Rethinking Transnational Men: Beyond, Between and Within Nations 0415524180, 9780415524186

Citation preview

Rethinking Transnational Men

The world is becoming more transnational. This edited collection examines how the immense transnational changes in the contemporary world are being produced by and are affecting different men and masculinities. It seeks to shift debates on men, masculinities and gender relations from the strictly local and national context to much greater concern with the transnational and global. Established and rising scholars from Asia, Australia, Europe and North America explore subjects including economies and business corporations; sexualities and the sex trade; information and communication technologies and cyberspace; migration; war, the military and militarism; politics; nationalism; and symbolism and image-making.

Jeff Hearn is a UK Academician in the Social Sciences; Research Professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (Gender Studies), Örebro University, Sweden; Professor in Management and Organization, Hanken School of Economics, Finland; and Professor of Sociology, University of Huddersfield, UK. Marina Blagojević is Senior Researcher at the Institute for Criminological and Sociological Research, Belgrade, Serbia. Katherine Harrison is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark.

Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality

C ORE EDITORIAL GROUP: D R. KATHY D AVIS (I NSTITUTE FOR HISTORY AND C ULTURE , UTRECHT, THE NETHERLANDS), PROFESSOR JEFF HEARN (MANAGING EDITOR; ÖREBRO UNIVERSITY, SWEDEN; HANKEN SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS, FINLAND; UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD, UK), PROFESSOR ANNA G. JÓNASDÓTTIR (ÖREBRO UNIVERSITY, SWEDEN), PROFESSOR NINA LYKKE (MANAGING EDITOR; LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY, SWEDEN), PROFESSOR CHANDRA TALPADE MOHANTY (SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY, USA), PROFESSOR ELŻBIETA H. OLEKSY (UNIVERSITY OF ŁÓDŹ, POLAND), DR. ANDREA PETÖ (CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY, HUNGARY), PROFESSOR ANN PHOENIX (INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, UK) Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality is committed to the development of new feminist and profeminist perspectives on changing gender relations, with special attention to: • Intersections between gender and power differentials based on age, class, dis/abilities, ethnicity, nationality, racialisation, sexuality, violence, and other social divisions. • Intersections of societal dimensions and processes of continuity and change: culture, economy, generativity, polity, sexuality, science and technology; • Embodiment: Intersections of discourse and materiality, and of sex and gender. • Transdisciplinarity: intersections of humanities, social sciences, medical, technical and natural sciences. • Intersections of different branches of feminist theorizing, including: historical materialist feminisms, postcolonial and anti-racist feminisms, radical feminisms, sexual difference feminisms, queerfeminisms, cyberfeminisms, posthuman feminisms, critical studies on men and masculinities. • A critical analysis of the travelling of ideas, theories and concepts. • A politics of location, reflexivity and transnational contextualising that reflects the basis of the Series framed within European diversity and transnational power relations. 1 Feminist Studies A Guide to Intersectional Theory, Methodology and Writing Nina Lykke

2 Women, Civil Society and the Geopolitics of Democratization Denise M. Horn

3 Sexuality, Gender and Power Intersectional and Transnational Perspectives Edited by Anna G. Jónasdóttir, Valerie Bryson and Kathleen B. Jones 4 The Limits of Gendered Citizenship Contexts and Complexities Edited by Elżbieta H. Oleksy, Jeff Hearn and Dorota Golańska 5 Theories and Methodologies in Postgraduate Feminist Research Researching Differently Edited by Rosemarie Buikema, Gabriele Griffin and Nina Lykke 6 Making Gender, Making War Violence, Military and Peacekeeping Practices Edited by Annica Kronsell and Erika Svedberg 7 Emergent Writing Methodologies in Feminist Studies Edited by Mona Livholts 8 Gender and Sexuality in Online Game Cultures Passionate Play Jenny Sundén and Malin Sveningsson 9 Heterosexuality in Theory and Practice Chris Beasley, Heather Brook and Mary Holmes 10 Tourism and the Globalization of Emotions The Intimate Economy of Tango Maria Törnqvist

11 Imagining Masculinities Spatial and Temporal Representation and Visual Culture Katarzyna Kosmala 12 Rethinking Transnational Men Beyond, Between and Within Nations Edited by Jeff Hearn, Marina Blagojević and Katherine Harrison

This page intentionally left blank

Rethinking Transnational Men Beyond, Between and Within Nations Edited by Jeff Hearn, Marina Blagojević and Katherine Harrison

NEW YORK

LONDON

First published 2013 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2013 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rethinking transnational men : beyond, between and within nations / edited by Jeff Hearn, Marina Blagojevic and Katherine Harrison. pages cm. -- (Routledge advances in feminist studies and intersectionality ; 12) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Men—Identity. 2. Masculinity. 3. Transnationalism. 4. Emigration and immigration—Social aspects. I. Hearn, Jeff, 1947– II. Blagojevic, Marina. III. Harrison, Katherine. HQ1090.R448 2013 155.3'32—dc23 2012051248 ISBN: 978-0-415-52418-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-76760-3 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by IBT Global.

SFI-01234

SFI label applies to the text stock

Printed and bound in the United States of America by IBT Global.

Contents

List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments 1

Introducing and Rethinking Transnational Men

xi xiii xv 1

JEFF HEARN AND MARINA BLAGOJEVIĆ

PART I Rethinking Transnational Men beyond the Nation Introduction

27

JEFF HEARN

2

Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in Transnational Context

29

CHRIS BEASLEY

3

Embodying Serious Power: Managerial Masculinities in the Security Sector

45

RAEWYN CONNELL

4

The “Agency” of Men: Male Buyers in the Global Sex Industry

59

SHEILA JEFFREYS

5

Geek Myths: Technologies, Masculinities, Globalizations DAVID BELL

76

viii Contents 6

Hegemony, Transpatriarchies, ICTs, and Virtualization

91

JEFF HEARN, ALP BIRICIK, HELGA SADOWSKI, AND KATHERINE HARRISON

PART II Rethinking Transnational Men between Nations Introduction

111

MARINA BLAGOJEVIĆ

7

Subversions of Techno-Masculinity: Indian ICT Professionals in the Global Economy

113

WINIFRED R. POSTER

8

Why Masculinity is Still an Important Category: (Trans)Migrant Men and the Migration Experience

134

RICHARD HOWSON

9

Racializing Masculinities in Different Diasporic Spaces: Iranian-Born Men’s Navigation of Race, Masculinities, and the Politics of Difference

147

FATANEH FARAHANI

10 Transnationalization and its Absence: The Balkan Semiperipheral Perspective on Masculinities

163

MARINA BLAGOJEVIĆ

PART III Rethinking Transnational Men within Nations Introduction

187

KATHERINE HARRISON

11 Hegemonic Masculinities and the “Selling” of War: Lessons from George W. Bush JAMES W. MESSERSCHMIDT

189

Contents 12 Nationalist Reactions and Masculinity Following Hrant Dink’s Assassination: Reconfigurations of Nation-States and Implications for the Processes of Transnationalization

ix

204

NURSELI YEŞIM SÜNBÜLOĞLU

13 Zooming In and Out: Historical Icons of Masculinity within and across Nations

219

TETYANA BUREYCHAK

Contributors Index

239 245

This page intentionally left blank

Figures

13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5

How to Become a Cossack in Seven Days (book cover). Cossacks’ condoms. Bookstore Book world (Odesa, 2006). Vodka “Mazepa” and “Doroshenko”. Five hryvnya banknote, face—Cossack hetman Bogdan Khmelnytskyi. 13.6 Ten hryvnya banknote, face—Cossack hetman Ivan Mazepa. 13.7 Distribution of decrees on Cossackhood passed during 1991–2011 by their content during the presidency of four Ukrainian presidents—Leonid Kuchma, Leonid Kravchuk (two terms), Viktor Yushchenko, and Viktor Yanukovych.

224 225 226 227 229 230

231

This page intentionally left blank

Tables

7.1

Hegemonic versus Techno-Masculinities

114

This page intentionally left blank

Acknowledgments

This book arises from collaborative research at GEXcel, the Joint University Centre of Gender Excellence at Linköping and Örebro Universities, Sweden (http://www.genderexcel.org/?q=node/81), and specifically Research Theme 2 on Deconstructing the Hegemony of Men and Masculinities: Contradictions of Absence (http://www.genderexcel.org/?q=node/101). GEXcel has been funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) and the two universities. We would like to thank all those involved in GEXcel, and especially Anna Jónasdóttir, Nina Lykke, Berit Starkman, Kjerstin Andersson, Alp Biricik, Ian Dickson, and Anne-Li Lindgren; members of the GEXcel International Advisory Board, especially Raewyn Connell; colleagues in Tema Genus (Gender Studies), and the Division of Gender and Medicine, both at Linköping University, and the Centre for Feminist Studies, Örebro University; the other GEXcel Visiting Scholars in Theme 2, Chris Beasley, David Bell, Toni Calasanti, Fataneh Farahani, Karen Gabriel, Sheila Jeffreys, Nil Mutluer, Winifred Poster, Niels Ulrik Sørensen, Anna Tarrant, and P. K. Viyayan; the GEXcel Open Position Scholars, Tetyana Bureychak, Neal King, Richard Howson, and Robert Morrell; the Internal Theme Members; and the External Swedish Theme Associates, for all their support. In many ways the development of GEXcel Theme 2 has been built on the work of the on the Critical Studies on Men and Masculinities Research Group, based in Tema Genus, Linköping University, and initially convened by Jeff Hearn with Stina Backman, Ericka Johnson, and Ulf Mellström. Jeff Hearn would also especially like to thank Kjerstin Andersson, Dag Balkmar, Alp Biricik, Lucas Gottzén, Paul Horton, Roger Klinth, Marie Nordberg, Helga Sadowski, Linn Sandberg, and Tanja Joelsson for contributing to the growth of this area. The transnational perspective on men and masculinities represented in this volume also follows earlier collaborative research, especially the FP5 Thematic Network “The Social Problem and Societal Problematisation of Men and Masculinities” (2000–2003), the Critical Research on Men in Europe (CROME) network, and the EU FP6 Coordination Action on Human Rights Violation Sub-Network 2 (2004–2007). Jeff Hearn would

xvi

Acknowledgments

like to thank all the members involved for these highly supportive collaborations, especially Ursula Műller, Irina Novikova, Elzbieta Oleksy, and Keith Pringle for coleading them; Emmi Lattu, Marjut Jyrkinen, Teemu Tallberg, and Hertta Vuorenmaa for research work; and Bob Pease and Elisabetta Ruspini for further transnational collaborations. Finally, we warmly thank the research editor at Routledge, Max Novick, for his kind support. Jeff Hearn, Marina Blagojević, and Katherine Harrison

1

Introducing and Rethinking Transnational Men Jeff Hearn and Marina Blagojević

The world is becoming more transnational, and in many ways. This is a book about men, gender relations, and transnationalism—more accurately transnationalizations. Transnational processes, transnationalizations, take many and various forms, with major substantive policy and theoretical implications for gender relations. In this approach, men and gender relations can no longer be understood only locally or nationally—if that was ever the case. Thus, this collection on men considered transnationally, that is, as “transnational men”, recognizes both stable transnational patterns and transnational processes of flux. Gender relations—in this context, men, masculinities, and gender relations—are both constructed within and transcend borders. There are local, national, and societal cultural patterns, and what are claimed as such as specific “cultures”, but these are themselves shaped by global and transnational processes, even when they defi ne themselves through resistances. This is especially important at this current historical moment, with new configurations and intertwinings of the local, the national, and the transnational. As such, transnational men need rethinking and reconceptualization. Moreover, focusing on transnational men, albeit of different kinds and in different ways, repositions men who are apparently not transnational. The contributors all raise important questions around transnationalization in different ways, whether in terms of transnational organizations, movements, and migration, virtual communication, or some other social form. They seek to identify the new and changing hybrid forms of some predominantly local or national social phenomena that embrace influences of transnational flows beyond, between, and within nations. They highlight the need to theorize and problematize not only men, gender, and sexuality, but also the nation, nationality, and nationalism, race/“race” and ethnicity, intersectionalities, and multiple oppressions from the perspective of transnationalism. This is the territory of transnational transversal postcolonial feminism (Grewal and Kaplan 1994; Yuval-Davis 1997, 2012; Cockburn 1998; Cockburn and Hunter 1999; Mohanty 2003; Desai 2006).

2

Jeff Hearn and Marina Blagojević

The book brings together world-leading researchers, along with highly promising younger scholars, many with multiple transnational links of their own, from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, India, Iran, Serbia, Sweden, Turkey, the UK, Ukraine, and the USA. We aim to enhance theoretical implications through both “core” and “noncore”, peripheral and semiperipheral social locations, which are exposed to transnational processes to different degrees. And we seek to promote a nonhierarchical understanding of transnationalizations, even if transnationalizations are themselves often intensely hierarchical. The book both draws on and seeks to advance four areas of contemporary inquiry: • critical studies on men and masculinities; • gender hegemony, specifically hegemonic masculinity and the hegemony of men; • intersectionality and men; and • gendered intersectional studies on globalization and transnationalization. As will be explained a little later, this book is organized in terms of transnational processes, transnationalizations, in three domains: beyond, between, and within nations. The contributions in this book provide a ground for theoretical debate on how transnationalization operates on those three levels in relation to men, masculinities, and relevant differences.

CRITICAL STUDIES ON MEN AND MASCULINITIES First, this book seeks to advance feminist/profeminist critical studies on and about men and masculinities (Hearn 1997, 2004a). This is in contrast to that version of “men’s studies” that seeks to develop a field more or less separate from and competitive with feminist studies, women’s studies, or gender studies. The book engages with new developments in substantive studies and theorizing in the subfield of critical studies on men and masculinities. Emphasis is placed on positive critiques of existing frameworks and on possible separations between this subfield and feminist and critical gender and sexuality scholarship. It pursues a line of argument on which Anna Jónasdóttir has written:1 the kind of feminist social and political theory I wish to promote . . . needs to take men (in their various relationships to women as well as with other men) theoretically more seriously than has been common among feminist theorists. Also, since Critical Studies on Men and Masculinities has developed into a field of its own, a dialogue between the two fields would be good for both. (2008, 15)

Introducing and Rethinking Transnational Men

3

The book seeks to contribute to contemporary theoretical and empirical work on critical studies on men and masculinities, through a development of more explicit transnational and intersectional perspectives. While studies on men have always been on feminist agendas (Hanmer 1990), over the past thirty-five years or more there has been a relatively rapid, yet still geographically uneven, growth of focused studies on men and masculinities (see Kimmel, Hearn, and Connell 2005; Flood et al. 2007; Ruspini et al. 2011). In some parts of the world, this is still a new area of study. There are as many ways of studying men and masculinities as there are approaches to the social sciences. They range from examinations of masculine psychology and psychodynamics to broad societal, structural, and collective analyses of men; they have included detailed ethnographic descriptions of particular men or men’s activity and investigations of the construction of specific masculinities in specific discourses; they have interrogated different masculinities and the interrelations of unities and differences between men; and much more. In discussing this, Raewyn Connell remarked: We now have a growing library of studies from around the world, across a number of the social sciences, in which researchers have traced the construction of masculinity in a particular milieu or moment. They include studies of marital sexuality, homophobic murders, a body-building gym, street gangs, a clergyman’s family, an insurance office, a high school, a fi lm, a political movement, professional sports, a police station, a literary genre, a media debate (Cornwall and Lindisfarne 1994, Connell 2000a). I call this the “ethnographic moment” in masculinity research, in which the local and specific is emphasised. (2000b, 2–3) Most such studies have been limited to a single national, societal context— a form of “methodological nationalism” (Beck 2000; Beck and Sznaider 2006; Chernilo 2006). The “ethnographic moment” in studies on men and masculinities has highlighted such features as: multiplicity of masculinities, relations among masculinities, the importance of collectivity, social learning of and about masculinities and femininities, complexities and indeed contradictions, and change. But “the ethnographic moment” does not need to mean limiting attention to the local. As has been pointed out in Global Ethnography (Burawoy et al. 2000), ethnographic research can also challenge the analysis of larger, global, and indeed transnational processes and power dynamics. In many ways this particular project can be seen as an attempt to go beyond the “ethnographic moment” in studies on men and masculinities (Connell 1998). Recent critical research on men has moved toward more international, transnational, global, and postcolonial perspectives and processes (hooks 1984; Connell 1993, 1998; Ouzgane and Coleman 1998; Awkward

4

Jeff Hearn and Marina Blagojević

2002; Pease and Pringle 2002; Cleaver 2003; Morrell and Swart 2005; Gonzalez and Seidler 2008; Cornwall, Edström, and Greig 2011; Ruspini et al. 2011). There has also been a marked growth of studies in international politics (Zalewski and Palpart 1998; Hooper 2001; Jones 2006; Parpart and Zalewski 2008; Shepherd 2008). At the same time, in those contexts where critical studies on men and masculinities have not been so fully developed, such as postcommunist societies, the new research on men and masculinities is often taking place in national and local locations that are becoming more transnationalized (Novikova and Kambourov 2003; Novikova 2008). This creates additional theoretical and methodological challenges for researchers, including problematizing the notion of “the ethnographic”. For example, how are researchers to think about groups or social locations that are only loosely embedded into transnational flows, such as via Latino soap operas, or hybrid media and cultural products, while at the same time suffering from economic transnationalizations with the impacts of multinationals? Such means and modes of sociality may be ways of making capitalist societies out of what were previously noncapitalist or less capitalist settings.

