to female partners, by means of financial powers and adherence to a 'breadwinner' ideology, poor young men react to a situation of unemployment and poverty by enacting masculinities that are subordinate vis-à-vis middle class peers, but which find expression through violence or sexual performance vis-à-vis female partners.
Culture Health & Sexuality, 2009
Sexual Health, 2009
Studies on sexual behaviour within the area of HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa have largely ... more Studies on sexual behaviour within the area of HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa have largely focussed on unsafe sex and obstacles to condom use rather than examined factors potentially favouring safe sex. The present study examines how class, gender and peer education affects safe sex in male youth and identifies the reasons behind condom use by combining a questionnaire survey with ethnographic fieldwork. Findings from the field study among male secondary school youth in Maputo, Mozambique point to middle class youth from urban schools as more likely to use condoms than working class youth from suburban schools. Examining the meanings behind use or non-use of condoms the study identified narratives in middle class youth favouring safe sex in response to better social conditions, career opportunities and 'modern' masculinities, whereas working class youth explained non-use of condoms as due to lack of hope and job opportunities and by reference to fatalist ideas that life is out of their hands and that it's better to 'live in the moment'.
Det te debatindlaeg undersøger, hvad mediers historier om handel med kvinder siger om den danske ... more Det te debatindlaeg undersøger, hvad mediers historier om handel med kvinder siger om den danske selvforståelse ved at sammenligne diskursen om den hvide slavehandel i årene fra 1870 til 1925 med diskursen om menneskehandel i nyere tid. Hvordan konstrueres danskhed, race og køn i den offentlige debat, og hvad siger disse konstruktioner om forholdet mellem 'os' og 'de fremmede'? Vi ved endnu ganske lidt om, hvad menneskehandel indebaerer, og forskningen har pga. de store metodiske udfordringer, man står overfor, vanskeligt ved at forklare dens årsager eller angive dens omfang (Andreas og Greenhill 2010). Men der er naeppe nogen tvivl om, at menneskehandel og tvungen migration er et alvorligt globalt problem, som vi som forskere må gøre alt for at afdaekke og forstå gennem grundige empiriske undersøgelser af migrationsprocessen. I dette debatindlaeg er det dog ikke mit aerinde at diskutere omfanget eller karakteren af menneskehandel, eller hvordan vi bekaemper faenome-
Sexarbejde og mobiliseringen af prostituerede i Danmark I en strid om, hvordan historien om fatti... more Sexarbejde og mobiliseringen af prostituerede i Danmark I en strid om, hvordan historien om fattige bønders oprør mod britiske koloniherrer i Indien skulle skrives, stillede den indiske filosof og feminist Gayatri Spivak i 1988 det provokerende spørgsmål, "kan de undertrykte tale"? Hendes spørgsmål refererede til uenigheden om, hvorvidt undertrykte grupper fra postkoloniale samfund kunne tale deres egen sag, eller om de havde brug for bedrestillede maend og kvinder til at repraesentere dem. Samme spørgsmål kan man i dag stille om sexarbejdere i Danmark, hvor organisationer og politikere lever af at tale de prostitueredes sag, mens de prostituerede selv sjaeldent høres, med mindre de er villige til at bekraefte stereotypen om den lykkelige eller ulykkelige luder.
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Papers by Christian Groes