Paper short abstract:

Grounded in theoretical insights from anthropology, migration and education studies, this paper shows how the educational aspirations and trajectories of young men in northern Senegal reflected their negotiations of masculinity, caste hierarchy, a 'culture of migration' and social positionality.

Paper long abstract:

Much migration studies and anthropological literature documents how young Senegalese men negotiate the difficult transition into adulthood given the lack of lucrative local economic opportunities, and as migration to Europe has become increasingly restricted and dangerous. Yet, this scholarship pays little attention to young men's educational aspirations experiences, although schooling presents a potential source of cultural and social capital. In contrast, educational studies on the relationships between migration and education are mainly quantitative analyses of the impact of remittances on school attainment. They ignore the ways that youths' identities and agency influence their aspirations and trajectories.

I address this disconnect by analysing the narratives of male youths from northern Senegal, whether they engaged in full-time Qur'anic schooling, completed primary state schooling but left shortly afterwards, or obtained secondary school diplomas. I demonstrate that gendered expectations linked to income-generating potential and sexual performance, and a 'culture of migration' which rendered male physical and social mobility largely synonymous, shaped youths' educational aspirations and trajectories. Their capacity to aspire and their ability to realise their aspirations were further influenced by social networks and access to capital, reflecting family precedent and their position in the caste-like social hierarchy. Paying attention to youths' negotiations of masculinity, as it intersects with other identity constructions and social positionality, thus enhances our understanding of both migration and educational trends in this context.

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Paper short abstract:

The presentation reflects on the construction of masculinities across space & time,in songs about the mining sector.It relies on more than 50 songs, from 6 countries,between the 19th & 21st centuries.I identify 2 main opposed types of masculinity:underground vs white collar,with both specific values

Paper long abstract:

The corpus includes different genres of songs, to examine masculinities as they reveal passions & social relations.The mining worlds that emerge from mining songs are mostly masculine, transmitted by authorized persons:male miners themselves or women related to them(spouses, daughters, sisters and mothers).I identify how the construction of sexual difference evolves (or not), showing continuities and changes in the social relations of production and class in the mining sector.Mining masculinities are produced through embodied relations of alliance,complicity & subordination & in favour of hegemonic domination.The masculinity of underground miners, based in the values of physical force,honesty, solidarity & fatherhood.The masculinity of white collar miners,equated with decision-making,power-sanctioning, duplicity and coldness. In dialogue several types of feminitity are developed,especially the figure of the "virile woman".These complementary representations correspond to an almost constant conflict between class groups (workers versus bosses) more than one between men and women,pointing toward the gendering of mining class identities beyond assumptions of sexual difference. I identify the mechanisms of domination and subordination in the underground mining masculinities through the figure of the deviant (class & gender trator); second, between these 2 competitive mining masculinities through the power of refusal. I conclude demonstrating how the main opposition between mining masculinities is the staging of a confrontation between the (ineffective) power of workers to display their own bodies & the white-collar capacity to controlling the worker's body.

Paper short abstract:

Men in relationships with female sex workers are faced with challenges to their masculine identity. Using an ethnographic approach, we show how men construct conflicted masculinities as a coping mechanism against real and perceived challenges at personal and societal levels.

Paper long abstract:

Introduction: Men in relationships with sex workers may negotiate multiple identities. We explore how such men in Kampala construct their masculinity as client, partner, husband and friend.

Methods: Data are based on a year-long (2019) ethnographic engagement with 13 men in non-commercial sexual relationships with known sex workers. Participant observations are complemented with in-depth interviews and focus group discussions

Results: All the men said that they knew they did not have a monopoly of sex with their women, given that it is through sex that the women earned a living. Most of the men were in insecure employment and found themselves in a dilemma because of failing to adequately provide for their families and therefore have no authority to stop their partners from continuing with sex work. Having children cemented relationships, but also fueled the persistence of women in sex work, given the inadequate support from men. Both the men and their partners admitted that sex work created an unwanted label in the relationship and coped by either re-labelling the work as something else and keeping it a secret especially from their children and those who may know them. Some men seemed to target sex workers as long term partners for financial gains, something that the women seemed to embrace if only to lay claim to a sense of normality as someone's wife.