GENDER HEGEMONY, HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY, AND THE HEGEMONY OF MEN A second, more specific area of concern is the relations of gender and hegemony, or what might be called gender hegemony. Indeed, if there is one concept that has been especially important in critical studies on men and masculinities it is (gender) hegemony. Thus this volume focuses on deconstructions of hegemonic masculinity and the hegemony of men and masculinities. The place of both force and consent of men in patriarchies is illuminated by a concept of (gender) hegemony that can assist engagement with both material and discursive gender power relations. Hegemony addresses the relations of power and ideology, including the domination of what are “taken-for-granted” and “commonsense” defi nitions of the situation. It highlights the importance of consent, even if provisional, contingent, and backed by force. In this sense, hegemony speaks more to complicity than to brutal enforcement. It refers to and reinforces what has been called the “fundamental outlook of society” (Bocock 1986). Hegemony encompasses material, economic, political, cultural, and discursive social arenas, rather than prioritizing the economic or the cultural. Mike Donaldson (1993, 645) summarizes some main features of hegemony as: about the winning and holding of power and the formation (and destruction) of social groups in that process. It is about the ways in which the ruling class establishes and maintains its domination. The ability to impose a defi nition of the situation, to set the terms in which events are

Introducing and Rethinking Transnational Men

5

understood and issues discussed, to formulate ideals and defi ne morality is an essential part of the process. Hegemony involves persuasion of the greater part of the population, particularly through the media, and the organization of social institutions in ways that appear “natural,” “ordinary,” “normal”. The state, through punishment for non-conformity, is crucially involved in this negotiation and enforcement. The notion of hegemonic masculinity was initially developed as part of Connell and colleagues’ analysis of gendered social processes within patriarchy. They have also emphasized processes of hegemony, dominance/subordination, complicity, and marginalization (for example, by class or by ethnicity), as well as other processes of resistance, protest, and ambivalence. This process usage of hegemony has been less popular and less influential than that other usage employed at times by Connell and colleagues, namely, in terms of linking hegemony to forms of masculinity. However, seeing hegemony as a process is rather different from seeing hegemony in terms of forms of masculinity. Interestingly, from the fi rst published use of the term hegemonic masculinity, by Connell in 1979 (republished in Connell 1983), the context of the concept was debate on patriarchy. From this first use, the gender hegemony at issue was hegemony of the patriarchal system of gender relations. The concept of hegemony was elaborated in the well-known paper published in 1985. Here, Carrigan, Connell, and Lee write that hegemony: always refers to an historical situation, a set of circumstances in which power is won and held. The construction of hegemony is not a matter of pushing and pulling of ready-formed groupings but is partly a matter of the formation of these groupings. To understand the different kinds of masculinity demands an examination of the practices in which hegemony is constituted and contested—in short, the political techniques of the patriarchal social order. (1985, 594; our emphasis) One might argue that there is a slippage here from the formation of these groupings to the understanding of the different forms of masculinity. This points to the importance of being clear whether it is the formation of groupings or the different kinds of masculinity within them that is addressed. In Masculinities (Connell 1995) hegemonic masculinity is defi ned as: “the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position of men and the subordination of women” (77). This is a different emphasis to the social process usage of hegemony. It is perhaps not so surprising that these (and other) various conceptual and empirical uses of hegemony, as in “hegemonic masculinity” in the analysis of masculinities, have been subject to a variety of qualified

6

Jeff Hearn and Marina Blagojević

critiques over the last twenty years or so (for example, Donaldson 1993; Hearn 1996, 2004a; Wetherell and Edley 1999; Whitehead 1999, 2002; Demetriou 2001; Howson 2006; Aboim 2010). These critiques have highlighted: lack of clarity in the concept and lack of evidence or inconsistency or insufficient complexity in terms of detailed empirical studies, as well as theoretical and political inadequacies, in relation to, for example, postcolonial theory and queer theory (for example, Butler 1990; Halberstam 1998; Ouzgane and Coleman 1998). There is also a range of further questions yet to be answered, such as: is hegemonic masculinity a matter of cultural representations/aspirations/imaginaries, everyday practices, or institutional structures, or all three? Should one talk of hegemonic masculinities in plural? And how do various dominant, dominating, and hegemonic forms, such as violence and control of resources, interconnect with each other? Connell and Messerschmidt’s (2005) review addressed some if not all of these and other critiques. Most importantly, the concept of hegemony has generally been employed in some rather restricted ways. The focus on masculinity is too narrow. If we are interested in what is hegemonic about gender relation to men and masculinity, then it is “men” who or that are far more hegemonic than masculinity or particular masculinities. Thus, instead, it is time to go back from masculinity to men, to examine the hegemony of men and about men: the double complexity that men are both a social category formed by the gender system and collective and individual agents, often dominant agents, of social practices (Hearn 2004a). This book engages with these various debates, including shifts from masculinity/ ies to men. Furthermore, dominant uses of the social category of men have often been bound and restricted by, for example, class, ethnicity, racialization, and (hetero)sexuality, issues much explored in, for example, postcolonial theory. Much less examined is the construction of the category of men in terms of assumptions about nationality/national context and transnational issues. Indeed, there have been several neglected or missing elements in recent debates on and applications of hegemony to men and masculinities, including the relations of hegemony to: “patriarchy” and its legitimation; the (changing) “form” of the social, cultural, and virtual; and moves away from the fundamental outlook of “society”, nation, and the nationstate to growing importance of the “transnational”. This book examines how the hegemony of men is being (re)defi ned in relation to such various transnationalizations.

INTERSECTIONALITY AND MEN Third, this collection also draws on the notion of intersectionality and the complex social phenomena to which it refers that go under many names and labels, including multiple social divisions, multiculturalism(s), multiple

Introducing and Rethinking Transnational Men

7

differences, multiplicities, “diversity”, postcolonialities, hybridities, and multiple oppressions (Hearn and Parkin 1993). It includes attention to both gendered intersectionalities and intersectional gendering. The concept of intersectionality has a rich feminist history (Crenshaw 1989, 1991; McCall 2005). It has been used in many different ways—between relatively fi xed social categories, in the making of such categories, in their mutual constitution, in transcending categories. Intersectionality can be understood within the full range of epistemologies, feminist or otherwise. Of special interest is in what times, places, spaces, and situations do intersectionalities appear most evident. Equally, the notion of intersectionality is not new. It was spoken in Black feminism and the antislavery movement of the nineteenth century and probably long before then, too. More recently, following so-called second wave feminism of the 1960s, it was reaffi rmed, although often under different names, especially in calling attention to the intersections of gender, “race” (or ethnicity), and class. In 1981 Angela Davis published Women, Race & Class; in 1984 bell hooks wrote on Black women and Black men as potential allies in Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center; and in the same year Mary O’Brien drew attention to the dangers of commatization (O’Brien 1984). Much of the intersectionalities debate has been toward recognition of differences and the complex intersections between such differences and divisions. These questions of difference, division, and intersection apply equally to men (Kimmel and Messner 1989/2009; Hearn and Collinson 2006), even if this has not been the primary concern of much feminist work. Interestingly, masculinities theory developed from the late 1970s around the same time as feminist auto-critiques of the concept of patriarchy. Both these debates around patriarchy and masculinities were very much about intersectionalities. The rethinking and problematization of patriarchy and the identification of differential patriarchal arenas both fed into masculinities theory and can be seen as part of debate on intersectionalities. Indeed, Jørgen Elm Larsen and Ann-Dorte Christensen (2008, 56) suggest that “the concept of intersectionality complements the concept of hegemonic masculinities, in that it stresses the interaction between gender, class and other differentiating categories, and at the same time articulates different power structures and their reciprocating construction”. This book seeks to challenge the gender hegemony of men, partly by including transnationalizations as intersectional processes. Transnationality is a strongly neglected arena of intersectionality. First, transnationality concerns relations between nationalities, and thus nations. Second, it highlights intersectionalities with and between nationality, language, culture, location, movement, and mobility, but also across these boundaries. Third, transnationality may involve metamorphosing of boundaries, national and other (Hearn 2004b). Transnational categories are becoming defi ned in more complex ways, with blurrings in interrelations with other social categories, intersectionalities, and the deconstruction of transnationalizations

8

Jeff Hearn and Marina Blagojević

of hybrid categories that are more than the sum of, say, gender/race/language. Transnationality, like virtuality, can be seen as a social division or intersection, and often incorporates the virtual and its intersections. Understanding men and intersectionalities demands engagement with not only age, class, disability, ethnicity, racialization, and sexuality, but also transnationality. At the same time, we seek to work beyond some more limited intersectional frameworks, in the sense that class, on a global scale, can be seen as being constituted by gender, rather than simply intersecting with it. The combined impact of modern feminism, state powers, and neoliberalism and individualism may weaken established gendered patterns, but global capitalism’s need for protection and enforcement remains, and may even become further entrenched.

GLOBALIZATION, TRANSNATIONALIZATION, AND TRANSNATIONAL PATRIARCHIES Fourth, different transnationalizations can problematize taken-for-granted national, organizational, and local contexts; gender regimes; and men and masculinities there in many ways. To attend to such questions involves the (de)construction of the hegemony of men and other privileged “centers”, such as “Europe” and “the North”, as well as deconstruction of the “core” perspective embodied in some theoretical ideas. In this, we build on critical debates on the concept of patriarchy in relation to intersectionalities and transnationalizations. Moving beyond national societal contexts has been prompted by various recent global(ized) and transnational researches. Most of these have been developed under the rubric of “globalization”, or subsequently “glocalization”, in which it is assumed that specificities of place are becoming transcended through economic, political, and cultural linkages. At the same time, there is a considerable literature that questions the usefulness and accuracy of the notion of globalization (for example, Rugman 2000; Petras and Veltmeyer 2001). One aspect of the critique needing emphasis is how nation-states, national boundaries, and organized labor at the national level remain important (Edwards and Elger 1999; Gibson-Graham 1999; Waddington 1999; Alasuutari 2000; Kite 2004). Thus, transnationalization seems a more accurate concept than globalization (Hearn 2004b). This necessitates considering interrogating different meaning(s) of “the transnational” more generally. While much social science can be characterized by “methodological nationalism”, this is challenged by analyses of the transnational. Most conceptualizations of the transnational appear to depend on two fundamental elements: the nation or national boundaries and trans (across) relations, as opposed to “inter” relations or “intra” relations (ibid.). This raises the prospect of the differences between transnational relations and international relations, in which, it could be argued, the nation is less problematized. It could be argued, also, that the transnational

Introducing and Rethinking Transnational Men

9

refers to a much wider scope of social and cultural phenomena than is the case with the increasingly inadequate notion of “international”. Speaking of transnational relations raises a paradox: they refer to the nation, yet at the same time also to relations across nations. The nation is simultaneously affirmed and deconstructed. This often involves the emergence of a set of intensified phenomena on a global level. There is a difference between transnationalism as a new global structure, transcending separate nations, and transnationalization as a process leading to transnationalism as a new form of global coexistence. Transnationalization encompasses different kinds of fluid movements, material or virtual, but also results in more or less stable, material, and territorial entities, many of which tend to stabilize through new structures. So, what is meant by the “trans” in transnationalization? In short, the “trans” refers to three different notions of process and change, as well as more subtle distinctions between and beyond them: • moving across or between two or more somethings, in this case, across national boundaries or between nations, as in negotiations between states or mass migration flows; • metamorphosing, problematizing, blurring, transgressing, breaking down, even dissolving nations or national boundaries—in the most extreme case, leading to the demise of the nation or national boundaries, as in blurrings of national identity in migration or blurring of policy responses between states; • creating new configurations, intensified transnational, supranational, or to different degrees, deterritorialized, dematerialized, or virtual entities: structures, institutions, organizations, classes, groups, social movements, capital flows, networks, communities, supra-identities, cultural and public spaces, involving two or more nations, or more often different actors therein interacting across national borders. While the fi rst of these approaches fits what we have called, in our overall title, the “between”, and the second the “within”, the third corresponds to the “beyond”. However, all three are intertwined; for example, the “within” operates in relation to the “between” and the “beyond”. Transnationalizations have tangible, material aspects, even in their virtual dimension, as seen in transnational entities. While the fi rst meaning seems to be the cause, because without moving of any kind there would be no “trans”, and the second is about the consequence, since the movement creates metamorphosing, the third is about generating something new, or more intensified, leading to new structurings of the global. In this way these three perspectives go together and often reinforce each other. These contrasts may be clearer if we consider migration. Transnational migration can refer to the movement of people between nations across national boundaries, without or with little problematization of the nation(s)

10

Jeff Hearn and Marina Blagojević

or boundaries. This might be so in the compilation of migration statistics. On the other hand, transnational migration can be seen in terms of the creation of transnational communities, social locations, and identities that problematize nations and blur national boundaries. And, together, these changes can formulate new configurations beyond the nation, as in linkages between migrations, multinational enterprises (MNEs), and information and communication technologies (ICTs). Many transnational studies recognize transnational social spaces, flows, and forms of deterritorialization, translocality, and transnationality (Appadurai 1995, 1996; Hannerz 1992, 1996; Ong 1999), in which social space is not strictly or primarily experienced or understood as physical, geographical space of nationally located place that the people occupy. Significantly, we do not seek to assign only positive meaning to such changes. Rather we understand that transnationalization that is taking place in the context of neoliberal globalization, and (trans)patriarchical relations necessarily bears both “positive” and “negative” aspects of transgression. In this kind of approach, the nation and other “centers” of analysis and “given” units of analysis are problematized; it speaks politics across difference, as well as raising questions for shifting personal, political, economic, social, cultural, and spatial positionings. Various forms of transnationalizations, coupled with postcoloniality and global processes, have created new and changing material and representational hierarchies. This book thus focuses on various gendered, sexualed, intersectional, embodied, and virtual transnational processes, in relation to contemporary and potential changes in power relations. Key arenas of global transnational gender relations are: • transnational business corporations and governmental organizations, the almost total dominance of men at top levels of transnational corporate management, and their gender-segregated labor forces; • international and multilateral political, governmental, or philanthropic and humanitarian organizations, some of which have a mission to change gender order globally and within the nations (such as the UN and its agencies); • global fi nance and masculinization of capital market trading and business media; • militarism and the arms trade; • international sports industries and their gender segregation; • consumerism; • migration; • ICTs, virtualization, information flows, image transfer, and circulation; • the sex trade and sexualization in the global mass media; • transnational bio-, medical, and reproductive economies and movements, including sperm banks, surrogacy, cosmetic surgery, transgender surgery, body modifications;

Introducing and Rethinking Transnational Men • • • •

11

transportation, water, environment, energy, and climate change; knowledge production (see Esplen and Greig 2008); cultural production; and transnational religious movements, typically profoundly gendered, and movements of trans-religiosity, towards spirituality, sometimes with espoused de-gendering seeking to move “beyond gender”.

These transnational arenas are not separate, but occur and develop in transnational clusters. The different arenas in which these processes of transnationalization are taking place also intersect, and so affect the experiences, constructions, and effects of men and masculinities there. For example, there are many important links between care, emotions, and migration, and between violence, organizations, and war. *** The four areas of study noted in the preceding—critical studies on men and masculinities, gender hegemony, intersectionality, and globalized transnationalizations—bring to the fore our prime focus on transnational processes in material constructions of men within gender relations and “varieties” of “transnational men”. Moreover, what gives a new intensified quality to transnationalization is that it occurs under globalization of capitalism as a general process, involving an increasing number of territories, nations, peoples, individuals, and resources, including time. We now consider some transnational processes before considering some examples of transnational sites and spaces.

TOWARD TRANSNATIONAL MEN: PROCESSES, SITES, SPACES

Transnational Processes Transnational social processes, or transnationalizations, take many forms and have many implications for men and gender relations. Focusing on men contributes to understanding how transnationalizations actually work from local to global and vice versa, through and by male social actors. The movement from the national to the transnational can be more or less voluntary or more involuntary: there is always a continuum, never either/or. It can be structural, institutional, organizational, or individual, or indeed through more complex webs, networks, and linkages. Especially when it is voluntary, it is important to recognize the gains that may accrue for the local framework for men’s lives through transnational linkages. Broadening the interconnections of gender and transnationalization means gendering men as an explicit part of analysis. In these debates there remains a general repeated resistance to considering men’s practices as

12

Jeff Hearn and Marina Blagojević

gendered, to “naming men as men” (Hanmer 1990; Collinson and Hearn 1994). Men’s practices are integral in (re)producing gender inequality between men and women and among men. These are heavily embedded in social, economic, and cultural relations, so that men’s dominant or complicit practices may easily be equated with what counts as the normal, natural, usual, or official way of doing things: hegemony of men, as category and actors. There is the need to put together gendering men and gendering transnationalization. Despite growth in critical studies on men and masculinities, gendering men is still a lacuna in many “critical” analyses of transnationalization, even though in many transnational processes particular groups of men are the main purveyors of power. In many transnational movements, both physical and virtual, particular groups of men are the most powerful actors (Hearn 1996; Connell 1998): “since the agents of global domination were, and are, predominantly men, the historical analysis of masculinity must be a leading theme in our understanding of the contemporary world order”‘ (Connell 1993, 606). With breakdown of old empires, new postcolonialisms and neoliberal and postcolonial “globalizing masculinities” have developed (Connell 1998; Griffin 2005). Although usually couched in gender-neutral terms, such as “the global market”, these changes have implications for “transnational business masculinity” and “bourgeois-rational masculinity, with intensifying fi nancial and communications linkages (Youngs 2004, 86; see Youngs, Jones, and Pettman 1999). Contemporary globalizing masculinities also extend to cyberglobalizing masculinities. Notions of “globalizing masculinities”, or configurations of men’s transnationalizing individual and collective practices, are useful, but challenges remain, as the notion of “globalizing masculinities” may gloss over important variations and differences in form and degree, locally and regionally. While social analysis has been strongly nation based, with many analyses framed by methodological nationalism, there is growing concern with more precise specifications of men’s individual and collective practices within gendered globalizations or glocalizations. Debate on hegemony has also largely been framed in terms of a given society, yet there is now greater recognition of moves from a single society outlook toward transnational hegemonies and new hierarchies. Similarly, understandings of hegemony need to move away from the notion of fundamental outlook of a given “society’, nation, or the nation-state to the growing importance of the transnational. Recent applications of the concept of hegemony to men and masculinities have pointed to moves from a focus on “society” and nation toward transnationalizations and transnationality as an “extension of the social”. The focus in earlier work on patriarchy was largely on the national, societal, or cultural context, rather than on what lies between and beyond. Most formulations of patriarchy, like those of hegemony, have been characteristically based on domination within a particular society or nation (Hearn 2004a). The nation has often been represented as a powerful modern form

