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Paper short abstract

I reflect on my fieldwork in men-only events in Portugal, exploring what these communities mean by engaging in 'men’s work’ amidst physically and emotionally demanding activities. A moral boundary emerges: men who show up to confront their socialization by 'doing the work' and those who do not.

Paper long abstract

Over the last 1,5 year I have been participating in men-only events across Portugal, both as a man and an anthropologist. Men-only events span a wide and polymorphous spectrum of configurations. Seen from ‘inside’, they exist as discussion and sharing circles (so-called men’s circles), hikes in the nature, multi-day retreats in the countryside, meditation and fitness events, coaching sessions. Seen from ‘outside’, they impose different intersectional boundaries around the specific configuration of ‘man’ declared to be the ‘only’ one invited to join the ‘inside’: e.g., “GTB men” (gay-trans-bisexual men), “fathers and sons” or – by far the most common – “men” as a category mobilized without further specification. In Portugal, men-only events intersect diverse communities, ranging from digital nomads, expats, religious circles, queer groups, shamanic milieus, and short-term tourists.

In my presentation, I reflect on what these communities mean by engaging in what they commonly refer to as ‘doing men’s work’ – an extremely polymorphous spectrum of activities carried out with the intention of approaching masculinity and manhood as something that men themselves can and increasingly should work upon, something malleable and, to a degree, apt to redefinition. 'Doing men's work' is often physically, emotionally, interactionally challenging - it requires "sitting with the uncomfortable". Here, 'showing up to do the work’ exists a key moral distinction through which participants differentiate themselves from men who are perceived as unwilling to enter a space of male homosociality with "consciousness, presence, and intention" to confront themselves, their socialization, their past experiences.