Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:45:54.420Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Anthropological Engagements with Men and Masculinities

from Part Two - Knowledges and Domains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2023

By
Paul Scheibelhofer  and
Daniel Monterescu
Edited by
Cecilia McCallum ,
Silvia Posocco  and
Martin Fotta
Cecilia McCallum
Affiliation:
Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil
Silvia Posocco
Affiliation:
Birkbeck College, University of London
Martin Fotta
Affiliation:
Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences
Get access

Summary

This chapter charts historical developments and central themes in the anthropological study of men and masculinities. As the chapter shows, this body of knowledge is not free of frictions and contestations. Early anthropological studies were often motivated by finding globally generalizable patterns of masculinity. Other research has broadened the focus by questioning coherent gender-identities, analyzing how masculinity constructs are shaped by ambivalences, transgressive practices, and intersectional complexities. To chart this rich body of knowledge, the first part of the chapter critically discusses early anthropological research on men and masculinities as well as concepts that dominated the field for a considerable time. The remainder of the chapter focuses on three prominent topics of anthropological masculinity studies: economic crisis and its effect on masculinities, sexualities and nonnormative masculinities, and the role of masculinities in the negotiation of boundaries between others and selves. The chapter argues that anthropological engagements with masculinity can productively trouble our understanding of what it means to be a man.