Introducing and Rethinking Transnational Men

13

of hegemony. Limiting patriarchy, like hegemony, to a particular society, nation, or “culture” is becoming increasingly problematic. In these moves, structured gender domination—patriarchy—shifts from being located in or limited to a national or societal context toward transnational contexts. To represent this shift, the concept of trans(national) patriarchies, or “transpatriarchies”, may usefully refer to the structural tendency and individualized propensity for men’s transnational gender domination. This is a way of talking about patriarchies, intersectionalities, and transnationalization at the same time, focusing on nondetermined structures, forces, and processes, not comprehensive unity or fi xity. “Transpatriarchies” comprise acutely contradictory processes, with multiple forms of difference, presence, and absence for men in power and men dispossessed through, for example, forced migration. This may, for example, include the interplay of men’s transnational privilege and transnational threat to (some aspects of being) men, or other parallel processes. Such ambiguities and contradictions, indeterminations, and lack of structures, are a way to capture new power formations. There are many ways in which transpatriarchies and transpatriarchal powers and processes develop and change through various forms of transnationalizations. These include processes of extensions of transnational patriarchal power, whether through new technologies or corporate concentrations. Such extensions can easily facilitate processes of transnational individual and collective nonresponsibility of men, whereby social problems created are held to be the business of others, be they women, other men, governments, or those other parts of the world. This disconnection is part of a long history of patriarchal imperialism and colonialism. New and changing forms of transpatriarchies operate partly very much in the flesh, partly virtually—creating new forms of extended power for certain groups of men. Interestingly, these changes also bring processes of loss of expected security and privilege for some men. This can be seen at least as partly a historical and partly a geographical set of processes, from the individual to the state to transnational institutions. At the same time, losses, or perceived losses, of power among certain men can interplay with processes of recouping of patriarchal power, including transnational imitative antifeminisms. More specifically, there are growing processes of surveillance and control, along with reciprocal, even symbiotic, processes of their disruption, through hacking or terrorism; processes of transnational movements and formation of transnational social, political, cultural spaces; and even processes of transnational impacts of emotions (Hearn 2008). Despite critiques, the concept of patriarchy persists, with historical shifts to transpatriarchies (Hearn 2009). They comprise new potentialities and hegemonies of men, persistent and contested. These can be intensely contradictory in their effects. Global transformations and regional restructurings are part of the changing configurations of the hegemony of men. Moves toward transpatriarchies are indicative of complex transnational

14

Jeff Hearn and Marina Blagojević

intersectionalities, including even problematizations of gender and patriarchies themselves as now understood. More specifically, transnational hegemony of men can be examined through MNEs, political organizations, and ICTs.

Managers and Multinationals A key example of the impact and power of transnationalization is the importance of managers in large transnational organizations for the formation and reproduction of gender orders and societies. However, transnationalizations are among the most contradictory of processes, with multiple forms of absence for both men in power and those dispossessed through, for example, forced migration. Multiple forms of transnationalizations problematize taken-for-granted national and organizational contexts, men, and gender relations, including theorizations of patriarchy, in many ways. MNEs, and their organization and management, are one of the takenfor-granted elements of transnational hegemony of men within transpatriarchies. MNEs operate within and are themselves transpatriarchies. MNEs are typically constructed as gender neutral, without gender—in everyday discourse, research, media, and political debate. Many and various gender issues within and between corporations—gendered management, hierarchies, authority, informal relations, processes—are left unanalyzed, as part of taken-for-granted hegemony of the supposedly “gender-neutral” MNE. There is immense scope for attention to such issues in gendering international business-to-business activity, alliances, partnerships, supply chains, fi nancial dependencies, and other intercorporate relations—formal or informal, and often involving men at the high levels. Yet, men, masculinities, and their social construction and social power are generally left unspoken; they are, in that sense, an “absent presence” (Hearn 1998), even with (perhaps because of) their dominance, especially at the highest levels. The “transnational capitalist class” (Sklair 2001; Carroll 2010) is in practice very much a male transnational capitalist class. The management of corporations, but also political organizations, at all levels from local to global, often involves homosocial practices. Management, especially what is understood as effective business management, has often been assumed to be consistent with characteristics valued in men. This is even so with historical transformations of management, from male near- monopoly, to dominant traditional forms, to modern or late modern gendered forms (Kerfoot and Knights 1993; Roper 1994; Collinson and Hearn 1996; McDowell 1997). In these situations there have been initial attempts to analyze “business masculinities” (Connell and Wood 2005) and “transnational business masculinity” (Connell 1998). With the globalization of business life and expansion of transnational organizations, the concept of “transnational business masculinity” describes a new form of masculinity among globally mobile managers. Connell (2000a, 52) sees this as marked by

Introducing and Rethinking Transnational Men

15

“increasing egocentrism, very conditional loyalties (even to the corporation), and a declining sense of responsibility for others (except for purposes of image-making).” It differs from “traditional bourgeois masculinity by its increasingly libertarian sexuality, with a growing tendency to commodify relations with women.” Studies focusing on senior managers, still overwhelmingly men, are necessary to understand how the hegemony of men is reproduced and changed globally. Importantly, this pattern, however, represents only one of several versions of senior managerial men’s practices; for example, some may appear to adopt more conventional marriage-type social relations and lifestyles (Reis 2004; Hearn et al. 2008). Studies focusing on senior managers, still overwhelmingly men, are necessary to understand how the hegemony of men is reproduced and changed globally. These “men of the world” are powerful individual corporate leaders in and of contemporary transpatriarchies.

Transnational Political Actors and Organizations In recent histories, through colonialism and imperialism, transnationalizations have had lasting political effects on the organization of gender and sexuality in many parts of the world. Indeed it is quite hard to fi nd a region immune from these politics. Significant aspects of the current transnational gender dynamics are both continuous with and discontinuous from earlier forms of transnational colonialism and imperialism. This includes the impact of patriarchal Orientalism, the placing of the “civilized” on the “uncivilized”, where the masculinity of the “uncivilized” is constructed as inferior and incapable of protecting “their” women and children. Within past and present frames, ways of being men, often predatory on women, have been (re)produced within hegemonic formations that reference those histories. In this context it is a challenge to specify exactly in what ways men managers are different from men politicians. Even with the impact of MNEs in many world regions, politicians are key to transnational developments and represent a political class and political agents that have power to change gender relations. This may be sometimes due to societal “transition”; so it not really functioning as an advanced capitalist society. Transnationalizations are also taking place on regional and global levels, often involving many nations in one region, or even continent, as with the UN, IMF, the EU, and regional supranational organizations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. There are two relevant aspects of this when it comes to men and masculinities. Firstly, that processes of global regionalization may further strengthen cultural differences, but on a larger scale, and this may even contribute to gender inequalities. On the other hand, some regional political bodies, following UN and EU gender policies, might even intentionally speed up the process of transformation of gender relations, men, and masculinities. Global regional differences, as are very visible in global transnational migrations, work towards creating new racial/ethnic categories, as with Eastern

16

Jeff Hearn and Marina Blagojević

European immigration to Western Europe. It is this regional element, and hierarchizing of nations created with EU integration processes, that creates, from “above”, from the realm of transnational, new patriarchal hierarchies and new ethnic and racial intersectionalities within nations. An interesting case of national/transnational connections and the possible global consequences could be “read” from Obama’s speech when receiving the Nobel Prize. He actually gave a speech as a “[US] American” to the “[US] American nation” on the occasion of this major transnational event. He reaffi rmed the US American and NATO right to have “just wars”, justifying the NATO bombing of Serbia, but most importantly, he used his “local” (meaning US American) position to claim the right to shape the transnational realm. At the same time, the values and general direction of change he talked about were said to lead to global justice and peace. This is an interesting example of how the values that are largely seen as transnational values are appropriated by a national leader (claiming the US’s special role in the world), to be reinserted eventually into the transnational realm with transformative power. In other words, small nations simply need to be “led” to a “better world” or they will be doomed to isolation (the best case) or attack and bombing (the worst case). Transnationalization, in this case, has appropriated the history of humanism and the Enlightenment, while meanwhile reaffirming pure force. Simultaneously, global hegemony has two sides. One is the intention to globalize national (in this case, the USA) interests; the other is how much of that intention actually works on the ground. There is much evidence of resistance all over the world. A second example is male criminals operating in transnational criminal networks as a group of men who use “transnational capital” (money, know-how, power, and so on) to transform local societies. A very good illustration here is the ex–prime minister of Montenegro, Djukanovic, who, it is reported, accumulated transnational capital during the Balkan wars through different criminal activities, and now, due to that advantage, has almost unlimited power to influence local society. Throughout western Balkan societies, links between transnational criminal networks, secret police, wars (even war crimes), and local politicians, which all mainly involve men, are extremely important. Transnational processes in such cases appear almost as a precondition for power positions in local societies. It is also interesting how this connects to issues of identity, since resources obtained through transnational criminal groups often serve to reinforce national identities, protectionism, and isolationism. Transnational resources can thus be used as investments into national identities.

Virtualization and ICTs Another aspect of transnationalization is virtualization. Theoretically and methodologically, it is important to keep materiality and virtuality simultaneously in focus: the virtual is also material. ICTs are not just texts, but

Introducing and Rethinking Transnational Men

17

exist within and create material social relations; they are not disembodied technologies, but operate in and structure local social practices. Although many processes of transnationalization are “blurred” and “blurring”, this twofold approach enables demystification of the concept of virtualization and its sometimes presupposed “neutrality”. Yet the concept itself still often carries a bias of positivity. Virtualization is both as a developing and changing form of transpatriarchies and itself can seen as occurring within the contexts of transpatriarchal relations. Virtualization processes present sites for contestations of hegemony in terms of bodily presence/absence of men. ICTs have effects on men’s, and women’s, gendering, sexualities, and sexual violences, as men act as producers and consumers of virtuality (Hearn 2006). More controversially, virtuality can be understood as a social division or intersection. Just as class or ethnicity are not “things” but are social relations, so too is virtuality a social relation, between embodiment both in situ and in representation. Virtuality is a form of sociality, as is ethnicity or gender. Bodily absence, or apparent absence, in virtuality, although not historically new, is part of contemporary formations and transformations of the social. Virtuality makes some women and men dispensable, yet creates potential for extensions and reinforcements of men’s power. It offers potentials for reformulations of social space and public domains, with positive, negative, and contradictory effects. ICTs offer possibilities of more open, democratic, diverse networking and community building of dissident gender and sexual communities. At the same time, ICTs can be a means of oppressing others directly and virtually and reinforcing existing gender relations. They have been hugely successful in the historical promotion of global sex trade, pornography, trafficking, and sexual exploitation (Hearn and Parkin 2001), bringing new forms of virtual and nonvirtual neocolonial exploitations (Jeffreys 2008). ICTs are a key aspect of global change. Rapid growth in ICTs changes social structures and processes, and, like MNEs, they are difficult to control. ICTs are a key taken-for-granted element of transnational hegemony of men within transpatriarchies. They facilitate modes of organizing, both on a corporate level and more generally, that highlight transformations of boundaries in nations, locales, and subjectivities. They are ever changing, becoming cheaper and more widespread, if still beyond the reach of many, with access very much affected by intersections of inter alia gender, class, age, and nation.

Transnational Spaces The subject of this book is not just men and transnationalization, but also men in different transnational spaces (physical, social, virtual). This raises the question of the connections between men, transnationalization, and social stratification, empirically and theoretically. National space and transnational space have different effects and implications for power,

18 Jeff Hearn and Marina Blagojević prestige, money, and wealth. Different social groups of men are moving between national to transnational and back, and they are more or less situated in those two realms, with very different consequences for their power, prestige, and money. For elite men, transnationalization has often brought more power at the national level, and contributed to blurring of their responsibilities, accountabilities, and sources of wealth and power. Much may be gained from seeking to delineate these two realms in more precise analytical terms, showing how the locations and movements actually do not reduce social stratification, but rather impact in many concrete ways. This is even though these two realms and their boundaries are likely to be blurred, co-constituting, and shifting in nature in specific empirical settings. This involves attention to the materiality of physical being and security in national or transnational spaces, material resources, actual and potential movement (desired or forced), as well as access to and use of virtual communication. Some men are fi xed in a national/local space; others are forced into transnational space. Some men seek out transnational “freedom”; some construct national space through transnational endeavor. Thus, these connections are not only about “blurring” between the two realms. They also involve the very “materiality” of the lives of such different groups of men, and thus women and children. For example, men’s military power is very much material, connecting local and global hierarchies and different gendered actors. Here, transnationalization easily links with territoriality, and thus intersectionality, where territoriality can be seen as one dimension of intersectionality. This raises questions of congruency, or not, between local and transnational gender hierarchies. We now take just one more example of these processes: that of leading global or regional sportsmen. By qualifying in local hierarchies, they gain the possibility of moving into the transnational star system, rather similar to women models. Such a process is not so clearly seen in other occupations that are often restricted to more local hierarchies. The possibility to move to transnational levels is often connected to much higher rewards, which in turn often influence local societies by destroying their meritocratic and hierarchical systems. This may remind one of processes in colonialism and may also explain the deep ambivalence of local societies, for example, on the semiperiphery, toward transnationalization. Overall, the changing character of gendered intersectional transnationalizations and transnational patriarchies involves historical transformations across many features. These include transformations of relations of time(s), space(s), and place(s); transnations, transnational organizations, transcultures; social divisions; transdisciplinarity and transknowledges; the transpersonal, transsubjective, transexperiential; and the social and the nonsocial. These together may constitute aspects of what may be called transsocieties. Thus this book aims to open up discussion on and

Introducing and Rethinking Transnational Men

19

argumentation for further urgent studies and actions needed in relation to men and transnational patriarchies in business, sex trade, information and communication technologies, militarism, migration, and politics.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK Following this introductory chapter, the book is organized in three main parts—rethinking transnational men beyond the nation, between nations, and within nations. Each part begins with a brief editorial introduction. The fi rst part focuses on transnational men beyond the nation and engages closely with concerns often considered under the broad rubric of “globalization”. It begins with Chris Beasley’s “Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in a Transnational Context”. This places debates on hegemonic masculinity in the context of globalization, global politics, and the emerging world gender order, including the impact of neoliberalism. The next three chapters examine specific fields in more detail. First, Raewyn Connell considers the construction of masculinities in the transnational security industry. A distinctive configuration of hegemonic masculinity is considered, along with related masculinities within this uneven gender regime. In Chapter 4, “The ‘Agency’ of Men: Male Buyers in the Global Sex Industry”, Sheila Jeff reys argues that Western men’s behavior as buyers in the global sex industry is fueled by their resentment at change in relations between the sexes. Next, David Bell explores the transnationalization of the male geek, as an embodiment of “techno-masculinity”, focusing on global flows of geeks and geek images, along with their localized translations. Part I concludes with Jeff Hearn, Alp Biricik, Helga Sadowski, and Katherine Harrison’s analysis of the hegemony of men, in relation to transnationalization, ICTs, and virtualization. The concept of “transpatriarchies” is used as a frame, with (cyber)sexuality the main exemplar. Part II rethinks transnational men between nations. First, Winifred Poster’s chapter on the “Subversions of Techno-Masculinity: Indian ICT Professionals in the Global Economy” presents a multilevel analysis of techno-masculinity in the global economy. This is applied to India–USA relations, particularly challenges posed by Indian professionals to US ICT hegemony. The next two chapters in this part address migrant men and the migration experience. First, Richard Howson deconstructs the hegemony of men and masculinities in transnational contexts linking theoretical analysis of critical studies on men and post-Marxism, men migrants to Australia, and policy implications in relation to men, masculinity, and transnationalization. Chapter 9 by Fataneh Farahani analyzes the cultural and racial politics of representation, via diasporic masculinities among Iranian men in Sydney, Stockholm, and London. She examines the effects of Iranian Islamic culture and migration or displacement on men’s practices

20 Jeff Hearn and Marina Blagojević of masculinity and sexuality. In the fi nal chapter of this part, Marina Blagojević examines the concept of the semiperiphery, with reference to Balkan men and masculinities. This brings together transnational change beyond and between nations, including movements, or their absence, along with local and national implications. The final part addresses rethinking transnational men at the national and local levels, that is, within nations, by way of the impact of transnational processes on constructions of nationalism and the nation-state. This part also begins with a USA-based contribution, in this case addressing the transnational site of militarism and war. In this, James Messerschmidt investigates regional and global hegemonic masculinities, through analysis of the speeches of the former US president George W. Bush in relation to the US-led invasion of Iraq on 19 March 2003. The following chapter by Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu examines reconfigurations of nationalism and transnationalization in the Turkish nation-state. It relates transnational processes to how gendered power structures operate in national contexts, through a case study of the assassination of a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor, Hrant Dink, in 2007. The final chapter by Tetyana Bureychak investigates how studies of masculinity can illuminate transnational processes of symbolic construction of national belonging intersecting with gender and other ideologies, using imagery of Cossacks in Ukraine and Vikings in Sweden. As a fi nal word of introduction, it is important to acknowledge the differences between the contributors in this volume. This is obvious in terms of geographical spread, but it also extends in many other directions, for example, to disciplinary framing, political analysis, and writing style and format. Moreover, for this project on transnationality, it is essential to distinguish what the center perceives to be “global” and what is experienced as “global” outside the center. As long as the center(s) is very self-referential, it will not capture the real transnationality that emerges on and across the borders of semiperiphery and periphery. Instead, we argue for all kinds of “impurities”, theoretical, discursive, and linguistic: they may create possibilities for innovations from “spaces in between”.