Conclusion: Multiple identities are created by men in relationships with sex workers as they negotiate multiple aspects of the relationship

Paper short abstract:

The focus of this anthropological doctoral research is on the far-right in London. Specifically the ideas among such groups which assert that the state has become 'feminised' and aims to remove traditional masculinity altogether.

Paper long abstract:

"The people who are to blame most are ourselves, european men. Strong men do not get ethnically replaced, strong men do not allow their culture to degrade, strong men do not allow their people to die. Weak men have created this situation and strong men are needed to fix it." The

Great Replacement - Christchurch manifesto 


This research will investigate how ideas of masculinity inform ideas of cultural preservation, race, gender, hierarchy, nationhood and immigration among far right groups living in London. The speed, scale and scope of changes that have occurred due to market-driven globalisation has resulted in traction for populist movements that reaffirm the nation-state's primacy, reject international entanglements, abhor political correctness and the push for cultural diversity. Such movements have gained significant traction on digital platforms, producing echo chambers which see themselves as defenders of 'Western culture' against the onslaught of Islam, globalism, migration, feminism and homosexuality. The present work aims to bring the reader closer to understanding the thoughts and feelings amongst young men within these groups who long for identity, 'brotherhood' and their perceptions of what it means to truly be 'men'. The research will aim to produce detailed ethnographic accounts on such groups and their views on current events, contrasting the opinions displayed online with thoughts and feelings displayed outside of the readily changing digital realm of online politics.

Paper short abstract:

Using the case of local workers who work with Chinese workers in a Chinese mine in Papua New Guinea, this article aims to reframe previous studies on changes of masculinities and the mining industry and illustrate the ways in which place influences local understandings of Indigenous masculinities.

Paper long abstract:

Built upon the scholarship on changes of masculinities in Melanesian anthropology, this article aims to demonstrate the re-understanding of Indigenous masculinities by showing the ways in which Papua New Guinean mining workers work with Chinese migrant workers in a Chinese mine in Madang province, Papua New Guinean (PNG). Reviewing earlier studies of changes of masculinities and the mining industry in PNG, it is founded that earlier studies reflect a lineal understanding of the experiences of PNG workers from tribal men to modern workers within westerners' managed mines. In the case of a Chinese managed mine, however, this article maintains that we need a different framework in understanding the ways in which local men enact their masculinities with respect to their encounter with Chinese expatriate workers. Also, in consideration of space and place, it is founded that the studies of masculinities in Melanesia pay less attention to spacial factors, while at the same time the studies of personhood in Melanesia have emphasised the importance of place in understanding personal identities in PNG. Therefore, through combining ethnographic data and studies of personhood in Melanesia, this article states that it is crucial to explore the ways in which spacial factors affect the changes of Indigenous masculinities in this case study. In so doing, this article aims to contribute to the studies of masculinities, the mining industry, and overseas Chinese in Melanesia.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores masculinity as a compensatory phenomenon. I trace the formation of masculine hierarchies amongst Taiwanese Christians as inter-generational responses to church "sisters"' gendered relationship with their Christian God. I conceptualise masculinity here as a "response formation".

