A Perspective on the
Ethnography of Masculinity
Dr Matt Maycock
MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Structure
• Introduction
• Historical context – Anthropology of men
• Anthropology Vs Ethnography of masculinity
• The ‘ethnographic moment’ in men and masculinity studies
• Methods
• Influence on my research
• References
MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Historical Context
Men and the ‘Anthropological record’:
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Men ‘unmarked’ and were the norm upon which knowledge about a specific
society was build on.
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The various differences and divisions between men and women were viewed
as ‘natural’
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Men are [overly] present but not explicitly so.
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The gendered experiences and subjectivities of men were not considered
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The influence of the gendered identity of the person/s doing the research was
largely not considered.
Anthropology was/is for my and by men (Guttman)
MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Anthropology Vs Ethnography
According to Radcliff-Brown, 1965 (Structure and Function in a Primitive Society), the
difference between anthropology and ethnography is the difference between
idiographic and nomothetic inquiry. Radcliff-Brown explains that:
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An idiographic inquiry [ethnography] aims to document the particular facts of past
and present lives
While the aims of nomothetic inquiry [anthropology] is to arrive at general
propositions of theoretical statements.
Anthropologies of Masculinity
For example, Gilmore, 1990 (Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of
Masculinity) presents a cross-cultural comparative collection of anthropological work
exploring with cultural conceptions of manhood. He deals with the question of what a
“real man” is through a sampling of various cultures. There are several problems with
this:
This homogenises masculinity
This is descriptive and not analytical
Gilmore points towards a universal definition of masculinity, defined in opposition to
MRC/CSOfemininity.
Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
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The emergence of Ethnographies of
masculinity
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Feminist anthropology examined social inequality and the nature of women’s
disempowerment.
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Masculinity tended to be overlooked in this work on ‘gender’.
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To better understand gender generally and men’s gendered experiences
specifically, recently some explicit focus has been placed on studying
masculinity/s within Ethnography.
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This is part of a wider trend in which masculinities are being examined within
gender studies as a specific area of concern.
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This ‘area’ of research centrally argues that masculinities are a valid and vital
area of study within ethnography and that explicitly studying masculinities
enriches studies of gender more broadly.
MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
The ‘Ethnographic Turn’ in Masculinity Studies
“…men do masculinity according to the social situation in which they find
themselves.” (Messerschmidt, 1993, 84)
In Masculinities (1995, 2005 ), Raewyn Connell talks about a ethnographic turn
in masculinity studies, what does she mean by this?
Ethnographic studies of masculinity tend to:
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Assume masculinities are multiple (both locally and globally).
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Unpack the ways in which masculinities are socially and culturally constructed and performed.
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Examine how masculinities impact on each other.
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Examine the ways in which masculinity is constructed in relation to subordinate women and
femininities.
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Be ‘micro’ level in focus.
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Undertaken in both urban and rural contexts.
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Consider ‘positive’ masculinities and subvert the idea of men as a [or the] problem.
MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
The achievements of the ‘Ethnographic Turn’
in Masculinity Studies
Ethnographic studies of masculinity have:
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Illustrated the cross-cultural variance in performances and modes of masculinity.
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Proven that there is no single masculinity.
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Showed that masculinities can and do change.
This was important in overcoming the tendency in the mass media and popular culture to treat ‘men’ as a
homogenous group ‘masculinity’ as a fixed, ahistorical entity.
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Identified the importance of intersectionality of gender with class, caste, race, ethnicity, sexuality, age
etc…
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Consolidated men and masculinities as a world-wide field of knowledge.
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A significant amount of the research at the beginnings of this turn focused on discourses
of hegemonic and subordinate masculinities (following Connell).
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More recently a number of studies have focused more on intricate studies of social
practice, with a focus on ambiguity and context specific performances of masculinity.
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Collections of micro-research and applied studies of masculinity exist for practically
every continent or culture-area.
MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Ethnographic Methods
What can ethnography contribute to studies of masculinity from a
methodological perspective?
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Participant observation and masculinity.
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The locatedness of research and micro level research/richness
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Gender and epistemology “the ways in which gender intervenes to block the
process of knowing about the construction of knowledge” (Chopra 2004: 37).
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Masculinity and positionality – the narcissistic turn in ethnography (Chopra,
2004)
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Problems (alongside various issues with ethnography more generally):
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Time
Theory derived from ‘Developed’ contexts applied within ‘Developing’ contexts
MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
How has this shaped my research?
Until recently masculinity has not received significant attention in South Asia,
despite the gender ‘awareness’ of the NGO and academic sectors in the region:
“For a long time, South Asian men have been treated as universally
given, ungendered objects and have rarely been examined as
gendered.” (Sharma, 2007a: 33)
My thesis examines the ways in which poor, subaltern men perform
masculinities that respond to a fluid framework of masculine references. More
specifically I examined, consumption, embodiment, labour, movement, literacy
and marriage.
I lived in a village for a year and have been visiting Nepal for over 15 years.
There is an unresolved tension between [western] theories of masculinity and
local performances I was studying. I am still unclear of the utility of of
MRC/CSO
Social and Public
Health Sciences Unit,
University
of Glasgow.
hegemonic
masculinity
within
ethnographic
research on masculinity.
Questions/ Comments
MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
References
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Almeida, M. 1996. The Hegemonic Male: Masculinity in a Portuguese Town, London, Berghahn.
Beasley, C. 2008. Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in a Globalizing World. Men and Masculinities, 11, 86-103.
Chopra, R. 2004. Encountering Masculinity: An ethnographer’s dilemma. In: CHOPRA, R., OSELLA, C. & OSELLA,
F. (eds.) South Asian masculinities : context of change, sites of continuity. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Chopra, R., Osella, C. & Osella, F. 2004. South Asian masculinities : context of change, sites of continuity, New
Delhi, Women Unlimited an associate of Kali for Women.
Cleaver, F. 2002. Masculinities matter! : men, gender, and development, London ; New York, Zed Books.
Connell, R. W. 2005. Masculinities Cambridge, Policy Press.
Cornwall, A., EdstrèOm, J. & Greig, A. 2011. Men and development: politicizing masculinities, London,
Macmillan.
Cornwall, A. & Lindisfarne, N. 1994. Dislocating masculinity: comparative ethnographies, London, Routledge.
CORREIA, M. C. B., I (ed.) The Other Half of Gender. Washington: World Bank.
Gilmore, D. D. 1990. Manhood in the making : cultural concepts of masculinity. Conn, Yale University Press.
Gutmann, M. C. 1997. Trafficking in Men: The Anthropology of Masculinity. Annual Review of Anthropology, 26,
385-409.
Maycock, M. 2012. Masculinity, Modernity and Bonded Labour: Continuity and Change amongst the Kamaiya of
Kailali District, far-west Nepal. Doctor of Philosophy, University of East Anglia.
Morrell, R. & Swart, S. 2005. Men in the Third World, Postcolonial Perspectives on Masculinity. In: KIMMEL, M.
S., HEARN, J. & CONNELL, R. (eds.) Handbook of studies on men & masculinities. London: Sage Publications.
Osella, F. & Osella, C. 2000. Migration, Money and Masculinity in Kerala. Journal of Royal Anthropological
Institute, 6, 117-133.
Srivastava, S. 2004. Sexual sites, seminal attitudes: sexualities, masculinities, and culture in South Asia.
London, Sage.
Masculinity in a Global Perspective: http://gencen.isp.msu.edu/publications/b_masculinity.htm
MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.