NOTE 1. The leader of the fi rst GEXcel theme on Gender, Sexuality and Global Change (http://www.genderexcel.org/?q=node/96; also see Jónasdóttir, Bryson, and Jones 2010).

REFERENCES Aboim, Sofia. 2010. Plural Masculinities. London: Routledge. Alasuutari, Pertti. 2000. “Globalization and the Nation-State: An Appraisal of the Discussion.” Acta Sociologica 43 (3): 259–69.

Introducing and Rethinking Transnational Men

21

Appadurai, Arjun. 1995. “The Production of Locality.” In Counterworks: Managing the Diversity of Knowledge, edited by Richard Fardon, 204–25. London: Routledge. . 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Awkward, Michael. 2002. “Black Male Trouble: The Challenges of Rethinking Masculine Difference.” In Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory, edited by Judith Kegan Gardiner, 290–304. New York: Columbia University Press. Beck, Ulrich. 2000. What Is Globalization? Polity: Cambridge. Beck, Ulrich, and Natan Sznaider. 2006. “Unpacking Cosmopolitanism for the Social Sciences: A Research Agenda.” British Journal of Sociology 57 (1): 1–23. Bocock, Robert. 1986. Hegemony. London: Tavistock. Burawoy, Michael, Joseph A. Blum, Sheba George, Zsuzsa Gille, Teresa Gowan, Lynne Haney, Maren Klawiter, Steven H. Lopez, Seán Ó Riain, and Millie Thayer. 2000. Global Ethnography: Forces, Connections and Imaginations in a Postmodern World. Berkeley: University of California Press. Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge. Carrigan, Tim, R. W. Connell, and John Lee. 1985. “Toward a New Sociology of Masculinity.” Theory and Society 14 (5): 551–604. Carroll, William K. 2010. The Making of a Transnational Capitalist Class, Corporate Power in the 21st Century. London: Zed. Chernilo, Daniel. 2006. “Social Theory’s Methodological Nationalism: Myth and Reality.” European Journal of Social Theory 9 (1): 5–22. Cleaver, Frances, ed. 2003. Masculinities Matter! Men, Gender and Development. Houndmills: Macmillan. Cockburn, Cynthia K. 1998. The Space between Us: Negotiating Gender and National Identities in Conflict. London: Zed. Cockburn, Cynthia K., and Lynette Hunter, eds. 1999. Soundings 12 Transversal Politics. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Collinson, David L., and Jeff Hearn. 1994. “Naming Men as Men: Implications for Work, Organizations and Management.” Gender, Work and Organization 1 (1): 2–22. , eds. 1996. Men as Managers, Managers as Men: Critical Perspectives on Men, Masculinities and Managements. London: Sage. Connell, R. W. 1983. “Men’s Bodies.” In Which Way Is Up?, by R. W. Connell, 17–32. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. . 1993. “The Big Picture: Masculinities in Recent World History.” Theory and Society 22 (5): 597–623. . 1995. Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity. . 1998. “Masculinities and Globalization.” Men and Masculinities 1:3–23. . 2000a. The Men and the Boys. Cambridge: Polity. . 2000b. “Understanding Men: Gender Sociology and the New International Research on Masculinities.” Clark Lecture, University of Kansas, 19 September. http://www.engagingmen.net/fi les/resources/2010/Caroline/Understanding_Men__Gender_Sociology_and_the_New_International_Research_ on_Masculinities.pdf [See “Resources”] Connell, R. W., and James W. Messerschmidt. 2005. “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept.” Gender & Society 19 (6): 829–59. Connell, R. W., and Julian Wood. 2005. “Globalization and Business Masculinities.” Men and Masculinities 7 (4): 347–64. Cornwall, Andrea, and Nancy Lindisfarne, eds. 1994. Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies. London: Routledge.

22

Jeff Hearn and Marina Blagojević

Cornwall, Andrea, Jerker Edström, and Alan Greig, eds. 2011. Men and Development: Politicising Masculinities. London: Zed. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1989. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum 139–67. . 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43 (6): 1241–99. Davis, Angela. 1981. Women, Race & Class. New York: Vintage. Demetriou, Demetrakis Z. 2001. “Connell’s Concept of Hegemonic Masculinity: A Critique.” Theory and Society 30 (3): 337–61. Desai, Manisha. 2006. “From Autonomy to Solidarities: Transnational Feminist Political Strategies.” In Handbook on Gender and Women’s Studies, edited by Kathy Davis, Mary S. Evans, and Judith Lorber, 457–68. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Donaldson, Mike. 1993. “What Is Hegemonic Masculinity?” Theory and Society 22 (5): 643–57. Edwards, Paul, and Tom Elger, eds. 1999. The Global Economy, National States, and the Regulation of Labour. London: Mansell. Esplen, Emily, and Alan Greig. 2008. Politicising Masculinities: Beyond the Personal. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. Flood, Michael, Judith Kegan Gardiner, Bob Pease, and Keith Pringle, eds. 2007. International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities. London: Routledge. Gibson-Graham, J. K. 1999. The End of Capitalism (as We Knew It). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Gonzalez, Ana, and Victor Seidler, eds. 2008. Gender Identities in a Globalized World. Amherst, NY: Humanity. Grewal, Inderpal, and Caren Kaplan, eds. 1994. Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Griffi n, Penny. 2005. Neoliberal Economic Discourses and Hegemonic Masculinity(ies): Masculine Hegemony (Dis)Embodied. IPEG Papers in Global Political Economy No. 19. http://bisa-ipeg.org/papers/19PennyGriffin.pdf. Halberstam, Judith. 1998. Female Masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hanmer, Jalna. 1990. “Men, Power and the Exploitation of Women.” In Men, Masculinities and Social Theory, edited by Jeff Hearn and David Morgan, 21–42. London: Unwin Hyman/Routledge. Hannerz, Ulf. 1992. “The Global Ecumene as a Network of Networks.” In Conceptualizing Society, edited by Adam Kuper, 34–56. London: Routledge. . 1996. Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places. London: Routledge. Hearn, Jeff. 1996. “Deconstructing the Dominant: Making the One(s) the Other(s).” Organization: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Organization, Theory and Society 3 (4): 611–26. . 1997. “The Implications of Critical Studies on Men.” NORA. Nordic Journal of Women’s Studies 5 (1): 48–60. . 1998. “Theorizing Men and Men’s Theorizing: Men’s Discursive Practices in Theorizing Men.” Theory and Society 27 (6): 781–816. . 2004a. “From Hegemonic Masculinity to the Hegemony of Men.” Feminist Theory 5 (1): 49–72. . 2004b. “Tracking ‘the Transnational’: Studying Transnational Organizations and Managements, and the Management of Cohesion.” Culture and Organization 10 (4): 273–90. . 2006. “The Implications of Information and Communication Technologies for Sexualities and Sexualized Violences: Contradictions of Sexual Citizenships.” Political Geography 25 (8): 944–63.

Introducing and Rethinking Transnational Men

23

. 2008. “How about Transpatriarchies?,” In Gender and the Interests of Love, edited by Kathleen Jones and Gunnel Karlsson, 197–222. Örebro: Örebro University Press. . 2009. “Patriarchies, Transpatriarchies and Intersectionalities.” In Intimate Citizenships: Gender, Sexualities, Politics, edited by Elzbieta Oleksy, 177–92. London: Routledge. Hearn, Jeff, and David L. Collinson. 2006. “Men, Masculinities and Workplace Diversity/diversion: Power, Intersections and Contradictions.” In Handbook of Workplace Diversity, edited by Alison Konrad, Pushkala Prasad, and Judith Pringle, 299–322. London: Sage. Hearn, Jeff, Marjut Jyrkinen, Rebecca Piekkari, and Eeva Oinonen. 2008. “Women Home and Away: Transnational Managerial Work and Gender Relations.” Journal of Business Ethics 83 (1): 41–54. Hearn, Jeff, and Wendy Parkin. 1993. “Organizations, Multiple Oppressions and Postmodernism.” In Postmodernism and Organizations, edited by John Hassard and Martin Parker, 148–62. London: Sage. . 2001. Gender, Sexuality and Violence in Organizations: The Unspoken Forces of Organization Violations. London: Sage. hooks, bell. 1984. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Hooper, Charlotte. 2001. Manly States: Masculinities, International Relations, and Gender Politics. New York: Columbia University Press. Howson, Richard. 2006. Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity. London: Routledge. Jeff reys, Sheila. 2008. The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Sex Trade. London: Routledge. Jónasdóttir, Anna G. 2008. “Gender, Sexuality and Global change.” In GEXcel Work in Progress Report Volume II: Proceedings from GEXcel Theme 1: Gender, Sexuality and Global Change Fall 2007, edited by Lena Gunnarsson, Anna G. Jónasdóttir, and Gunnel Karlsson, 13–22. Linköping: Institute for Thematic Gender Studies, Linköping and Örebro Universities. Jónasdóttir, Anna, Valerie Bryson and Kathleen Jones, eds. 2010. Sexuality, Gender and Power: Intersectional and Transnational Perspectives. New York: Routledge. Jones, Adam, ed. 2006. Men of the Global South. London: Zed. Kerfoot, Deborah, and David Knights. 1993. “Management Masculinity and Manipulation: From Paternalism to Corporate Strategy in Financial Services in Britain.” Journal of Management Studies 30:659–79. Kimmel, Michael, Jeff Hearn, and R. W. Connell, eds. 2005. The Handbook of Studies of Men and Masculinities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kimmel, Michael, and Mike Messner, eds. 1989/2009. Men’s Lives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kite, Cindy. 2004. “The Stability of the Globalized Welfare State.” In Globalization and the Welfare State, edited by Bo Södersten, 213–38. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Larsen, Jørgen Elm, and Ann-Dorte Christensen. 2008. “Gender, Class, and Family: Men and Gender Equality in a Danish Context.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society 15 (1): 53–78. McCall, Leslie. 2005. “The Complexity of Intersectionality.” Signs 30:1771–1800. McDowell, Linda. 1997. Capital Culture. Oxford: Blackwell. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2003. Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Morrell, Robert, and Sandra Swart. 2005. “Men in the Third World: Postcolonial Perspectives on Masculinity.” In Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities,

24

Jeff Hearn and Marina Blagojević

edited by Michael Kimmel, Jeff Hearn, and R. W. Connell, 90–113. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Novikova, Irina, ed. 2008. Gender Matters in the Baltics. Riga: University of Latvia. Novikova, Irina, and Dimitar Kambourov, eds. 2003. Men and Masculinities in the Global World: Integrating Postsocialist Perspectives. Helsinki: Kikimora Publishers, Aleksantteri Institute. O’Brien, Mary. 1984. “The Commatisation of Women: Patriarchal Fetishism in the Sociology of Education.” Interchange 15 (2): 43–59. Ong, Aihwa. 1999. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ouzgane, Lahoucine, and Daniel Coleman. 1998. “Postcolonial Masculinities: Introduction.” Jouvert: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies 2 (1). http://english. chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v2i1/INT21.HTM Parpart, Jane L., and Marysia Zalewski, eds. 2008. Rethinking the Man Question: Sex, Gender and Violence in International Relations. London: Zed. Pease, Bob, and Keith Pringle, eds. 2002. A Man’s World: Changing Men’s Practices in a Globalized World. London: Zed. Petras, James, and Henry Veltmeyer. 2001. Globalization Unmasked: Imperialism in the 21st Century. London: Zed. Reis, Christina. 2004. The Private and Public Lives of Men Managers in a European Transnational Company. Mering: Rainer Humpp Verlag. Roper, Michael R. 1994. Masculinity and the British Organization Man since 1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rugman, Alan. 2000. The End of Globalization. London: Random House. Ruspini, Elisabetta, Jeff Hearn, Bob Pease, and Keith Pringle, eds. 2011. Men and Masculinities around the World: Transforming Men’s Practices. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Shepherd, Laura. 2008. Gender, Violence and Security: Discourse as Practice. London: Zed. Sklair, Leslie. 2001. The Transnational Capitalist Class. Oxford: Blackwell. Waddington, Jeremy, ed. 1999. Globalization and Patterns of Labour Resistance. London: Mansell. Wetherell, Margaret, and Nigel Edley. 1999. “Negotiating Hegemonic Masculinity: Imaginary Positions and Psycho-Discursive Practices.” Feminism and Psychology 9 (3): 335–56. Whitehead, Stephen. 1999. “Hegemonic Masculinity Revisited.” Gender, Work and Organization 6 (1): 58–62. . 2002. Men and Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity. Youngs, Gillian. 2004. “Feminist International Relations: A Contradiction in Terms? Or: Why Women and Gender Are Essential to Understanding the World ‘We’ Live In.” International Affairs 80 (1): 75–87. Youngs, Gillian, Kathleen B. Jones, and Jan Jindy Pettman. 1999. “New Spaces, New Politics: International Feminist Directions.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 1(1): 1–13. Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1997. Gender and Nation. London: Sage. . 2012. The Politics of Belonging. London: Sage. Zalewski, Marysia, and Jane Palpart, eds. 1998. The “Man” Question in International Relations. Oxford: Westview Press.

Part I

Rethinking Transnational Men beyond the Nation

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction to Part I Jeff Hearn

This fi rst part of the book is concerned with transnational men beyond the nation. The focus of this part is concerns that are often discussed in terms of the gloss “globalization”. These five chapters build on current debates around globalizing men and masculinities and the impact of globalization on men and masculinities. However, they also raise more specific questions on men and transnationalization, in terms of both particular sectors and social changes. The men addressed here are at the uncertain intersections of the national and the transnational, in its various guises, and thus concern processes that may transcend nations. The opening chapter, “Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in Transnational Context”, by Chris Beasley, places debates on hegemonic masculinity in the context of globalization. This landmark intervention by Beasley places debates on masculinity and hegemonic masculinity in the context of globalization and global politics. Within the emerging world gender order, this includes the impact of neoliberalism on the economy, politics, and other institutional realms. In this, a global understanding of masculinities is essential; indeed in a globalizing world, local analyses of masculinities are not sufficient. Rather, a grasp of large-scale social processes and global relationships is necessary to understand men and masculinities on a world scale. Specifically, Beasley discusses how the concept of hegemonic masculinity offers useful directions for situating the analysis of gender and masculinities in a globalizing world. The next three chapters examine three different and distinct transnational fields: the security industry (Connell), the global sex industry (Jeffreys), and cyberculture (Bell). In the fi rst of these focused chapters, Raewyn Connell considers the construction of masculinities in the transnational security industry. Using case study interviews with managers, the uneven gender regime in this field is examined, including confl ictual relations with the interests of wives. A distinctive configuration of hegemonic masculinity is considered, along with a range of specific related masculinities. In Chapter 4 Sheila Jeffreys examines “The ‘Agency’ of Men: Male Buyers in the Global Sex Industry”. The behavior of the men who take part in this profoundly transnational field by buying women and their bodies

28 Jeff Hearn is, she argues, fueled by their resentment at change in relations between the sexes. This follows women in the West achieving more opportunities in recent years, which has led to problems for the men they live and work with—in effect, an “outsourcing” of women’s subordination. This transnational activity of men can thus be seen as a reaction to disruptions of men’s more local power and privilege. The following chapter in this part by David Bell considers techno-masculinities in cybercultures. The central figure here is that of the male geek as an embodiment of “techno-masculinity”. The chapter explores an emerging popular culture of geekdom, both online and off-line. Such representations suggest a reflexive geekdom in which the contradictions of geek masculinity are playfully explored, but at the same time in which hegemonic masculinity is reinscribed. The chapter thus explores the transnationalization of the geek, focusing on global flows of geeks and geek images, along with their localized translations. Part I concludes with the chapter by Jeff Hearn, Alp Biricik, Helga Sadowski, and Katherine Harrison, which continues the critical examination of hegemony, the hegemony of men, in relation to transnationalization and virtualization, in particular through the operation of information and communication technologies in relation to sexualities. The chapter uses the concept of “transpatriarchies” to speak of the structural tendency and individualized propensity for men’s gender domination globally. Virtualization processes present sites both for elaboration of men’s domination and (re) production of gender orders, and for contestations of hegemony in terms of bodily presence/absence of men, as exemplified in changing sexual forms and practices.