Keywords

anthropology of masculinitymasculinity studiesmasculinity crisispatriarchyhegemonic masculinityhomosocialityqueer masculinitiesfemale masculinitiesIsrael/Palestinemigrant masculinities
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality , pp. 283 - 310
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abu-Lughod, L. (2002). Do Muslim women really need saving? Anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others. American Anthropologist, 104(3), 783–90.Google Scholar
Achilli, L. (2015). Becoming a man in Al-Wihdat: masculine performances in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 47(2), 263–80.Google Scholar
Alatas, S. F. (2003). Academic dependency and the global division of labour in the social sciences. Current Sociology, 51(6), 599–613.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, A. (1994). Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Almeida, M. V. d. (1996). The Hegemonic Male: Masculinity in a Portuguese Town. Providence, RI: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. R. O. G. (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Anthias, F., and Yuval-Davis, N. (1992). Racialized Boundaries: Race, Nation, Gender, Colour, and Class and the Anti-Racist Struggle. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bhabha, H. K. (1990). The third space. In Rutherford, J., ed., Identity: Community, Culture, Difference. London: Lawrence & Wishart, pp. 207–37.Google Scholar
Blackwood, E. (1998). Tombois in West Sumatra: constructing masculinity and erotic desire. Cultural Anthropology, 13(4), 491–521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boellstorff, T. (2005). The Gay Archipelago: Sexuality and Nation in Indonesia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Boellstorff, T. (2007). Queer studies in the house of anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 36, 17–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1998). Masculine Domination. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourgois, P. (1995). In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Broughton, C., and Walton, T. (2006). Downsizing masculinity: gender, family, and fatherhood in post-industrial America. Anthropology of Work Review, 17(1), 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burawoy, M. (2019). Symbolic Violence: Conversations with Bourdieu. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Carrier, J. (1995). De Los Otros: Intimacy and Homosexuality among Mexican Men. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Chakrabarty, D. (2000). Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Christensen, A.-D., and Jensen, S. (2014). Combining masculinity and intersectionality. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 9(1), 60–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connell, R. (2014). Margin becoming centre: for a world-centred rethinking of masculinities. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 9(4), 217–31.Google Scholar
Connell, R. W. (1985). Theorising gender. Sociology, 19(2), 260–72.Google Scholar
Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cornwall, A. (2016). Introduction: masculinities under neoliberalism. In Cornwall, A., Karioris, F., and Lindisfarne, N., eds., Masculinities under Neoliberalism. London: Zed Books, pp. 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornwall, A., Karioris, F., and Lindisfarne, N., eds. (2016). Masculinities under Neoliberalism. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Cornwall, A., and Lindisfarne, N. (1994a). Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cornwall, A., and Lindisfarne, N. (1994b). Introduction. In Cornwall, A. and Lindisfarne, N., eds., Dislocating Masculinity. New York: Routledge, pp. 1–10.Google Scholar
Crossley, P., and Pease, B. (2009). Machismo and the construction of immigrant Latin American masculinities. In Donaldson, M., Hibbins, R., Howson, R., and Pease, B., eds., Migrant Men. New York: Routledge, pp. 151–34.Google Scholar
Duneier, M. (1992). Slim’s Table: Race, Respectability, and Masculinity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Elliston, D. (1995). Erotic anthropology: “ritualized homosexuality” in Melanesia and beyond. American Ethnologist, 22(4), 848–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elliston, D. (2004). A passion for the nation: masculinity, modernity, and nationalist struggle. American Anthropologist, 31(4), 606–30.Google Scholar
Enloe, C. (1990). Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fanon, F. (2008 [1952]). Black Skin, White Masks. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Gamlin, J. B., and Hawkes, S. J. (2018). Masculinities on the continuum of structural violence: the case of Mexico’s homicide epidemic. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 25(1), 50–71.Google Scholar
Ghoussub, M., and Sinclair-Webb, E. (2000). Imagined Masculinities: Male Identity and Culture in the Modern Middle East. London: Saqi.Google Scholar
Gibson, J. W. (1991). Feminist ideas about masculinity. American Quarterly, 43(1), 128–34.Google Scholar
Gill, L. (1997). Creating citizens, making men: the military and masculinity in Bolivia. Cultural Anthropology, 12(4), 527–50.Google Scholar
Gilmore, D. D. (1990). Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, A. (2014). On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutmann, M. C. (1997). Trafficking in men: the anthropology of masculinity. Annual Review of Anthropology, 26, 385–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutmann, M. C. (2019). Are Men Animals? How Modern Masculinity Sells Men Short. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Halberstam, J. (1998). Female Masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Hall, S. (1992). The West and the rest: discourse and power. In Gieben, B. and Hall, S., eds., Formations of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 275–332.Google Scholar
Harrington, D. C. (2020). What is “toxic masculinity” and why does it matter? Men and Masculinities, 1–8.Google Scholar
Hearn, J. (2015). Men of the World. Genders, Globalizations, Transnational Times. London: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
Herdt, G. H. (1981). Guardians of the Flutes: Idioms of Masculinity: A Study of Ritualized Homosexual Behaviour. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Herzfeld, M. (1985). The Poetics of Manhood: Contest and Identity in a Cretan Mountain Village. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
High, C. (2010). Warriors, hunters, and Bruce Lee: gendered agency and the transformation of Amazonian masculinity. American Anthropologist, 37(4), 753–70.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D. L. (1999). “Once intrepid warriors”: modernity and the production of Maasai masculinities. Ethnology, 38(2), 121–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Howe, C. (2015). Queer anthropology. In Smelser, N. J., ed., The International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd ed., vol. 19. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 752–58.Google Scholar
