Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies

NORMA

The voices of men: the shaping of masculinities in three subcultural contexts, 1996

Much of the research in men’s studies to date has focused on the shaping of masculinity o f white middle-class men. This study uses life cycle and social constructivist perspectives to explore the subjective experiences of men from varied subcultural contexts. A theory that has received much attention in feminist and men’s studies circles is Chodorow’s (1978) The Reproduction o f Mothering, which reconceptualizes psychoanalytic notions of personality development to more fully include the impact of the structure of parenting on that process. Chodorow postulates that, due to the Industrial Revolution’s virtual removal of the man from the world of the family, boys’ and girls’ psychological development varies greatly in their paths to gendered beings, resulting in men defining and over-valuing their own separateness. Simply, this results in men who have relational deficits and a lesser capacity for empathy and nurturance than women have. With feminist object-relations theory in mind, this study explores the shaping of masculinities within three subcultural contexts. A total of thirty in-depth personal narrative interviews were conducted with men from three subcultural contexts. Class was held relatively constant as the men interviewed were from urban and rural working-class backgrounds. The interviewees included men who were members of Amish communities, as well as men from the African-American working-class in Pittsburgh and white working-class men from Erie County, Pennsylvania. In listening to men’s subjective experiences from varied life circumstances and subcultures, embedded in a particular sociohistorical context, the plurality of masculinities was informed and expanded. Through the interviews with the men from these three subcultures, feminist object-relations theory was further informed and extended. The interviews suggest that gender-making, definition and maintenance is a much more fluid and dynamic process than previously postulated in the feminist object-relations literature. The psychoanalytic concept of ego boundaries was reconceptualized utilizing a systemic framework and redefined as a process of expansion and contraction, with contraction socially constructed as masculine.

In Karioris, F.G. and Loeser, C. (Eds) Reimagining Masculinities: Beyond Masculinist Epistemology (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2015)

This collection is devoted to critical studies of men and masculinities. A key premise of the collection is to shift away from singular universal narratives in the theorisation and conceptualisation of masculinities. This is in order to further thinking on the broad range of topics that amalgamate in this field of academic inquiry. The publication stands as a continuation of critical masculinity studies by amplifying and expanding the themes and contexts in which masculinities are imagined and reimagined, represented and lived. The ten chapters in the volume discuss the construction of masculinity in and across particular times and cultural and geographic contexts. Each chapter sheds new light on the differences and complexities that constitute the making of masculinities in particular locales. In so doing, the chapters work to deepen theorising on masculinities at the broader scholarly level and in alignment with wider feminist projects that explore different masculinities as they are represented and embodied.

This text introduces the articles in the dossier considering the contributions of stud- ies of gender and masculinities for anthropological theory in the last two decades. Taking into account the scholarship of authors that marked these studies in the mid-1990s, we explore continuities and advances in the field. We show how current debates on gender and masculinity suggest that the main insights developed during this period are still relevant. The methods of anthropology are considered particu- larly suited for the study of masculinities, given their potential to destabilize “con- ventional” categories of analysis. The comparative nature of anthropology is seen as extremely productive in that it enables to challenge universal categories and raises key questions on the social contexts in which these categories are employed. At the same time, such variety of contexts, especially in situations of radical change and/or crisis, brings new questions to the fore for the analysis of masculinities. Among them the question of the analytical fruitfulness of the notion of hegemonic masculinity in situations in which force, rather than consensus, appears to acquire more salience. KEYWORDS: masculinities, gender, crisis, power, agency.

NORMA, 2016

The collected readings delve into the complexities of masculinity, examining it as a socially constructed identity influenced by various internal and external factors. Raewyn Connell's works focus on masculinity as shaped within the gender system itself, extending beyond mere male-female interactions to include diverse relationships among men, which she categorizes into hegemonic, hybrid, and marginalized types. Connell and other scholars like Demetriou and Hearn critique traditional views of hegemonic masculinity and advocate for understanding gender as a dynamic and continually produced social practice. The themes expand into discussions on how men's relationships, through frameworks like heteronormativity and socio-cultural practices like 'girl watching' and homosocial bonding, perpetuate gender norms and inequalities. These interactions often reinforce male dominance and marginalize women, suggesting that true gender equality requires restructuring societal norms and including men actively in feminist efforts. The collection highlights the ongoing negotiation of gender identities, emphasizing the need for a broader and more inclusive understanding of masculinity's role in societal structures.

IDS Bulletin, 2009

This article explores the notion of 'troublesome' masculinities that characterise much of the policy discourse and programme thinking on problems of young men and gender. It critiques the dimorphism that shapes this view of young men's gender trouble, and the 'culturalism' that constrains the perception of the troubled times in which many young men live. The article argues that young men can be enlisted in the feminist struggle to transform ideologies and institutions of male power, but only by troubling both the notions of masculinity that underpin them as well as the structural inequalities within which they are enmeshed.

Psychology in Society, 2007

This paper attempts to "trouble" the widespread assumption that South African masculinities are currently in flux. It argues that a rhetoric heralding the rise of alternative masculinities is nothing new and shows how the talk of white, privileged men, while ostensibly eschewing traditional masculinity, often ultimately works to reinscribe rather than undo the centrality of masculinity. The paper also argues for a more theoretically nuanced analysis of masculinity which resists the urge to reduce masculinity to the realm of individualist subjectivity and which recognises the overdetermined interpenetration of ideology, power relations and socio-material constraints in the reproduction of subjectivity.