2

Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in Transnational Context Chris Beasley

INTRODUCTION Masculinity studies writers can be credited with bringing to attention not just how gender is part and parcel of social life and social organization, but in addition how masculinity in particular is implicated in all aspects of sociality (Kimmel 2006). As Michael Kimmel points out, masculinity is almost invariably invisible in shaping social relations, its ever-present specificity and significance shrouded in its constitution as the universal, the axiomatic, the neutral. Masculinity, he notes, assumes the banality of the unstated norm—not requiring comment, let alone explanation. Its invisibility bespeaks its privilege (Kimmel 1997; Gardiner 2005). “One of the principal ingredients of men’s power and privilege” then becomes men’s indiscernible status as men (McKay, Mikosza, and Hutchins 2005, 270): the very processes that confer privilege to one group and not to another are often invisible to those upon whom that privilege is conferred . . . men have come to think of themselves as genderless, in part because they can afford the luxury of ignoring the centrality of gender . . . And the invisibility of gender to those privileged by it reproduces the inequalities that are circumscribed by gender. (Kimmel 1993, 30; see also Kimmel 2003, xi) Thus rendering gender and masculinity visible offers a challenge to existing power relations and their continuing reiteration. In similar fashion, masculinity studies writers—such as Kimmel and Connell—have drawn attention to how globalization and transnational politics are not gender-free and largely privilege forms of masculinity in an emerging world gender order. While “most theories of globalization have little or nothing to say about gender” (Connell 1995/2005, xxi), masculinity studies writers make visible the gendered character, for example, of the rhetorically gender-neutral neoliberal market agenda in transnational politics, diplomacy, institutions, and economics (ibid., 254–55). However, as Connell points out, existing analyses of masculinities in many regions and countries cannot be simply be added together to produce a “global understanding of masculinities”. In an ever more connected world, local analyses are no longer sufficient. Rather,

30

Chris Beasley

a grasp of large-scale social processes, of transnational relationships, is necessary to understand “masculinities on a world scale” (ibid., xx–xi). In this setting I sometimes draw on Connell’s employment of the term global, while also often referring to the usage of the term transnational by Connell and Hearn, among others. My aim is to capture both Connell’s analysis of globalization and associated specific elements of global cohesiveness, which suggests certain limits on national sovereignty, and Hearn’s theorization of transnational relations, which enables attention to movements across or between nations, as well as to changing relations between them, in ways that may simultaneously affirm and problematize national boundaries (Hearn 2004b, 277–78; 2011, 102–3). Yet the complexity of these terminological perspectives is not matched by a well-developed body of work that links them to gender and masculinities. As Connell, Hearn, and Kimmel (2005, 9) have noted, masculinity studies writings on global and transnational matters are as yet in their infancy. Despite the critical importance of this work, “there are still only a handful of studies of masculinity formation in transnational arenas” (Connell 1995/2005, xxiv). Similarly, in the introduction to the Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, Connell, Hearn, and Kimmel state that research in this field on a world scale is very uneven and “still mainly a First World enterprise” (2005, 9). All the same, precisely because the investigation of gender and masculinities in transnational politics is indeed of great significance, I suggest that perhaps this is the moment to pause and look sympathetically but somewhat more closely at the theoretical and terminological tools developed by masculinity studies writers. I am encouraged in this endeavor by Connell’s own view that it is timely to reassess these tools (Connell 1995/2005, xviii; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 829–30). In particular I suggest that by focusing on the term hegemonic masculinity—which is almost ubiquitously used in analyses of masculinities in both local and transnational contexts—I can offer some useful directions for situating the as yet relatively undeveloped analysis of gender and masculinities in the latter setting. In concert with William Connolly, I consider that analysis of conceptual tools is a means to clarifying the political implications of different perspectives. Connolly goes so far as to say in The Terms of Political Discourse that, “conceptual disputes . . . are surface manifestations of basic theoretical differences that reach to the core” (1974/1983, 21).1 I do not presume that my discussion of the term hegemonic masculinity reveals incommensurable divisions between perspectives, but Connolly’s point does signal that examination of this conceptual term is no mere abstract exercise. As Lakoff and Johnson put it: the concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of the intellect. They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people. (1980, 3)

Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in Transnational Context

31

In other words, this chapter presumes a role for theory in political praxis and regards concepts as political interventions (see Beasley and Bacchi 2007). In keeping with this view, close examination of the term hegemonic masculinity provides a contribution to both theoretical and political dialogue.

EXISTING PROBLEMS IN THE TERM HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY Jeff Hearn (2004a) has drawn attention to Connell’s early development and ongoing usage of the term hegemonic masculinity—a term that is now virtually omnipresent in masculinity studies literature (Connell 1979/1983; Beasley 2005, 192), as well as being very widely employed in feminist, sexuality, and international studies writings. Because this terminology has unparalleled usage and occupies a uniquely privileged positioning in the study of men and masculinities within local gender orders, it is clearly a crucial term for situating masculinities per se. In addition, it is viewed by Connell and the vast majority of masculinity studies writers as framing analysis of masculinities in a transnational context. The term hegemonic masculinity is most importantly a means to recognizing that “all masculinities are not created equal” (Kimmel 1997) and invokes a framing that draws attention to the diversity within masculinities, to multiple masculinities. Masculinity in this reading is not all of a piece, nor is it simply about power externalized. It is not only about men’s power in relation to women. Rather masculinity is de-massified as masculinities and these are not equal. Hegemonic masculinity holds an authoritative positioning over other masculinities and will “dominate other types in any particular historical and social context” (van Kriekan, Smith, and Holborn 2000, 413). However, at this point, as a number of writers within masculinity studies have indicated, the term becomes more slippery. Michael Flood (2002) has noted, for example, that Connell’s own usage of the term slides between several meanings. In short, I suggest that these may be summarized as a slippage between its meaning as a political mechanism tied to the word hegemony—referring to cultural/moral leadership to ensure popular or mass consent to particular forms of rule—to its meaning as a descriptive word referring to dominant (most powerful and/or most widespread) versions of manhood, 2 and fi nally to its meaning as an empirical reference specifically to actual groups of men.3 This slippage produces certain problems. Firstly, as Flood (2002) notes, it is politically deterministic and defeatist to assume that the most dominant (in the sense either of most powerful or most widespread) ideals/forms of masculinity are necessarily the same as those that work to guarantee men’s authority over women. Dominant forms of masculinity, for example, may not always, at all times, legitimate men’s power, and those that do legitimate it may not always be socially celebrated or common. Connell has acknowledged this slide in her writings between the meaning of hegemonic

32

Chris Beasley

masculinity as legitimating strategy and as merely dominant. Relatedly, she has cautioned that hegemonic masculinity may in fact describe the position of a minority of men or may only loosely correspond to the lives of actual men (Connell 2000, 30; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 838, 846; Beasley 2005, 229; Martin 1998, 473), and has specifically noted that she does intend the term to be defi ned by its political strategic function in legitimating patriarchy (Connell 1998, 476). Nevertheless, the problem of a slide toward a usage that refers to socially dominant types of men recurs in her work. In her recent clarification of the concept of hegemonic masculinity published in December 2005, Connell— in concert with coauthor Messerschmidt—uses the term socially dominant masculinities as an equivalent, and later refers to economically “privileged” men as “bearers” of hegemonic masculinity. The inclination toward the merely dominant is evidently deeply implicated in the term, since Connell and Messerschmidt state that “certain masculinities are more socially central, or more associated with authority and social power than others” (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 846; my emphasis). The slide also reappears in her work on the transnational context, as I will discuss shortly. This raises a second issue. The understanding of hegemonic as simply socially dominant opens up a further slippage in which hegemonic is often understood even more fixedly as actual particular groups of men. As Flood (2002) points out, actual men may or may not conform to cultural ideals concerning masculinity, even when these are associated with power or are pervasive. Such a focus on actually existing groups of men generates a third related problem concerning the association of hegemonic masculinity with types of men in the sense of actual men exhibiting a list of specific characteristics. The social malleability of hegemonic practice is lost in equating gendered power with assumed fi xed personality types, as Connell is well aware. Yet this is a common inclination in many masculinity studies writings (Plummer 2005; Kimmel 2005a, 2005b; Cheng 1999; Hofstede 1984). As Kenneth Clatterbaugh (1998, 33) argues, such models prohibit asking which traits might be crucial to masculinity (and hence to hegemonic masculinity) and which are incidental. Usage of the term to refer to dominant actual men and their characteristics is certainly understandable pedagogically and in the context of political activism, in that it gives gendered power a human face, a visceral reality, and makes the term more accessible and less abstract. Moreover, the cascading slide from hegemonic masculinity as the mechanism of patriarchal legitimization toward socially dominant (powerful and/or widespread) types of men, toward actual men, and fi nally toward a cluster list of generalized personality traits, is not a question merely of sloppy usage, theoretical confusion, or theoretical underdevelopment. In all fairness, it must be said that these are not entirely discrete definitional entities. All the same, the slide to dominant types of men/actual men—even if understandable and related to an attempt to give embodied materiality to

Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in Transnational Context

33

the political mechanism of a legitimating cultural ideal—has problematic consequences. For example, to put Connell’s conception of hegemonic masculinity as political mechanism to work, it is important to be able to disentangle hegemonic from merely dominant types/dominant actual men and their associated personality traits. It is important to be able to perceive that a senior manager in the major accounting fi rm KPMG Australia and his mates may represent a dominant masculinity in that he wields a widely accepted institutional power and may even perhaps have particular personality traits associated with that dominance,4 but may not necessarily be the politically legitimating cultural ideal invoked by the term hegemonic masculinity. Accountants—even those with considerable authority—are scarcely deemed the mobilizing model of manliness to which all men should aspire. They may exercise power, but they are not able to legitimate it. As Connell herself notes, many men who hold significant social power do not embody hegemonic masculinity (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 838). By the same token, but in reverse, while actual working-class men may not wield institutional power, muscular working-class manhood is commonly employed as a highly significant mobilizing cultural ideal intended to invoke cross-class recognition and solidarity regarding what counts as a man. I have noted elsewhere (Beasley 2008) that in Australia an idealized working-class-inflected blokehood—which is at a considerable distance from actual working-class men—holds sway as a representation of proper, honored manliness—that is, as a form of hegemonic masculinity (a point to which I shall return). The significance of such a form of masculinity in Australia is reflected in the mobilization by the two major political parties of a language of “mateship” as the core of national identity, a language that historically draws on working men as its exemplars—that is, manual workers, bushmen, and ordinary soldiers (see Johnson 2007; Brett 2003, 183–216). In similar fashion, Bethan Benwell has noted in relation to British “new lad” magazines that mobilizing models of desirable masculinity can involve drawing on notions of working-class manhood (Benwell 2003, 13). Working-class blokes may not actually wield power, but they can provide the means to legitimate it. 5 Both the example of the actual KPMG accountant and that of the ideal of the working-class “every-bloke” indicate that it is a matter of some importance to be able to distinguish hegemonic from merely dominant men, from actual men, or from their specific personality traits.

PROBLEMS AS THE TERM TURNS TRANSNATIONAL The problems that seem to haunt the term hegemonic masculinity in local Western settings are not surprisingly magnified on the larger stage of the transnational. Connell, Hearn, and Kimmel assert in concert that “the most obviously important” issue in the future of the field researching masculinity in the setting of globalization “is the relation of masculinities to those

34

Chris Beasley

emerging dominant powers in the global capitalist economy, the transnational corporations” (2005, 9). Connell’s particular contribution to this field, which appears largely accepted by masculinity studies writers (see Kimmel 2005b, 415), is that globalization in creating a world gender order involves the rearticulation of national hegemonic masculinities into the transnational arena. Specifically she refers here to “transnational business masculinity”, which she describes as definitively taking the leading role as the emergent gendered world order, an order associated with the dominant institutions of the world economy and the globalization of the neoliberal market agenda. In this account transnational business masculinity is asserted to have “achieved a position of hegemony”, to occupy the position of: a hegemonic masculinity on a world scale—that is to say, a dominant form of masculinity that embodies, organizes, and legitimates men’s domination in the world gender order as a whole. (Connell 2000, 46) As is the case with the account of local Western hegemonic forms, the political legitimating meaning of hegemonic masculinity in the transnational arena quickly slides in Connell’s analysis toward its meaning as the “dominant” masculinity and how an actual group of businessmen “embodies” this dominant positioning, including how this group exhibits particular personality traits. Connell asserts that “world politics is now more and more organized around the needs of the transnational capital”, placing “strategic power in the hands of particular groups of men—managers and entrepreneurs”—who self-consciously manage their bodies and emotions as well as money and are increasingly detached from older loyalties to nation, business organization, family, and marital partners (Connell and Wood 2005, 359). These men are, in his account, dispositionally highly atomistic—that is, competitive and largely distanced from social or personal commitments. They embody a neoliberal version of an emphasized traditional masculinity, without any requirement to direct bodily strength (Connell 1995/2005, xxiii, 255–56). Connell’s account of the hegemonic status of “transnational business masculinity” reveals further issues in the term. It is in the fi rst instance not clear why Connell is so adamant that business masculinity occupies world hegemonic status, and why she regards other potential contenders—indeed she draws attention to military and political masculinities—as of less significance in this legitimating and mobilizing role. There seems at minimum here a limited engagement with the burgeoning and highly fractious literature on globalization. For instance, Connell does not engage with those writers who question the very notion of economic globalization. Nor does she contend with those writers who might dispute this focus and by contrast propose multiple, uneven, and contradictory globalizations (Elias and Beasley 2009). Mann provides an example of the latter view, suggesting that unprecedented hegemony is more characteristic of contemporary military power than economic relations (2001, 51–72).

Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in Transnational Context

35

Whatever the force of different perspectives on globalization, the point is that it is no simple matter to claim that transnational business masculinity, a masculinity organized in relation to economics, is the hegemonic form on a world scale, legitimating men’s dominance in the global gender order as a whole. Given this, why does Connell make the claim? Connell, in his transnational, global, and macro historical moments, is inclined to presume that masculinity (a gender category) is to be understood by its constitution through class relations (Connell 1995/2005, 86, 185–203; 2000, 40–56). While gender in this approach certainly gives particular characteristics to globalizing capitalism, it seems to be carried along by and within host class relations—a comparatively passive and responsive substructure. Gender here tends to subsumed within class, as it was in traditional Marxian analyses, and in the same vein class becomes shorthand for relations between men, while women’s contributions to the shaping of global history seem to disappear (Beasley 2005, 226–28; Newton 1998). Connell’s framework—with its tension between gender as riding on the coattails of class and gender as actively socially constituting—is frequently replicated in masculinity studies writings, even in the work of those who are far less wedded to an economic focus in research on the politics of masculinity on a world scale (for example, Kimmel 2005b). Yet the crucial feature of the term hegemonic masculinity is precisely that it enables the Gramscian conception of power as more multifaceted than mere coercion, including economic coercion, and that it is not supposedly to be equated with economic or military dominance. Connell’s term has the great advantage that encourages a creative and subtle understanding of power as constitutive, as always associated with the mobilization of consent and complicit embodied identities. However, Connell, along with many other masculinity studies writers, tends to fall back into more limited, even economistic readings of hegemony when dealing with the transnational. I am not suggesting that the leading contender for the position of hegemonic masculinity on a world scale is not transnational business masculinity, nor am I necessarily disputing that the other contenders are military and political. The point here is simply to stress that the term does not actually enable these judgments at present and Connell’s approach is insufficiently tied to demonstrating how transnational business masculinities have achieved a hegemonic role specifically in relation to the gender order, rather than merely as an auxiliary handmaiden to the “current stage of capitalism” (Connell 2005, 73) and as a dimension of globalizing Western institutions.

WHAT TO DO? This discussion of the term hegemonic masculinity suggests that situating masculinities in transnational politics is no simple matter, and that usage of the term may require further analysis. In rethinking the concept of hegemonic masculinity, I intend fi rstly to focus the term hegemonic masculinity

36

Chris Beasley

on its political function—to narrow the characterization of the term—and, secondly, to undertake a taxonomic expansion of its forms, in order to resist this slippage in its meaning and thus avoid the associated problematic implications of this slippage. What is the aim of this rethinking of the term? Why might it be worth undertaking? It is, after all, politically important not to simply equate dominant masculinities as a matter of course with hegemonic masculinity—that is, with the legitimization of men’s authority over women—since it is hopefully imaginable that dominant (socially powerful or prevalent) masculinities might not be constituted by gender hierarchy. Moreover, it is politically useful in terms of policy development, including educational policy development, and political strategies to recognize that challenging hegemonic legitimization with regard to gender may not coincide with challenging a specific group of actual men who hold significant institutional power. It may also not coincide with attending only to men. Yet Connell’s account of global hegemonic masculinity in practice assumes that challenging hegemonic masculinity does coincide with concentrating on dominant, economically powerful businessmen and their particular characteristics. What if, however, these socially dominant men do not occupy the pinnacle hegemonic position in the global hierarchy of masculinities, legitimating and bonding together men in the world gender order as a whole, as Connell asserts? And what if gendered globalization is less singular, less one-way, more complex and nuanced than Connell’s account proposes? In my view, our understanding of gender and masculinity in this globalizing world shapes the political directions we might undertake to advance gender equality. For this reason, to the degree that the concept of hegemonic masculinity may be both insufficiently focused and overly monolithic, I would suggest that a rethinking of the concept is not merely of abstract theoretical interest, but a crucial element in assessing contemporary social trends and our responses to them.

NARROWING THE MEANING OF THE TERM I will now turn to my fi rst argument. In short, I am arguing for the term hegemonic masculinity to be conceived more narrowly. With regard to this clarified meaning, I suggest a more focused characterization of hegemonic masculinity as concerned with a political ideal or model, as an enabling mode of representation, which mobilizes institutions and practices. Contra Connell’s approach and in keeping with that of Mike Donaldson (1993), the concept of hegemonic masculinity is likely to retain what I have described as its centrally important concern with political legitimization and promoting solidarity between men by explicitly differentiating it from the study of masculinities associated with actual socially dominant men. Characterizing hegemonic masculinity in relation to a narrowed meaning as a political

Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in Transnational Context

37

ideal prevents a slide toward depictions of men with institutional power, and instead concentrates the term on its legitimating function, which may or may not refer to men with actual power. Such a clarification enables us to acknowledge the hegemonic significance, for example, of working-classinflected models in sites like Australia. This suggested rethinking of the concept of hegemonic masculinity— toward a focus on a mobilizing political ideal—may, however, not be acceptable to Connell, who tends to be somewhat antagonistic to a focus on “the symbolic”, “representation”, or “discourses”. She advances a form of macro-sociological social constructionism, which involves dividing off “discursive” from “material” processes, structures, interests, and practices (Connell 2002, 71; 2000, 20–21). However, it is worth pointing out that Connell appears to oscillate on this question. On the one hand, when discussing hegemonic masculinity, Connell and Messerschmidt employ words like “models”, “ideals, fantasies and desires”, “collective images”, “common cultural templates”, and “exemplary” (2005, 831, 838, 841). Yet, on the other hand, they insist that while hegemonic masculinity: involves the formulation of cultural ideals, it should not be regarded only as a cultural norm. Gender relations also are constituted through non-discursive practices, including wage labor, violence, sexuality, domestic labor, and childcare. (2005, 842) What is important here is an ongoing inclination in Connell’s approach to maintain a distinction between discursive and nondiscursive—described in terms of an opposition between nonmaterial and material—alongside a prioritization of the latter. This is evident in her somewhat dismissive view of postmodern perspectives, of “discursive approaches” as about culture, representations, and personal voluntary tactical choices—as against material practices, interests, and inequality that are lined up with employment, violence, and childcare. Not surprisingly, Connell argues in the “Introduction to the Second Edition” of Masculinities, just as she did in earlier work (2002, 71; 2000, 20–21), that “discursive approaches have significant limits. They give no grip on issues about economic inequality and the state” (1995/2005, xix). No wonder then that Connell understands hegemonic masculinity in “the world gender order as a whole” as transnational business masculinity and globalization itself in primarily economic terms. No wonder, when dealing with macro and transnational, her analysis tends to subsume gender within class, with class primarily depicted as relations between men. Connell’s presumption that discursive approaches are at odds with “material” concerns may lead her to dispute my suggestion that we should rethink hegemonic masculinity as a political ideal, as a discourse. However, it is worth considering whether such a rethinking also enables us to rethink Connell’s assumptions regarding what counts. Precisely because

38 Chris Beasley she is committed to the separate and determining authority of what she deems “material”, Connell is inclined to slide away from the political legitimating meaning of hegemonic masculinity toward equating hegemony with “dominant” masculinity, since this masculinity is associated with “material” authority and institutional social power (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 846). In short, Connell’s investment in a particular understanding of “the material” may well go some way to explaining the problematic slippage in her usage of the term hegemonic masculinity. By extension, questioning Connell’s conception of what counts may not only enable us to reconsider her terminology, but also her analysis of globalization and conclusions regarding the global masculine hegemon. If her base/superstructure account of the separation between discursive and material and the priority accorded the latter is questionable, then not only may hegemonic masculinity be understood differently, but there is no reason to presume that the global gender order is necessarily and monolithically legitimated by elite transnational businessmen in a top-down fashion. This is no trivial matter. For example, if dominant and hegemonic masculinities are not equated, this has a significant impact on the focus of political work to achieve gender equality—on the development of counterhegemonic strategies—and hence has important implications for the constitution of what Carol Gould (2006) has designated as resistant “network solidarities” at both national and transnational levels.