Howson, R. (2006). Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ingvars, Á., and Gíslason, I. (2018). Moral mobility: emergent refugee masculinities among young Syrians in Athens. Men and Masculinities, 21(2), 383–402.Google Scholar
Kanaaneh, R. (2005). Boys or men? Duped or “made”? Palestinian soldiers in the Israeli military. American Ethnologist, 32(2), 260–75.Google Scholar
Kandiyoti, D. (1991). Identity and its discontents: women and the nation. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 20(3), 429–43.Google Scholar
Knauft, B. M. (1997). Gender identity, political economy and modernity in Melanesia and Amazonia. Source: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 3(2), 233–59.Google Scholar
Kulick, D. (1998). Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lancaster, R. N. (1988). Subject honor and object shame: the construction of male homosexuality and stigma in Nicaragua. Ethnology, 27(2), 111–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, X. (2016). “Filial son,” dislocated masculinity and the making of male migrant workers in urban China. In Cornwall, A., Karioris, F., and Lindisfarne, N., eds., Masculinities under Neoliberalism. London: Zed Books, pp. 66–79.Google Scholar
Manalisan IV, M. (2003). Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Messerschmidt, J. W. (1994). Masculinities and Crime: Critique and Reconceptualizations of Theory. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Mfecane, S. (2016). “Ndiyindoda” [I am a man]: theorising Xhosa masculinity. Anthropology Southern Africa, 39(3), 204–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milton, K. (1979). Male bias in anthropology. Man: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute n.s., 14(1), 40–54.Google Scholar
Mitchell, G. (2015). Tourist Attractions: Performing Race and Masculinity in Brazil’s Sexual Economy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Monterescu, D. (2006). Stranger masculinities: gender and politics in a Palestinian-Israeli third space. In Ouzgane, L., ed., Islamic Masculinities. London: Zed Books, pp. 123–42.Google Scholar
Monterescu, D. (2007). Masculinity as a relational mode: Palestinian gender ideologies and working-class categorical boundaries in an ethnically mixed town. In Sufian, S. M. and LeVine, M., eds., Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel/Palestine. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 177–98.Google Scholar
Mosse, G. L. (1990). Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mosse, G. L. (1996). The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mullins, C. W. (2006). Holding Your Square: Masculinities, Streetlife and Violence. Cullompton: Willan.Google Scholar
Murray, S. O., and Roscoe, W., eds. (1997). Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, J. (1998). Masculinity and nationalism: gender and sexuality in the making of nations. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21(2), 4–27.Google Scholar
Nagel, J. (2003). Race, Ethnicity and Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ouzgane, L., ed. (2006). Islamic Masculinities. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Parker, R. G. (1991). Bodies, Pleasures, and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Pascoe, C. J. (2007). Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Penglase, B. (2010). The owner of the hill: masculinity and drug-trafficking in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 15(2), 317–37.Google Scholar
Peteet, J. (1994). Male gender and rituals of resistance in the Palestinian Intifada: a cultural politics of violence. American Ethnologist, 21(1), 31–49.Google Scholar
Reddy, G. (2005). With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reiter, R., ed. (1975). Introduction. In Reiter, R., ed., Toward an Anthropology of Women. New York: Monthly Review Press, pp. 11–19.Google Scholar
Rubin, G. (1975). The traffic in women: notes on the “political economy” of sex. In Reiter, R., ed., Toward an Anthropology of Women. New York: Monthly Review Press, pp. 157–210.Google Scholar
Scheibelhofer, P. (2016). “How would you react if you learned that your son was gay?” Racialized sexualities and the production of migrant others in Europe. In Amelina, A., Horvath, K., and Meeus, B., eds., An Anthology of Migration and Social Transformation. Wiesbaden: Springer, pp. 295–306.Google Scholar
Scheibelhofer, P. (2018). Der fremd-gemachte Mann: Konstruktionen von Männlichkeit in der Migrationsgesellschaft. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, E. K. (1985). Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Scheper‐Hughes, N. (1983). Introduction: the problem of bias in androcentric and feminist anthropology. Women’s Studies, 10(2), 109–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverman, E. K. (2004 ). Anthropology and circumcision. Annual Review of Anthropology, 33(1), 419–45.Google Scholar
Simmel, G. (1971 [1908]). On Individuality and Social Forms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sinatti, G. (2013). Masculinities and intersectionality in migration: transnational Wolof migrants negotiating manhood and gendered family roles. In Truong, T.-D., Gasper, D., Handmaker, J., and Bergh, S., eds., Migration, Gender and Social Justice: Perspectives on Human Security. Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 215–26.Google Scholar
Sinha, M. (1995). Colonial Masculinity: The “Manly Englishman” and the “Effeminate Bengali” in the Late Nineteenth Century. Manchester: Manchester University PressGoogle Scholar
Soja, E. (2000). Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In Nelson, C. and Grossbern, L., eds., Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 271–313.Google Scholar
Stephen, L. (2002). Sexualities and genders in Zapotec Oaxaca. Latin American Perspectives, 29(2), 41–59.Google Scholar
Waling, A. (2019). Problematising “toxic” and “healthy” masculinity for addressing gender inequalities. Australian Feminist Studies, 34(101), 362–75.Google Scholar
Ward, E. (2015). Not Gay: Sex between Straight White Men. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
West, C., and Zimmermann, D. (1987). Doing gender. Gender & Society, 1(2), 125–51.Google Scholar
Whyte, W. F. (1947). Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Willis, P. (1977). Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. Farnborough: Saxon House.Google Scholar
Young, A. (2000). Women Who Become Men: Albanian Sworn Virgins. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×