Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the (re)production of gendered and racialized bodies in the dance world, looking at construction and performance of masculinity in Cuban dance venues and the symbolic implications of the transnational dissemination of Cuban dance styles and ideas around male bodies.

Paper long abstract:

Over the years, the transnational circulation of Cuban dance forms brought along not only the codification and commercialization of distinct units of steps for the purpose of competitive and social dancing but also powerful ideas of racialized and gendered bodies that materialize in performance. Dance floors naturalized ideas of masculinity rooted in the image of Cuban culture characterized by a deep machismo which celebrates male virility, aggressiveness and fearlessness. Dance schools, competitions and salsa congresses in Europe perpetuate representations of masculinity embedded in colonial paradigms, relying on clearly demarcated rules for gender performance.

At the same time, in Cuba, the economic realities and social inequalities that stem from contact with foreigners, have resulted in the development of creative approaches for financial gain, inscribing the male body in a broader rhetoric of Caribbean bodies for sale. Young Cuban men use their dance skills and seduction strategies to create and perpetuate expectations about Cuban fantasies. The phenomenon is strongly marked racially: many of the dark skinned Cubans do not have other type of access to foreign currency (legal jobs in the tourist industry) but at the same time seem to be capable of exploiting one of the few advantages of their skin color - the appearance of "authenticity" in the spaces commonly associated with blackness.

The paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted over several months, from 2011 to 2015, in the western provinces of Cuba and during dance competitions and congresses in Europe.

Paper short abstract:

Hip-hop music and culture are often associated with hypermasculinity, while Swedish men in general are many times stereotypically linked to some kind of feminine masculinity. How are these masculinities negotiated within a Swedish battle rap league?

Paper long abstract:

The current working title for my dissertation is Between battle rap and feminist strategies. Making Swedish hip-hop music. By focusing on ethnographic fieldwork among artists, DJs, music producers as well as hip-hop camps where young girls are taught how to make hip-hop music, the study aims at examining the relationship between the processes of music-making and subject positions. How is music made today? Which various tools are used and how do these in turn affect the abovementioned processes? What role does the storytelling of various cultural belongings and experiences have as a part of the construction of authenticity among the practitioners, and how does this in turn affect the music-making processes?

This presentation will focus on a battle rap league in Sweden, which is the topic for one of the dissertation chapters. There are currently a couple of battle rap leagues in Sweden and my material is based on one of the biggest ones called O-Zone.

Within a Swedish context, the battle rap scene is overall a men's practice making it an appropriate empirical example for the study of gender practice and performance. The aim is to examine how various masculinities are practices and performed within this specific context. What does it take to be a Swedish battle rapper? Hip-hop music and culture are often associated with hypermasculinity, while Swedish men in general are many times stereotypically linked to some kind of "soft" or even a feminine masculinity. How are these masculinities negotiated within a Swedish battle rap league?

Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses discourses of masculinity in a left wing ultras group – White Angels Zagreb. I argue that group concepts of masculinity are embedded within dominant discursive hegemonies established in post-Yugoslav space, whilst rejecting enforced ‘hard’ masculinity common in right wing groups

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I discuss confrontations involving violence and discourses of masculinity in a left wing ultras group - White Angels Zagreb - on the basis of ethnographic observations made as a group member involved in a number of overlapping antifascist activist engagements in Serbia and Croatia. Building my argument up from an ethnographic vignette, I also discuss the historical context underlying the production of masculinities and heteropatriarchy in the post-Yugoslav context. I then introduce the group, examining ethnographic material concerning violence and masculinities. I argue that whilst not initiating violence against other groups, talk about violent incidents with other groups plays a similar role to that documented in right wing groups in cementing collective identifications, and that group concepts of masculinity are embedded within dominant discursive hegemonies established in post-Yugoslav space, whilst simultaneously rejecting enforced 'hard' masculinity, an important observation which differentiates them from many right wing ultras in the region.

Paper short abstract:

Face to the strong changing pressure in local gender system, the young men of slums of Praia enact innovative masculine performances. This ethnography analyses how they perform gender in local relations, constituting what Connell defined "protest masculinities".

Paper long abstract:

Praia, capital city of Cape Verde, is actually a context of strong socio-economic and cultural changes. The transition to democracy and the backlashes of global economic crisis increased local wealth, but also social inequality and unemployment. Contemporary, strong cultural transformations of sex/gender system are happening thanks to government's commitment in the fight for gender equity and to innovations introduced by migrants. The economic change affects men's power, while innovative feminine gender performances hinder the fulfillment of local hegemonic masculinity that legitimate gender unequal power relations. Previous local model of hegemonic masculinity (that has different nuances according to social class and other factors) is becoming an unreachable ideal for Cape-Verdean men. Face to this situation, in popular suburbs young people organize themselves into two types of groups almost exclusively masculine: urban gangs and movements of social activists. These groups are very different each other, but they both represent alternative forums of self-affirmation in contrast with the experience of social marginalization. Qualitative data collected consider these groups as practice communities where young people of poor suburbs enact innovative masculine performances, discourses and bodily aesthetics inspired to hip-hop transnational culture or to Afrocentric issues. In this way, they do not produce innovation in gender power relations. On the contrary, they avoid cultural and economic obstacles and they get able to perform hegemonic masculinity in a new way. They claim the supremacy coming from gender belonging in response to a general context of marginalization, representing what Connell called "protest masculinities".