EXPANDING THE TAXONOMY OF THE TERM Having outlined the case for a narrowed clarification of the meaning of the term of the term, I will now attend to my second argument regarding the advantages of its taxonomical expansion. The first argument regarding a narrowed clarification of meaning to focus the concept of hegemonic masculinity on its meaning as a political mechanism can work against problematic slippages in its usage and can enable a useful questioning of Connell’s assumptions regarding the critical status of the economic and his account of globalization. Nevertheless, de-massification and greater specification of plural hegemonic masculinities under the rubric of this newly narrowed meaning enables a more nuanced analysis of gender order and gender identity in the contemporary globalizing world. Current approaches in masculinity studies have multiplied the term masculinity but have tended to retain the notion of “hegemonic masculinity” as a singular monolith, which is insufficiently specified even to do justice the existing range of masculinity studies writings. Hegemonic masculinity, I would argue, also needs to be de-massified. Connell and Messerschmidt, in their 2005 clarification of the term, acknowledge that hegemonic masculinity is not singular in the sense that it may take different forms in different geographical/cultural locations, its effects on particular men are variable, and there will contesting “claimants”

Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in Transnational Context

39

to the status of hegemon (2005, 840–41, 845). They also acknowledge that global does not necessarily “overwhelm regional or local” (ibid., 850). However, Connell and Messerschmidt reassert the singular character of hegemonic masculinity, as precisely about that which is deemed the pinnacle of a pyramid of masculinities (ibid., 845). By contrast, I consider that the term hegemonic does not require an indivisible monotype, and indeed an insistence on such a monolithic conception may partially explain the inclination in masculinity studies writings to drift into equating hegemonic masculinity with mere social dominance rather than focusing on the issue of political mobilization. Further elaboration of this key term within Masculinity theory is likely is to be helpful in analyzing contemporary gender relations and a range of politically significant masculinities. Therefore, following Judith Halberstam’s “taxonomical impulse” (Jagose 1999; Halberstam 1998), I propose that more terms may be required, enabling recognition of what I would call “supra-hegemonic” and “sub-hegemonic” masculinities. As an illustrative instance here, I would suggest that my earlier mention of the Australian “every-bloke” may be viewed as a local sub-hegemonic masculinity—a powerful Australian legitimating ideal—which is nevertheless similar to other working-class-inflected manifestations in many other countries, invoking as it does masculine solidarity and complicity even though it lacks institutional power. Importantly, this is a legitimating ideal shaped against and in concert with more global forms. This instance reveals why taxonomical expansion matters, why it is important to talk not only about hegemonic masculinities, but additionally about hierarchical relations between them. Connell describes the “globalization of gender” in ways that indicate an interaction between globalized/ transnational hegemonic masculinities and localized masculinities in a globalizing world. Nevertheless, there is also an inclination in her work to understand globalization (conceived as substantively gendered) in terms of a singular, monolithic, hegemonic masculinity acting on a world scale. Transnational business masculinity is presented as the hegemonic form for the world as a whole. This account is useful in highlighting that masculinities are not all the same, but it does not discuss the relationship between different hegemonic masculinities. Moreover, in simply assuming that there is always only one form “at the top”, Connell asserts that what she thinks is the case at a local level—a single hegemon—is also what happens in the global/transnational setting. Yet it may be argued, as my example of the Australian working-class every-bloke suggests, that the political legitimating function of hegemonic masculinity is unlikely to be left to one idealized model alone. Hegemonic masculinity, even at the local level, may be seen as hierarchical and plural. It seems even more likely that there is not one single hegemon on the global/transnational scale. To conceive, as Connell does, that hegemonic masculinity is monolithic on a world scale restricts analysis of globalization to a framework that

40 Chris Beasley presents globalization as a one-way uniform process and focuses on how the global hegemon touches down at the local level. However, as Randall Germain has pointed out, there are significant problems attached to conceiving globalization as a uniform and all-encompassing process (2000, xiii–xx). What is lost in Connell’s emphasis on the singular hegemonic authority of transnational business masculinity is a more nuanced account of how local cultures may also contribute to the formation of globalizing gender, let alone enabling an account of the role of the state and of the impact of differentially powerful cultures and states in the transnational context. By contrast, a de-massification of hegemonic masculinity, a taxonomical expansion of it to include supra- and sub-hegemonic forms, permits discussion of hegemonic masculinities in vertical as well as horizontal terms. The taxonomical expansion envisaged allows for a more nuanced analysis that can attend to both the unevenness of globalization in different settings and more detailed awareness of interactions between transnational and local/cultural/state imperatives. Such a de-massification aims to move away from conceptualizations of globalization and hegemonic masculinity that are exceptionally top-down toward an analysis of the contested and shifting nature of gender identity at the transnational as well as the local level, to highlight the ways in which different hegemonic masculinities are negotiated, and even resisted. To give space in our analyses to this resistant creativity is surely to refuse the ongoing inevitability of gender hierarchy. Taxonomical expansion has a further advantage. In giving space to the plural and uneven character of gendered globalization, it can work against the limits of existing scholarship rather than accepting them. Bob Pease has, for instance, noted that “theorizing about masculinity in Australia has tended to be derivative of overseas literature”, even though Connell’s internationally influential work involves theoretical generalizations drawn from Australian men and Australian gender relations. Pease (2001) points out that Australian masculinities have a specific history that may be insufficiently recognized in generalizing about Western masculinities. I would add that limited analyses of specific cultures and nation-states not only reiterates aspects of globalization itself, but may produce inadequate assessments of gendered globalization in terms of its multiple transnational contexts.

CONCLUSION Masculinity studies writers, and Connell in particular, have made crucial contributions to gender analysis at a local, national level, and at the level of the transnational their work alerts us to the ways in which supposedly gender-neutral transnational processes are linked to the politics of masculinity. Nevertheless, like Connell, I believe, it is timely to reconsider the concept of hegemonic masculinity.

Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in Transnational Context

41

In rethinking the term, I aim, fi rstly, to narrow its characterization in order to focus on its meaning as a political mechanism involving the bonding together of different masculinities in a hierarchical order, and to differentiate this meaning from a usage dealing with the authority of socially dominant men. Such a distinction also enables a rethinking of assumptions that give rise to overly economistic interpretations of globalization. Secondly, I propose to expand the instances under the narrowed rubric of understanding hegemonic masculinity as a political mechanism—as a discursive ideal mobilizing legitimization. In particular, while retaining usage of the overall term hegemonic masculinity when appropriate, I wish to attend to plural hegemonic masculinities within this by employing the language of “supra” and “sub” hegemonic. De-massification of the term hegemonic masculinity is called for to avoid insufficiently nuanced and uniform top-down analyses of gendered globalization. I do not assume that Connell or other masculinity studies writers will not be amenable to further rethinking of the term. Connell, for example, has, after all, developed concepts that encourage intellectual flexibility and discussion and has indeed actively promoted exchanges on the topic of hegemonic masculinity. Moreover, in my view, the term continues to have much to offer. However, I would also suggest that it is not enough to say, as Connell does, that it needs work but is “still essential” (1995/2005, xviii). Rather the usage of the term in the transnational arena shows up certain earlier limits of the term all the more clearly. These limits have research and political implications. Rethinking the concept of hegemonic masculinity is therefore an important aspect of better understanding and working toward transforming gender in the contemporary transnational context.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to Sage Publications for permission to reproduce this revised version of the article: Beasley (2008). I would like to acknowledge the support of the Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender, University of Adelaide, South Australia, and of GEXcel: Centre of Gender Excellence, Linköping and Örebro Universities, Sweden, in developing this chapter.

NOTES 1. My thanks to Carol Bacchi for this point. 2. Hearn notes this distinction between powerful and widespread in his analysis of notions of dominant or preeminent masculinity (Hearn 1998). 3. For another account of how this slippage occurs, see Beasley and Elias (2006). 4. See http://www.kpmg.com.au.

42

Chris Beasley 5. Working-class models of manhood that I have identified in relation to Australia and elsewhere are clearly culture specific and do not necessarily resonate as mobilizing ideals in other sites. For an account of male identity construction located in Italy that demonstrates this point, see Mora (2006).

REFERENCES Beasley, C. 2005. Gender & Sexuality: Critical Theories, Critical Thinkers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. . 2006. “Speaking of Feminism . . . What Are We Arguing About? Difference and the Politics of Meaning.” In Feminist Alliances, edited by L. Burns, 35–58. Amsterdam: Rudopi. . 2008. “Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in a Globalizing World.” Men and Masculinities 11 (1): 86–103. Beasley, C., and C. Bacchi. 2007. “Envisioning a New Politics for an Ethical Future: Beyond Trust, Care and Generosity towards an Ethic of Social Flesh.” Feminist Theory 8 (3): 279–98. Beasley, C., and J. Elias. 2006. “Situating Masculinities in Global Politics.” Conference proceedings, Oceanic Conference on International Studies, University of Melbourne, Australia, 5–7 July. Benwell, B. 2003. “Introduction: Geneologies of Masculinity.” In Masculinities and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines, edited by B. Benwell, 6–30. Oxford: Blackwell. Brett, J. 2003. Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Cheng, C. 1999. “Marginalized Masculinities and Hegemonic Masculinity: Introduction.” Journal of Men’s Studies 7 (3): 295–315. Clatterbaugh, K. 1998. “What Is Problematic about Masculinities?” Men and Masculinities 1 (1): 24–45. Connell, R. 1979/1983. “Men’s Bodies.” In Which Way Is Up, by R. Connell, 17–32. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. . 1998. “Reply to a Symposium on Masculinities.” Gender & Society 12 (4): 474–77. . 2000. The Men and the Boys. Cambridge: Polity. . 2002. Gender. Cambridge: Polity. . 1995/2005. Masculinities. 2nd ed. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. . 2005. “Globalization, Imperialism, and Masculinities.” In Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, edited by M. Kimmel, J. Hearn, and R. Connell, 71–89. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Connell, R., J. Hearn, and M. Kimmel. 2005. “Introduction.” In Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, edited by M. Kimmel, J. Hearn, and R. Connell, 3–34. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Connell, R., and J. Messerschmidt. 2005. “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept.” Gender & Society 19 (6): 829–59. Connell, R., and J. Wood. 2005. “Globalization and Business Masculinities.” Men and Masculinities 7 (4): 347–67. Connolly, W. 1974/1983. The Terms of Political Discourse. 2nd ed. Oxford: Martin Robertson. Donaldson, M. 1993. “What Is Hegemonic Masculinity?” Theory and Society 22 (5): 643–57. Elias, J., and C. Beasley. 2009. “Hegemonic Masculinity and Globalization: ‘Transnational Business Masculinities’ and Beyond.” Globalizations 6 (2): 281–96.

Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in Transnational Context

43

Flood, M. 2002. “Between Men and Masculinity: An Assessment of the Term ‘Masculinity’ in Recent Scholarship on Men.” In Manning the Next Millennium: Studies in Masculinities, edited by S. Pearce and V. Muller, 203–13. Perth, Australia: Black Swan. Gardiner, J. K. 2005. “Men, Masculinities, and Feminist Theory.” In Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, edited by M. Kimmel, J. Hearn, and R. W. Connell, 35–50. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Germain, R. 2000. “Introduction: Globalization and its Critics.” In Globalization and Its Critics: Perspectives from Political Economy, edited by R. Germain, xiii–xx. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Gould, C. 2006. “Women’s Human Rights in a Culturally Diverse World.” Conference proceedings, Gender Identity in a Globalized Society, Experts Meeting of the Social Trends Institute (STI), Barcelona, Spain, 13–14 October. Halberstam, J. 1998. Female Masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hearn, J. 1998. “The Swimsuit Issue and Sport: Hegemonic Masculinity in Sports Illustrated.” American Journal of Sociology 103 (6): 1749–50. . 2004a. “From Hegemonic Masculinity to the Hegemony of Men.” Feminist Theory 5 (1): 49–72. . 2004b. “Tracking ‘the Transnational’: Studying Transnational Organizations and Managements, and the Management of Cohesion.” Culture and Organization 10 (4): 273–90. . 2011. “Neglected Intersectionalities in Studying Men: Age/ing, Virtuality, Transnationality.” In Framing Intersectionality: Debates on a Multi-Faceted Concept in Gender Studies, edited by H. Lutz, M. T. Herrera Vivar, and L. Supik, 89–104. Farnham: Ashgate. Hofstede, G. 1984. Culture’s Consequences. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Jagose, A. 1999. “Interview with Judith Halberstam; Masculinity without Men.” Genders 29. http://www.genders.org/g29/g29_halberstam.html [accessed 12 February 2013]. Johnson, C. 2007. “Howard’s Values and Australian Identity.” Australian Journal of Political Science 2 (2): 195–210. Kimmel, M. 1993. “Invisible Masculinity.” Society (September/October): 28–35. . 1997. “Integrating Men into the Curriculum.” Duke Journal of Gender, Law and Policy 4: 181–95. . 2003. “Foreword.” In Masculinities Matter! Men, Gender and Development, F. Cleaver, xi–xiv. London: Zed. . 2005a. The Gender of Desire: Essays on Male Sexuality. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. . 2005b. “Globalization and Its Mal(e)contents: The Gendered Moral and Political Economy of Terrorism.” In Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, edited by M. Kimmel, J. Hearn, and R. W. Connell, 413–31. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. . 2006 “Men and Gender Equality: Resistance or Support?” UNESCO, Seminar within the Capacity Development and Training Programme in Gender Mainstreaming, 16 May. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/ gender-equality/ [accessed 12 February 2013]. Lakoff, G., and M. Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mann, M. 2001. “Globalization and September 11.” New Left Review 12:51–72. Martin, P.Y. 1998. “Why Can’t a Man Be More Like a Woman? Reflections on Connell’s Masculinities.” Gender & Society 13:472–74. McKay, J., J. Mikosza, and B. Hutchins. 2005. “Gentlemen, the Lunchbox Has Landed: Representations of Masculinities and Men’s Bodies in the Popular

44

Chris Beasley

Media.” In Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, edited by M. Kimmel, J. Hearn, and R. W. Connell, 270–88. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mora, M. 2006. “Clothing as Men’s Identity Resources. The Case of the Italian Fashion Industry.” Conference proceedings, Gender Identity in a Globalized Society, Experts Meeting of the Social Trends Institute (STI), Barcelona, Spain, 13–14 October. Newton, J. 1998. “White Guys.” Feminist Studies 24 (3): 572–98. Pease, B. 2001. “Moving beyond Mateship: Reconstructing Australian Men’s Practices.” In A Man’s World? Changing Men’s Practices in a Globalized World, edited by B. Pease and K. Pringle, 191–204. London: Zed. Plummer, K. 2005. “Male Sexualities.” In Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, edited by M. Kimmel, J. Hearn, and R. W. Connell, 178–95. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. van Kriekan, R., P. Smith, and M. Holborn. 2000. Sociology: Themes and Perspectives. 2nd ed. Sydney: Pearson Education Australia.

3

Embodying Serious Power Managerial Masculinities in the Security Sector Raewyn Connell

INTRODUCTION It was writers from the global South—Paz (1950/1990), Fanon (1952/1967), and above all Nandy (1983)—who posed the question of the relationship between masculinity and global social processes: imperialism, colonialism, and contemporary power relations. In this chapter I examine a small part of this question, using a research technology from the global North, and some conclusions from the international social-scientific research on masculinity that has now developed as a field of gender studies. In masculinity studies there has long been a thread of interest in elite masculinities (Collinson, Knights, and Collinson 1990; Mulholland 1996; Donaldson and Poynting 2007). This is a corollary of the feminist concern with the relationship between men, masculinity, and power; it makes sense to examine gender practice in situations where social power is concentrated. We have learned, from studies such as Messerschmidt’s (1997) case study of managerial confl ict before the space shuttle disaster, to be aware of differences among patterns of elite masculinity and the possibilities of change. Recognizing the importance of transnational corporations and global markets in contemporary societies leads to a specific concern with the making of masculinities at the managerial levels of the corporate economy, under conditions of neoliberal globalization (Wajcman 1999; Braedley and Luxton 2010). Hooper (2000), working from media representations, and Connell and Wood (2005), working from life-history data, in different ways suggest new patterns of hegemonic masculinity may be emerging in the global economy. The global economy is not just a structure of investment and exchange; it also has a system of enforcement, or in the language of neoliberalism, “security”. Police forces and military forces are the most obvious components, but there are also private or corporate security forces, which now outnumber state security forces in many countries. There have been closefocus studies of the construction of masculinities in the military and police (Barrett 1996; Agostino 1998), which give useful points of departure. Transnational management cannot be properly understood without including the managers of this sector.