Paper long abstract:

'The church in Taiwan' is the Taiwanese branch of a global, cosmologically-focused Christian group which originated in Fujian, China in the 1920s. Members of the church, following the spiritual anthropology of the group's late leaders, 'Watchman Nee' and 'Witness Lee', differentiate between male psycho-spiritual dispositions and female ones. While "brothers" are described as being overly rational and as being predisposed to remain in their "minds", "sisters" are considered overly impulsive, being predisposed to remain in their "emotions". In line with much of Christian hsitory, brothers have accesses to explicitly recognised positions of authority and are allowed to give "messages" (which are similar to sermons) at a large church gatherings. Sisters however, are denied these possibilities. In this paper, I first introduce a fieldwork friend, sister Wu, who rejected the church for being "too traditional" in its orientations to, among other things, gender. I then use her critiques as a prompt for understanding how those church sisters' who embrace the church's gendered positionalities do not find themselves to be oppressed in the way that sister Wu did. I show how I discovered in fact that the gendered relationship between sisters and their Christian God is more primary to the life of the church than those between brothers and sisters. In fact, I show, brothers' hierarchical masculinity is a compensatory response to their relative exclusion from the sisters' relationship with God. Finally, adapting the psychoanalytical notion of 'reaction formations', the paper contributes toward understanding masculinity as a 'response formation'.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the operationalisation of Arctic field expeditions as both theatres and foundations of post-war masculinities by young Oxford men. It asks what masculinity came to mean in this context and how cultures of masculinity were forged across three expeditions to Svalbard in the 1920s.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the operationalisation of Arctic field expeditions as both theatres and foundations of post-war varsity masculinities following WW1. It hones in on three Oxford University expeditions to Svalbard (1921-1924) organised largely by and for varsity men, many of whom had been too young to serve. Hence, they were seeking ways of asserting their masculinity amidst a society that valued military service above other markers of manhood. As one university explorer remarked, compared to warfare, exploration "only provide five percent of the danger. Small enough odds, but all that are readily attainable". Arctic exploration was linked to a compound notion of masculinity, drawing on ideals of science and alpinism, and positioned in relation to a changing society marked by urbanisation, industrialisation, and modernity configured in feminine terms. The paper examines the narrative strategies and material practices through which the university men sought to carve out a space for themselves to claim a sense of masculinity. It unpacks how a masculinist culture was gradually forged across three field seasons and across the different spaces at home and abroad where people, ideas, and artefacts relating to the expeditions were circulated. It asks what masculinity came to mean in the context of these expeditions and how it was communicated to domestic audiences to ensure its currency as a social resource. This is linked to the emergence of a 'new' culture of undergraduate exploration which originated with these expeditions and which was subsequently institutionalised with the formation of the Oxford University Exploration Club.

Paper short abstract:

Through an analysis of epidemiological research, health policy texts and interviews with sexual health professionals and migrant health organisations, I propose a model in which mobile MSM (men who have sex with men) are understood as constantly migrating between differing internalised constructions of masculinity: out versus closeted, homeland versus promised land, over here versus out there, chronological time versus cyclical time.

Paper long abstract:

Much epidemiological research has been conducted on the sexual attitudes of MSM (men who have sex with men) migrating from countries with high levels of institutionalised homophobia to so-called ‘queer hubs,’ such as London. However, little work has been done on how the methodology employed by such research reinforces an exclusionary and misleading binary between risky, ‘Eastern’ MSM and enlightened, ‘Western’ MSM. Drawing on the ‘Patient Zero’ trope, I argue that sexual health risks which transcend borders are implicitly assumed in much epidemiological research to be distinctly foreign threats to the purity of the homeland. However, growing bodies of literature in both political geography and philosophy of science on the construction of risk, as well as biomedical research exploring the specific dynamics of migration (be it international or intranational), illustrate the more complex, chequered nature of sexual behaviours and sexual risk across borders. The conceptual binary currently upheld in epidemiological research and sexual health policy risks letting certain migrant MSM fall through the cracks in sexual health services, while contributing to the stigmatisation and social exclusion of others. It is thus necessary to reformulate our conception of migration in sexual health policy and research. Rather than occupying fixed states of being, I argue for an understanding in which mobile MSM are understood to move between temporal, as well as physical, spaces. The differing constructions of masculinity inherent to these differing temporal spaces raise a number of important questions around how we think about sexuality and sexual health.