Paper short abstract:

With this paper I would like to present my research on profeminist men’s engagement in Spain with a specific reference to the shifts in imagining and practicing “new masculinities” among men’s activist for gender equality.

Paper long abstract:

In contemporary Spain, profeminist men's engagement appears to be active, although very fragmented and low in numbers, by the end of the 1980s and becomes more visible and structured at the turn of the millenium. Profeminism is a peculiar kind of activism, different from oppositional social movements and/or identity political claims: in profeminist politics its actors propose social change starting from themselves, i.e, masculinity/ies, therefore locating the focus of their socio-political critique on their own practices and believes. With this paper I would like to present my research on profeminist men's engagement in Spain with a specific reference to the shifts in imagining and practicing "new masculinities" among men's activist for gender equality. The common use of the term "new masculinities" seems to create an affirmative common discourse on an activist level, affecting also the policy and the institutional contexts. What does the reference to "new masculinities" contains in terms of utopias and realities in performing masculinities? Can this be considered a figuration that mobilizes men towards changing their daily practices? Drawing upon my ethnographic fieldwork s conducted among the members of the movement Hombres por la Igualdad in Spain, my presentation will address the questions of the potential and the limits within the framing of "new masculinities".

Paper short abstract:

The paper aims to examine the negotiation processes of masculinity put into play by some African men living in Italy. The research looks at their efforts to shape and negotiate a model of masculinity that is usually stigmatized in both their countries and contemporary Italy.

Paper long abstract:

The research focuses on narratives, practices and desires expressed by some African men living in Italy and who experience same-sex behaviors. The main theoretical purpose is to examine their lives looking at the intersections of migration experiences, non-straight masculinities and cultural/religious diversity.

The paper is based on a multi-sited research carried out in Italy through the use of in-depht interviews, ethnographic observations and nethnography. The aim is to understand how these men shape, challenge and transform their embodied model of masculinity after the migration experience.

Considering the social and cultural stigmatization of queer identities in both Africa and Italy, their daily efforts are focused on the creation of a positive image of themselves as people expressing a dissident sexuality or simply performing an alternative form of masculinity. During this process, they usually tackle internalized homophobia, symbolic violence and power imbalance at different stages and in relation to several social actors. The research looks at how their social networks are redefined across space and/or time and explores the creative ways that they put into play to escape different kinds of intolerance and marginalization in present-day Italy.

In conclusion, an intersectional perspective to their voices combined with an anthropological sensibility could offer significant insights to men's studies, in particular to understand the contestation of gender norms, the transformation of contemporary subjectivities and the ability to enact imagined forms of masculinity.

Paper short abstract:

Seafaring as a male profession has long traditions and is well known especially for its hierarchical and masculine nature. Although women have gradually invaded the field starting from passenger ships, on a cargo vessel female crew is still more or less invisible.

Paper long abstract:

Practically most of the cargo ships sail under command of male captain and operate with solely male crew. However, considering Finnish seafaring, during last decades there have been other changes within manning of ships. Since 2009 Finland has agreed to accept mixed crews onboard merchant ships. In practice it means that at least half of the crew on board a bulk carrier or a container ship can be non-EU members, in most cases Filipinos. Filipinos are worldwide the biggest nationality working onboard ships and have been that for several decades. Still, co-existence with Finns and Filipinos is a new phenomenon and therefore fruitful to study.

When scrutinizing contemporary Finnish seafaring one can make observations on e.g. crew's orientation as a sailor. For Finnish sailors the profession is still more or less masculine but how it is with Filipinos? As it is disclosed in some international studies, dominant figure of a Filipino male from western point of view is rather feminine. However, Filipino seamen seem to consider themselves merely masculine. For my doctoral dissertation on cultural factors behind marine accidents I have conducted three ethnographic fieldworks on board Finnish cargo ships with mixed crews. I have spent some four weeks living with the crew on each vessel. In my presentation I'm going to examine how biased masculinities emerge in reality onboard a Finnish ship with mixed crew. Have invasion of Filipinos changed the performance of a sailor in the light of gender and if so, how?

Paper short abstract:

Working class masculinity has traditionally been highly connected to wage labor and to the ability to provide for oneself, but due to the lack of manual jobs and due to the lack of resources that the unemployment imply, masculinity now is forced to be re-imagined.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses narratives from young working class men, living in a small Swedish town located outside the emerging economic regions. Like in many other European countries the rate of unemployment among youth is disproportionally high in Sweden. From a broad material of in-depth interviews with unemployed young people the issue of masculinity in relation to work is an emerging, though not always specified or articulated, theme. Industrial societies has turned post-industrial. The labor market has undergone major structural changes during the last four decades and since working class masculinity traditionally has been closely connected to wage labor and to the ability to provide for oneself as well as for others - being the main breadwinner of the family - masculinity is forced to be re-imagined. In the ongoing construction of identity and young masculinity, nostalgic images of a recently lost way of life where employment meant hard labor but also a durable and respected position in the community, are retold. Parallel to these narratives and sometimes in opposition to them, there are also wishes and dreams of alternative ways of relating one's own role, identity and masculinity to a different set of work ethics where neither wage labor nor traditional masculinity need to form it´s stable categories.