46

Raewyn Connell

This chapter uses a life-history approach (Plummer 2001). It reports a close analysis of a small group of life-history interviews with middle managers in security services in Australia, in the context of a multicountry study of managerial masculinities (Olavarría 2009; Connell 2010a; Taga et al. 2011). Audio-recorded interviews, covering personal and career history, current labor process, and workplace relations, were conducted with managers in a range of industries in two Australian cities between May 2006 and July 2007. Seven were from the security services: two from the private sector, two from the police, and one each from the three armed forces. The interviews covered family and educational background, career, current working life and family situation, gender relations in workplace and home, and general social outlook. The interviews were transcribed, and confidential case studies were prepared for each participant separately, before this attempt at synthesis for the group. The study relies on a case-analysis method (discussed in Connell 2010b). The interviews traced participants’ careers and also asked them to talk about their current work and family practices. This gave enough detail to study the dynamics of gender formation at both individual and collective level. Names of people and the organizations they work for are pseudonyms.

THE SECURITY BUSINESS, PRIVATE AND PUBLIC Gerard is a national-level manager in one of the largest private security companies in Australia. His interview tells a lot about the industry. It has a large, low-paid workforce—the dregs of society, Gerard remarks at one point. The companies who employ them seek contracts from other companies, or public authorities, that are operating facilities or conducting public events. The companies tender for the jobs, calculating the prices on the basis of industrial agreements with the unions that fi x wage rates. The roster on which employees turn up to work at the venues is therefore the basis of the business. The security fi rm is a kind of body-hire business, saving other companies the trouble of hiring and training their own security or cleaning staff. There is a low margin of profit, little corporate loyalty, and a high turnover of staff. There is a rough-and-tumble feel to this business, and Gerard seems well suited to it. He has a military background, and he emphasizes toughness and energy as the valued qualities in life. Noel, also a national-level manager in the private sector, gives more concrete details of the workforce: All the staff that are responsible for security at exhibitions and concerts and the like. Then there are all the cash-in-transit people, they are a large part . . . Then there is the whole electronic side of it, that is, the people who install the video cameras and so on. Then there are those responsible for the security of IT systems, the people who set

Embodying Serious Power

47

up and monitor systems for banks and so on. They you have also got the people who sell and supply and erect the barriers for events, etc., that is a big logistical job . . . Plus you have got a lot of personnel at airports. They are ramping up security at all the regional airports, as you may have heard, and that is a huge undertaking that we are helping to smooth out. Then of course you have the sharp end—the stuff that people traditionally associate with security work, the patrolmen and the building guards and even the nightclub bouncers. Noel notes that this industry has been growing very rapidly. There are now about two hundred thousand people employed in the security industry, across the country. Many of them are former police or prison guards, and Noel is happy about this, because “they have an attachment to law and order, and that is the right mind set for some of our work”. Gerard was once in the army. Noel mentions recruits into the private sector from the police. Another respondent moved from business into the navy, another from army into the police. There is a network of connections that makes it sensible to think of both public and private as part of the same security sector. There are certainly differences in the construction of masculinity within the sector, a point to which Barrett’s (1996) study of the US Navy alerts us. Military forces in Australia now, after years of downsizing, are small and tightly structured organizations, with formal rules and procedures, not like the rough-and-tumble body hire described by Gerard. The police are somewhere between, governed by formal rules but more open to the community, partly as a matter of contemporary policing strategies. All of them, regardless, are about the organized use of force. Peter, a police superintendent who is exceptionally thoughtful about his service—a kind of organic intellectual of the security sector—notes that Australian police carry guns. Peter recalls only drawing his gun twice in his career, apart from a stint with the Special Weapons group; to him, good policing is based on the display of force leading to negotiation. Yet as he remarks elsewhere in the interview, “we are a 24/7 service”, and the basic service delivered is “the uniform copper in a truck”. Police and military are the sharp end of state power, and the managers know it. In two of the interviews, one police and one army, the remark was made that someone who backed away from violence was no use on the front line in their organization. It is no accident that both remarks were made in discussions about the presence of women.

MANAGERIAL LABOR: THE PRACTICALITIES OF ORGANIZING FORCE Compared with the managers we interviewed in the finance sector (Connell 2010a), the managers in the security sector are decidedly low-tech. Some

48 Raewyn Connell express a definite dislike of IT—such as the respondent who began to worry about the military the first time he met a general who had a computer on his desk! Most are competent users of communications technology, such as Peter, an area commander in the police who reckons that “you get on average a hundred and fifty emails a day, they’re a nightmare, so I usually try and get them over and done with early”. And the military officers are familiar with the encrypted communications channels their services use for operations. But that is as far as it gets. None has their managerial labor enmeshed with ICT in the way we have seen in finance and management consulting. In other respects their labor process is like that of managers in other parts of the economy. They work long hours, with a close focus on the job. Noel remarks that he tries to leave the office before seven p.m., “because otherwise it steals all your life”. But that is already a ten-hour day, which plainly takes priority over family life—the theft has already occurred. This is a chronic problem in Australian organizational life and an important determinant of gender inequalities (Connell 2005). The “day in the life” described by all the respondents is reasonably similar. Jack, a middle-ranking officer, has an administrative role in one of the armed forces and a long working day. Starting early, he drops off his children with a neighbor who will take them to school, then he works through the day, bringing coffee and lunch to his desk. By the time he gets home and helps his wife to feed the children and get them to bed, he is exhausted. He does a lot of emails, and he remarks, “we also have a number of different other communication mechanisms, the best one is the phone”. There is no indication that he makes much use of databases or complex computer programs. Jack meets with a group of immediate subordinates: five are mentioned in the interview, each looking after one of the overseas operations that Jack is responsible for servicing. He also deals regularly with the outside units. It is a composite labor process. As Philippa, another middle-ranking military officer, puts it: “So there is a lot of different things, and you have got to be able to cut from one to the other”. It is also fairly fast-paced. “Mornings can be fairly frenetic, depending on what the issues are that have come in overnight”. Philippa’s specialty, personnel work, is not as exceptional as one might think. The public image of security services is strongly focused on the front line, the “copper in a truck”. Peter is one manager who worries about the effect on his own young men—”that popular image they see on bloody TV”. The reality of his job, as a line manager, is different; with sardonic exaggeration he claims to spend 80 percent of his time on HR matters compared with 10 percent on crime. In the private sector it may be little different; the large, poorly trained and unstable workforce described by Gerard would take a lot of managing. Bear in mind that the security sector is about the use or display of force, and that (as Peter especially is aware) there is a lot of publicity and political pressure about what it does. The mechanics of managerial labor may resemble those of other sectors, but the substance of what managers

Embodying Serious Power

49

are doing here is distinctive. A telling detail from Peter’s interview: the police department has imported “performance management” from the private sector; this annoys the staff and results in many complaints. This personnel management technique complicates, rather than eases, Peter’s core task of, day by day, sustaining a functioning force to keep the lid on crime in his district. Will, an armed forces manager at a slightly more senior level, has a structurally similar role, preparing his force’s contribution to joint operations or exercises. This is a complex and pressured business that involves negotiating, scheduling, and coordinating activities across the whole organization to make people, machines, and supplies come together at the right time and place. A civilian “events manager” perhaps does the same, except that Will’s job is to deliver the organized force his superiors’ military strategies call for. He, too, has faced, in previous roles, the personnel management issues that preoccupy Peter and Philippa.

THE FORMS OF GLOBALIZATION Much of the work that Peter and Gerard describe seems thoroughly local, not even national in scope. Yet global relations are present in all the security managers’ working lives, in several forms. They are present, fi rst, as organizational and personal background. Noel, for instance, was the son of an internationally mobile businessman who migrated to Australia; Noel worked in import-export as a young man. At a recent trade fair he saw several “international players”. Being keen on technology, he notes the “gadgets” that have been developed in the USA, and laments that in Australia “we are a long way behind Europe and the UK”, for instance, in the number of surveillance cameras on the streets. So Noel has a sense of the global metropole as providing the leadership for his industry, even if it does not impinge much on his own day-to-day work. Gerard had an even more direct connection. He was sent by a multinational security company to manage and expand their operations in another country, thus being part of this fi rm’s global growth strategy. He was sent home when top management modified the strategy, deciding to have locals managing the national units within the transnational fi rm. Similar connections are found in the public sector. Peter was sent by his department to do a training course with the FBI in the United States. Dixon discusses the way Australian police “benchmark ourselves” against UK and US police, and remarks on more direct connections: Yeah, do a hell of a lot of research through the United Kingdom from Home Office, through Association of Chief Police Officers in the UK, the US. We actually bring experts out from the US to talk to our guys on a yearly basis. Also looked at Canada; we have looked at Hong Kong.

50 Raewyn Connell Dixon recognizes that this global connection is selective, “predominantly Western police forces”. That is even more true of the armed forces, which are operationally linked with US armed forces, and to some extent still with the British. Will, a senior military officer well positioned for promotion to the very top level, has not only been in training attachments with both those services. He has actually directed a joint exercise with US forces, working from an American military base (for which Australia paid rent). These connections exist in part because of Australia’s historical dependence on the UK and USA, but in part because security issues are now seen as global. Gerard’s companies make money by selling their services to other companies, many of which are transnational. He discusses providing security for one of the “seven sisters” transnational oil majors: You are talking not only protection of assets, but protection of people, and making sure that people can move around the globe, and operate around the globe, in a fairly safe environment. The “people” he means are oil company managers and technicians. To do this means knowing about, and understanding, dangerous environments such as Papua New Guinea. Gerard’s fi rm is also involved in the international travel industry. It has currently, or in the past, contracts to provide security at several airports around Australia and contracts to provide security to international airlines. The local policing practiced by Peter seems a long way from global issues. While transnational managers jet off to other countries, two or three times a week he takes “a walk around the community”, both in the business district and the suburbs. Yet Peter, too, faces globalization. In some fascinating passages of the interview, he gives a detailed account of the immigrant ethnic groups in Sydney and their differing relations with the police force. Of the two biggest ethnic minorities in a district he had previously commanded, the Vietnamese and the Lebanese, it was actually the Lebanese—involved in much more social turbulence in recent years—who were better represented among the police. The reason he gives is that the Vietnamese, like the Chinese, did not see police work as a worthy occupation, while the Lebanese did. Peter, in his role of guaranteeing social order, is thus drawn into the world of transnational migration and cultural difference. He contrasts the recent nonassimilated immigrant groups with earlier migrants—Eastern and Southern European, the immigration in which his own father had come to Australia—who very much wanted to assimilate into the Australian (i.e., Anglo settler) culture. More exactly, he notes that the recent immigrant groups are strongly divided, especially the Muslim groups, who are split between a quiet majority who want to settle and get on, and a “hardcore edge at the bottom” (the triple mixed metaphor perhaps a sign of his concern) who are creating trouble and whom moderate Muslims don’t like to criticize—but who are themselves divided. The whole thing is made more difficult by politicians who play the race card.

Embodying Serious Power

51

Peter’s sophisticated sociology of ethnicity can be matched by the sophisticated geopolitical views of two of our military officers. Will, whose organizational role was described earlier, is by no means an uncritical machine man. Late in the interview he talked about the “clash of civilizations” idea, and gave it very cautious endorsement—there is some clash between “Western commercial capitalism and modernity” and “the world of Islam in particular”, but we should not exaggerate it. Will has lived in a Muslimmajority country while serving abroad. Jack, an officer at the same level in another service, has a sharper analysis. He is well aware that the Australian government tried to buy US approval by involvement in the Iraq invasion. He sees the main threats arising in the Middle East from turbulence, much of which is caused by Israel—so Jack, half-humorously, blames the British for creating the Jewish state. Jack talks about the intellectual background of military work. He has books in his office, reads the current debates among “Clausewitz-wannabes” about the changing nature of war—and doesn’t have a high opinion of them. More examples could be given, but this is enough to show that global issues are present as intellectual and operational questions for our respondents, as well as organizational background. All the military officers we interviewed have served overseas, and one has been centrally involved in preparing Australian forces for their overseas deployment. They are, like Peter with his FBI course and Gerard with his big oil company contracts, directly involved in the running of the global security state, intended to protect the liberal capitalist world and its elites from external threat and internal disruption. To do this as a practical proposition requires a local focus. Some theories of globalization, notably Hardt and Negri’s Empire (2000), see global power as radically separate from local societies, unmediated. The details of the security apparatus show this is wrong. Recall Gerard’s emphasis on specific understanding of dangerous environments such as Papua New Guinea and Peter’s detailed knowledge of ethnic groups and his emphasis on walking his district. The officer involved in preparing forces for overseas deployment has the same outlook, arranging for the commander of each intervention force to go to study the area in advance: “I want you as the boss to go over to Afghanistan and have a look around, to make sure that what you are asking them to do is appropriate in the circumstances”. In their practical functioning, the security services themselves are an important mediation between global power and populations.

MASCULINE EMBODIMENT AND ITS TENSIONS Even more: the mediation goes inside the skin. Peter is, in most respects, an overworked bureaucrat. In a previous posting as area commander, he was so stressed and so sedentary that he put on weight and was constantly tired. He has deliberately acted to “break the cycle” and restore his fitness,

52 Raewyn Connell especially by daily work in the gym. We have heard the same from managers in other industries, but there is something else here: Even though it is a desk job, the fact is though, that every time you go for a walk-around, you are talking to crooks. A good example is probably, about four years ago, I actually wrestled a bloke with a gun in a car park. So by virtue of the fact you are wearing the uniform, you are expected to still do things. So I think there is a requirement to stay a little bit fit. Most of our participants mentioned the issue of fitness, and most of them mentioned the possibility of confrontation or combat. The bodily presence of the “uniform copper in a truck”, the soldier on patrol, or the guard in the money van is crucially what the security sector is about. And when these managers talk about bodily presence, gender is front and center. Here is a manager from the private sector talking about why women don’t want to be in it, despite the labor shortage in the industry: I mean, the money transport jobs have really risen in the last ten years; it is amazing how much money there is to be driven around. That’s a potentially dangerous job, though, and again you fi nd very, very few women would want to be inside those vans. Then there is the IT side . . . That is very heavily male . . . I mean security is changing but there are a lot of jobs where you have to be out walking down a dark lane alone at three in the morning. A lot of women wouldn’t like that. A lot of men don’t like it either, but they will put up with it. And here is an army officer talking about equal opportunity: I maintain the view that there are three things that soldiers must be able to do regardless of sex. They must be physically capable of completing their job, intellectually capable of completing the job, and they must be psychologically appropriate for that job. Now, if there is a woman who is physically capable of carrying seventy kilos on her back and marching forty kilometers, if she has the intellectual capacity to make decisions to command people, doing that activity at the same time, and she is psychologically disposed to killing other human beings if she has to protect herself and her team—then she may well be a section commander in the infantry. But at the moment there probably aren’t many women who want to do that, or could do that. There aren’t many men who want to, or could do, that; but that is not thought a reason for doubting that men should be in the infantry. Nor do the infantry in practice nowadays march forty kilometers with seventy

Embodying Serious Power

53

kilograms on their back and fight at the same time—if they had to, the commander would properly be sacked. Embodied violence and masculine gender are effectively fused in the imagination of these men (and of course many others). We know from a considerable body of research that men’s experiences of their bodies are important in their sense of who they are, and that there is constant negotiation of these experiences (for example, Hall, Hockey, and Robinson 2007). So it is not surprising to find several of our participants insisting that their early involvement in sports was important preparation for security work. Dixon, for instance, recalls his high school days: “To be honest, for my two years at the school I spent more time playing sport than anything else”. He played all codes, was part of a group of sports-mad kids, and seems to have got to the fringe of elite sports: I think that probably prepared me much more for physical contact that the police have when you are dealing with crime, and you are dealing with real hard crooks. But it also gives you interaction skills when you are dealing with a team environment. Dixon believes in policing by physical presence, not remote control or high technology. A telling detail: he is entirely in favor of police on bicycles, and he credits them with a reduction in drug crime in a district for which he had responsibility. But a strenuously embodied masculinity is at risk from injury and breakdown, as we know from studies of other occupations such as construction work (Paap 2006). One of our respondents is carrying long-term effects from a sports injury. Confrontation and combat are young men’s business; even a middle-aged man is over the hill for this. Some of our respondents are distinctly conscious of this, even a little embarrassed at deskbound jobs and weight gains. Gerard, the oldest of the group, perhaps compensates a little by maintaining an exceptionally rough, hard-driving persona. The problem is even sharper for the woman in our group. Philippa hasn’t played football—her son does. She has served in combat units, but not in combat, and does not talk about combat in the interview. She is the most highly qualified of our respondents and has developed a specialization in a support branch of the service. She, too, has a vivid memory of sporting embodiment. In officer training camp, she and other recruits were required to go for a swim while wearing their physical training clothes, which meant shorts and T-shirts. They were then marched past a group of men, who of course ogled the women in wet T-shirts (a sexist paradigm in Australian beach culture). Philippa protested and got the practice stopped. In short, she has faced a situation of contradictory embodiment, in this strongly masculinized environment, and has had to negotiate her way around the difficulties.

