scholarly journals Theorizing Black (African) Transnational Masculinities

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic Pasura ◽  
Anastasia Christou
Keyword(s):  
African Diaspora ◽  
Gender Relations ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Masculine Identity ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Black African ◽  
Transnational Communities ◽  
And Gender

Just as masculinity is crucial in the construction of nationhood, masculinity is also significant in the making and unmaking of transnational communities. This article focuses on how black African men negotiate and perform respectable masculinity in transnational settings, such as the workplace, community, and family. Moving away from conceptualizations of black transnational forms of masculinities as in perpetual crisis and drawing on qualitative data collected from the members of the new African diaspora in London, the article explores the diverse ways notions of masculinity and gender identities are being challenged, reaffirmed, and reconfigured. The article argues that men experience a loss of status as breadwinners and a rupture of their sense of masculine identity in the reconstruction of life in the diaspora. Conditions in the hostland, in particular, women’s breadwinner status and the changing gender relations, threaten men’s “hegemonic masculinity” and consequently force men to negotiate respectable forms of masculinity.

Dancing Youth

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Kurfürst
Keyword(s):  
Hip Hop ◽  
Gender Relations ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Global Studies ◽  
Urban Restructuring ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Digital Ethnography ◽  
And Gender

Breaking, popping, locking, waacking, and hip-hop dance are practiced widely in contemporary Vietnam. Considering the dance practices in the larger context of post-socialist transformation, urban restructuring, and changing gender relations, Sandra Kurfürst examines youth's aspirations and desires embodied in dance. Drawing on a rich and diverse range of qualitative data, including interviews, sensory and digital ethnography, she shows how dancers confront social and gender norms while following their passion. As a contribution to area and global studies, the book illuminates the translocal spatialities of hip hop, produced through the circulation of objects and the movement of people.

scholarly journals Gender Caring: The Everyday Construction of Black African Parents in Finland

2014 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 143-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias E. Ebot
Keyword(s):  
Family Life ◽  
Gender Relations ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Family Research ◽  
Black African ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
And Gender ◽  
African Families ◽  
Depth Interviews

The Nordic countries are now firmly ensconced in academia as gender-friendly welfare states. They are seen as pioneering countries with respect to changes in family life and gender relations and thus present an interesting forum for family research. This paper explores how gender caring relates to gender, religion and parenting in Sub-Saharan African families in the context of immigration to Finland. A constructionist perspective is employed to illuminate how guidelines or scripts established in these parents’ cultures are actively used and how they in turn influence their gender relations. Gender caring is conceptualized as an ethic of reciprocity, solidarity and obligation to ensure interdependence and strong bonds among black African parents. The article draws on in-depth interviews conducted with twelve couples mainly in the Helsinki area (which includes Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen).

scholarly journals ‘Justin Bieber Sounds Girlie’: Young People's Celebrity Talk and Contemporary Masculinities

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 124-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Allen ◽  
Laura Harvey ◽  
Heather Mendick
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Young People ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Relative Paucity ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
A Site

In this article, we explore the ways that contemporary young masculinities are performed and regulated through young people's relationship with celebrity. We address the relative paucity of work on young men's engagements with popular culture. Drawing on qualitative data from group interviews with 148 young people (aged 14-17) in England, we identify ‘celebrity talk’ as a site in which gender identities are governed, negotiated and resisted. Specifically we argue that celebrity as a space of imagination can bring to the study of masculinities a focus on their affective and collective mobilisation. Unpicking young men's and women's talk about Canadian pop star Justin Bieber and British boyband One Direction, we show how disgust and humour operate as discursive-affective practices which open up and close down certain meanings and identities. We conclude that while there have been shifts in the ways that masculinities are performed and regulated, hierarchies of masculinities anchored through hegemonic masculinity remain significant.

scholarly journals Fit to be a Man: Women's Perspectives and Gender Relations among the Zeme Nagas of Assam

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Bowden
Keyword(s):  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Gender Relations ◽  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
The People ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Community Issues ◽  
And Gender

In many indigenous societies worldwide we are witnessing an increase in gender inequality. Men’s domination of women seems to be growing and women’s labour is now exploited. Zeme Naga women of Assam are lamenting the loss of support from their husbands and the burden of labour wives must take up as husbands abandon their responsibilities. Husbands are becoming more controlling. This thesis seeks to understand some of the reasons behind the decline in men’s reciprocal labour practices and the deterioration in what were once remembered as relatively egalitarian gender relations. By bringing critical, historical and feminist analyses to bear on the ethnographic data I attempt to show the ways in which women’s increasing sense of inequality is linked to Zemes’ growing marginalisation regionally and globally. I explore Zeme understandings of what makes a man ‘fit to be a man’ and the ways feminine and masculine identities engage the changes brought by colonialism and neo-colonialism. Women’s interests were once served by the Zeme patriarchal society. I found that women continue to expect reciprocal labour exchange that was based on social structures and practices that are now largely obsolete. Employing the notion of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell 2005a) it emerged that men’s earlier practices allowed an opportunity for nearly every man to achieve the Zeme ideals of masculinity which involved the demonstration of caring behaviour towards women and other members of the community. Masculinity was largely based on access to resources that men delivered to the community according to what the people were perceived to need. The notion of women and children as men’s ‘property’ entailed responsibility and self-sacrifice on behalf of men and a relatively equitable division of labour around child care. Indeed, the well-being of women and children was a constituent of Zeme normative masculinity. However, Zeme engagements with what may be termed the agents of ‘modernity’: economies, religions, agricultural projects, schooling and the creation of Statehood, have contributed to devaluing Zeme livelihoods and cosmologies. This has had significant repercussions for Zeme gender relations, which include relations among men, and is changing the direction of the pursuit of masculine ideals. I argue that these transformations have contributed to sidelining a core component of Zeme hegemonic masculinity, the ability to ‘provide what the people need’ as well as creating inequalities of opportunities for men to demonstrate ‘care’ in this way. On the other hand, these processes are also presenting new opportunities for women to contest men’s interests, and to make claims over community issues that were one avenues of prestige for men.

Frondeuses and Feminists in the Work of Arvède Barine (1840–1908)

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-112
Author(s):  
Whitney Walton
Keyword(s):  
Gender Relations ◽  
Third Republic ◽  
National Library ◽  
Women And Gender ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
And Gender

This article examines Arvède Barine’s extensive and popular published output from the 1880s to 1908, along with an extraordinary cache of letters addressed to Barine and held in the Manuscript Department of the National Library of France. It asserts that in the process of criticizing contemporary feminist activists and celebrating the achievements of women, especially French women, in history, she constructed the historical and cultural distinctiveness of French women as an ideal blend of femininity, accomplishment, and independence. This notion of the French singularity, indeed the superiority of French women, resolved the contradiction between her condemnation of feminism as a transformation of gender relations and her support for causes and reforms that enabled women to lead intellectually and emotionally fulfilling lives. Barine’s work offers another example of the varied ways that women in Third Republic France engaged with public debates about women and gender.

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