54

Raewyn Connell

CHANGING GENDER RELATIONS As described by Gerard and Noel, the private security industry is a bastion of old-style masculinity: with hierarchical organizations, a strongly masculinized workforce and occupational culture, doing work with high levels of risk and physical confrontation. Women are excluded or marginal in this world and enter it only with difficulty. But this situation is not static. As the security sector has restructured and expanded, the wider gender order has been changing around it. Gerard jokes that some of his right-wing opinions “must be a sign of age”, and says he is happy to leave issues like equal opportunity and childcare in the industry “for a younger breed to deal with”. Dixon, who served his apprenticeship on the beat in tough areas of the inner city, recalls the masculine occupational culture with a touch of nostalgia: You used to work, every three weeks you would work seven days of night work, and after those seven days of night work you could go down the pub, and have a drink and a feed, talk about what had happened, catch up with all the gossip from the rest of the shifts who were working around the city. And they were great days, in terms of being able to share experiences. But he also recognizes that those great days are gone. Will, in the military, is even more emphatic about change: It has progressively in my time become less male oriented. What do I mean by that? I guess male mind-set of a male world, because let’s face it, a lot of testosterone-driven air force/army stuff, is a lot that way, it attracts males more than females. I think we have come to understand that a female point of view is as valuable as any other. Two dynamics of change appear in the interviews. The fi rst is the organizational reforms that have been working their way through the Australian public sector for the last generation (see the NSW public sector study reported in Connell 2006). Equal opportunity and antidiscrimination rules are now very familiar, and all the public sector managers interviewed in this study know about them and implement them. And, it is noteworthy, this group of military and police managers also endorses them—against the traditional occupational culture and against the conventional embodiment of security work discussed earlier. Our interviewees are not just mouthing the official line; they show an interest in this issue, and they do not hesitate to criticize authorities on other matters. The second dynamic of change is women’s agency. Women have been showing up in greater numbers to enter the police and military forces

Embodying Serious Power

55

(although not necessarily private security). Philippa was one of them: from a working-class background, she took herself to university, did a business degree, ran a small business, and, after a confl ict in her workplace, walked into a recruiting office and was welcomed with open arms. Once in a military career, Philippa has pushed for further change, as we saw in the wet T-shirt episode, and in other situations, too. She is one of the modernizers who are pushing organizational change along. Women’s agency is also found in domestic life, and the resulting pressure for change on men is visible in most of our interviews. Not all: the private sector managers in the group have maintained a breadwinner–housewife pattern around the long hours of managerial labor, and Gerard is brutally clear about the way this positions women: In the security business as a manager, you are on call twenty-four by seven. And that is part of life. And wives don’t like it, but wives need to live with it. And you have got to remind them every now and then who is bloody putting the food on the table. The public sector managers, however, do not talk this way. Jack, for instance, is in a companionate two-career marriage; his wife earns a salary comparable to his. They share out the domestic work. Bringing up three children like this, it is clear they experience considerable stress. After they get the children to bed, “by eight o’clock we are both smashed and fall in front of the couch and just sort of zombie into television and bed”. The other officers, both police and military, also seem to have negotiated gender compromises about domestic work and children.

THE MAKING OF MASCULINITIES Several of the participants tell about the induction methods that trained them for their jobs, with a not-very-hidden curriculum that also inducted them into a locally hegemonic, physically strenuous, hierarchical masculinity. Jack, for instance, describes life at his service’s officer training college. It was very tightly regulated, including hours of work, dress, even what one wore in the study periods. It was also strongly hierarchical: seniority was strongly emphasized; as the students moved through, they gained more power, called “leadership”, over more junior students. By the time they got through they were acculturated; Jack remembers that by graduation he was “wanting to command people”, and this confi rmed him in his career choice. It was for him a coming-of-age experience. This vehement college regime was an impressive piece of institutional engineering, which involved a specific pattern of embodiment that was also a mechanism of hegemony:

56

Raewyn Connell Team sports were openly encouraged. Indeed if you didn’t play a team sport it was somehow sort of looked on negatively. But the perfect team sport was rugby, rugby union. If you didn’t play that, you weren’t in sort of the hierarchy. If you did, it almost gave you another sort of leg up in the hierarchy.

In fact Jack didn’t play rugby, but he was extremely good at other sports. The toxic side of such regimes was bullying—Gerard “had the crap beaten out of me, for the fi rst bloody twelve months anyway . . . every night I got a bloody thrashing”—and sexual harassment, as told by Philippa. But we should not think this produced a rigid authoritarian masculinity—or when it did, that such people were the ones who got ahead in the services. The predominant note in this group of interviews was a pragmatic masculinity, focused on getting the job done, accepting of change and negotiation. In several of these interviews, there is a flattened affect that is particularly noteworthy in organizations concerned with violence. Plainly the occupational culture of the security services is being remade—slowly, and more obviously in the public sector than in the private, but very defi nitely.

CONCLUSION At the start of this chapter, I mentioned the intellectuals from the global South who opened up questions about the relationship between masculinities and global power. The fi ndings fi ll in one corner of this enormous jigsaw and suggest some ideas about the larger issues. As noted earlier, we see in these interviews some of the local bases of global structures. Global power is not unmediated. Its protection requires a workforce; the workforce has to be organized and brought into action. This requires an institutional as well as a technological basis. The managers of police, military, and private security whom we interviewed are doing this job, for what Will calls “Western commercial capitalism and modernity”, and the job could not be done without people of Will’s kind. The dynamics visible in the study involve gender, class, and ethnicity. But they quickly take us beyond the framework of “intersectionality” that has been popular in social science recently. Rather, we see in the masculinized security services one of the gendered bases of the international capitalist order, and in that sense we see class (on a global scale) being constituted by gender, rather than intersecting with it. But class is also an effective dynamic here. Five of the seven participants come from working-class backgrounds, and the other two come from modest parts of the Australian middle class. This is a very different background from the managers we interviewed in other sectors, most of whom come from markedly more privileged backgrounds. The security sector here

Embodying Serious Power

57

provides a certain degree of upward mobility for some working-class men, and a very few working-class women, as it does in better-known cases such as the US military. Or, we might say, Western commercial capitalism and modernity recruit their frontline defenders from some of their less privileged citizens. The upward mobility is limited; only one of our seven has any chance of becoming one of the people who, in Gerard’s words, “move around the globe, and operate around the globe” in the “fairly safe environment” created by the security services themselves. What they do have is a certain kind of power: serious power, ranging from heavy weapons to surveillance techniques and legal authority. It is a mistake to think that institutions that mobilize force must be operated through violent or extreme masculinities. As argued in the preceding, the masculinities visible in these case studies are mostly pragmatic and moderate, open to negotiation and change. Undoubtedly other masculinities exist in the security sector; it is important that the “pragmatic” masculinities are pragmatic about the use of force. Violence is not ruled out, but it is meant to be controlled, strategically used, and that balancing is the task of the managers. One of the illuminating moments in the interviews came when Peter expressed his annoyance with aggressive young men in the police who overdo it and get into punch-ups. He admires the women in the force who can keep a situation under control without violence. But he also has to keep a masculinized workforce happy and keep the area’s police afloat as an organization, rolling out its 24/7 service of a uniform copper in a truck. The uneasy balance between an equal opportunity regime and its benefits and the traditional masculinization of force is seen in different forms through these interviews. It has deep roots in the gender order. Gender is, at the most basic level, the set of social arrangements surrounding the reproductive differences between bodies; a masculine specialization in violence is not a necessary part of this but historically became a widespread feature of gender orders, especially in the world created by modern imperialism. The combined impact of modern feminism (operating mainly through the state) and neoliberal individualism (operating mainly through the market) weakens old-style gendered occupational cultures. But global capitalism’s need for protection, enforcement, and social order remains—even increases, as suggested by the recent growth of the private security sector. Two possible solutions to this dilemma are implicit in our interviews. One is the development of an organizational masculinity in the security sector that works its way free of sexed bodies and that can readily be enacted by women. The second is a de-gendering of the use of force, meaning that security services have to fi nd other bases of action and solidarity than gender—perhaps class or ethnicity. One would have to go a long way beyond the experience of contemporary managers to fi nd solutions to global and local confl ict that do not involve force at all.

58

Raewyn Connell

REFERENCES Agostino, Katerina. 1998. “The Making of Warriors: Men, Identity and Military Culture.” Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies 3:58–75. Barrett, Frank J. 1996. “The Organizational Construction of Hegemonic Masculinity: The Case of the US Navy.” Gender, Work and Organization 3:129–42. Braedley, Susan, and Meg Luxton, eds. 2010. Exploring Neoliberalism: Power, Social Relations, Contradiction. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Collinson, David L., David Knights, and Margaret Collinson. 1990. Managing to Discriminate. London: Routledge. Connell, Raewyn. 2005. “A Really Good Husband: Work/Life Balance, Gender Equity and Social Change.” Australian Journal of Social Issues 40 (3): 369–83. . 2006. “The Experience of Gender Change in Public Sector Organizations.” Gender Work and Organization 13 (5): 435–52. . 2010a. “Im Innern des gläsernen Turms: Die Konstruktion von Männlichkeiten im Finanzkapital.” Feministische Studien 28 (1): 8–24. . 2010b. “Lives of the Businessmen: Reflections on Life-History Method and Contemporary Hegemonic Masculinity.” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie 35 (2): 54–71. Connell, Raewyn, and Julian Wood. 2005. “Globalization and Business Masculinities.” Men and Masculinities 7 (4): 347–64. Donaldson, Mike, and Scott Poynting. 2007. Ruling Class Men: Money, Sex, Power. Bern: Peter Lang. Fanon, Frantz. 1952/1967. Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove. Hall, Alex, Jenny Hockey, and Victoria Robinson. 2007. “Occupational Cultures and the Embodiment of Masculinity: Hairdressing, Estate Agency and Firefighting.” Gender, Work and Organization 14 (6): 534–51. Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hooper, Charlotte. 2000. “Masculinities in Transition: The Case of Globalization.” In Gender and Global Restructuring, edited by Marianne H. Marchand and Anne Sisson Runyan, 59–73. London: Routledge. Messerschmidt, James W. 1997. Crime as Structured Action: Gender, Race, Class, and Crime in the Making. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mulholland, Kate. 1996. “Entrepreneurialism, Masculinities and the Self-Made Man.” In Men as Managers, Managers as Men, edited by David L. Collinson and Jeff Hearn, 123–49. London: Sage. Nandy, Ashis. 1983. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Olavarría, José, ed. 2009. Masculinidades y globalización: Trabajo y vida privada, familias y sexualidades. Santiago: Red de Masculinidiad/es Chile, Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano and CEDEM. Paap, Kris. 2006. Working Construction: Why White Working-Class Men Put Themselves—and the Labor Movement—In Harm’s Way. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Paz, Octavio. 1950/1990. The Labyrinth of Solitude. Enlarged ed. London: Penguin. Plummer, Ken. 2001. Documents of Life 2: An Invitation to a Critical Humanism. London: Sage. Taga, Futoshi, Mitsunari Higashino, Masanori Sasaki, and Yohei Murata. 2011. Changing Lives of Salarymen. Kyoto: Mineruvashobo. Wajcman, Judy. 1999. Managing Like a Man: Women and Men in Corporate Management. Sydney: Allen and Unwin Australia.

4

The “Agency” of Men Male Buyers in the Global Sex Industry Sheila Jeffreys

This chapter examines the implications of the “agency” that male buyers exercise in the global sex industry. I argue that the expression of this “agency” forms the demand that is causing the expansion and diversification of this industry in the present. I start from the understanding that the behavior of men who buy women in prostitution is socially constructed, rather than the natural expression of a biological urge. The “idea of prostitution”, that is, that women’s bodies can be bought and used for men’s sexual pleasure, is cultural and can be encouraged or discouraged (Jeffreys 1997). The behavior of male buyers has attracted an increasing literature in the last decade, which seeks to explain why men buy prostituted women with the aim of developing effective ways to discourage them. This work has come largely from feminists who consider prostitution to harm women and seek its abolition. Recently a new literature about buyers has emerged from feminists who take the “sex work” position, that is, that prostitution is legitimate work that should be decriminalized and enabled to develop as an industry, which takes a very different approach. The “sex work” feminists argue that male buyers are misunderstood, ordinary men, who are exercising their consumer rights in the marketplace and seeking intimacy with prostituted women. The argument that male buyers are just individual, choice-laden consumers deflects attention from the structural factors involved in the sex industry domestically and globally. It absolves the male buyers of any responsibility for the harms that are integral to the sex industry. I will argue that the agency of these ordinary men founds the creation of global systems of trafficking and prostitution that are constructed out of racism, deprivation, and the subordination of women.

THE AGENCY OF MEN AND THE NEOLIBERAL AGENDA In my book, The Industrial Vagina (2009), I argued that the ideas and practices of neoliberal economics were imported into thinking on prostitution in recent decades, including that of many feminists. The effect was to displace the traditional feminist understanding that prostitution derives

60

Sheila Jeff reys

from male domination and harms both the women who are prostituted and the status of women more generally (see Millett 1975). In its stead a language of choice, agency, and entrepreneurialism was developed to explain women’s subjection to this industry. The decriminalization of prostitution was promoted as if this harmful cultural practice (Jeffreys 2004) was just a form of work like any other. Feminists who took up this approach will be called here “sex work” feminists. Researchers who take the sex work perspective concentrate on the importance of supporting the exercise of choice and agency by prostituted women (Agustin 2007; Doezema 2001). I have argued that these individualizing approaches to sex industry practices are unsuitable for understanding the growth of the global sex industry, the power, influence, and resourcefulness of which provides the structural context in which women are prostituted (Jeff reys 2009). I understand the sex work position on male buyers, as ordinary consumers exercising their rights in the marketplace (Sanders 2008; Sanders, O’Neill, and Pitcher 2009), as emphasizing the “agency” of men, although these writers do not use this term for the buyers, only for the women who are bought. Men have agency, and the social power and resources to exercise it, because they are the ruling sex class. They are in a position to “choose” to buy a woman in prostitution or not to do so, with few constraints on their behavior. It is the buyers who exercise free will, unconstrained by the factors that impel women into being the objects of their use, such as previous histories of violence, poverty, drug use, and homelessness (Barry 1995). The male buyers do not prostitute women as a consequence of such experiences, rather, they express untrammeled agency. Feminist literature that emphasizes agency attributes it solely to the oppressed, usually women in circumstances of severe poverty, and subordination. The term agency is now used in order to transform the oppression of women into a form of self-determination (Jeffreys 2012). The new writing on the buyers as choice makers in the marketplace shares with that of sex work proponents on prostituted women the concentration on individual motivations. There is no recognition of the context in which men make their consumer choices or the implications of their decisions. Their choices form the demand that is the foundation for the global flows and forms of exploitation through which women are recruited and supplied into domestic and global prostitution markets. The male buyers are more clearly and obviously exercising agency than the women whose use they purchase, and it is not the agency of the oppressed, but the agency of the oppressors, rather a different entity. Prostitution researchers who have not adopted the neoliberal perspective take a different approach to prostituted women and to the male buyers (McKeganey and Barnard 1996; O’Connell Davidson 1998). They see prostitution as exploitative and harmful to women or defi ne it as a form of violence. Some go so far as to seek to bring men’s prostitution abuse of women to an end, and these will be called here “abolitionists”. Abolitionists who

The “Agency” of Men

61

argue that prostitution is a form of violence against women support this contention with research that shows that prostituted women suffer high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and need to dissociate emotionally to survive (Farley 2003). They use the occupational health and safety codes developed in states where brothel prostitution is legalized to show that the practice constitutes violence (Sullivan 2007). In the state of Victoria, Australia, for instance, “Safety Tips for Escort Workers”, on a state government website, advises prostituted women they should be careful when using local anesthetic in the vagina because it can hide more serious injuries (Jeffreys 2010a). Research on the death rates of women in prostitution shows very large differences from the general population of women, with one US study, carried out in the town of Colorado Springs, fi nding that prostituted women were eighteen times more likely to be murdered (Potterat et al. 2004). When researchers who recognize the harms women suffer in prostitution investigate the motives of male buyers, they do not fi nd that these are ordinary choice-making consumers, but conclude that they are motivated by the desire to exercise power over women or other equally negative ambitions.

CRITICAL RESEARCH ON BUYERS Before the recent development of a pro-buyer literature, research on the attitudes and motivations of male buyers showed rather clearly that these men are motivated by aims that require power over a prostituted woman and are negative toward her rights and personhood. Research on male buyers was rare before the late 1990s; as Neil McKeganey and Marina Barnard commented then, “We know very little about men buying sex” (1996, 48). In their work they make no attempt to make the buyers seem sympathetic. They found that the men’s expressed motivations for their behavior could be divided into the following categories: capacity to specify particular sex acts they wished to perform, or have performed on them; the capacity to have sex with a range of different women; the ability to seek out women with specific physical attributes or displaying particular images; the thrill of doing something that was socially frowned on; and the limited and unemotional nature of the contact. The buyers speak of being able to get oral sex with or without a condom and being able to ejaculate in women’s mouths, activities their women partners rejected. They say that going to a prostituted woman “is easy” because of the lack of emotion and “commitment”. One explained that a prostituted woman “is there to service you”; “it’s like going to have your car done, you tell them what you want done, they don’t ask” (ibid., 53). Hardly any of the interviewees had informed their partners of their prostitution use and said that their wives would throw them out or be “horrified”. The men’s comments suggest that what they are buying is, in fact, the power to command. Julia O’Connell Davidson describes the power that

62 Sheila Jeff reys male buyers gain over women in prostitution clearly, saying that prostitution is an “institution which allows certain powers of command over one person’s body to be exercised by another” (O’Connell Davidson 1998, 9). A buyer pays in order that “he may command the prostitute to make body orifices available to him, to smile, dance or dress up for him, to whip, spank, massage or masturbate him, to submit to being urinated on, shackled or beaten by him, or otherwise submit to his wishes and desires” (ibid., 10). Buyers, she explains, see nonprostituted women as “powerful, vindictive, careless”, and “threatening” because they are not under men’s control—”they are in a position to control themselves, that is to say, to exercise choice over whether or not to meet a man’s sexual and emotional demands” (157). For such men, O’Connell Davidson argues, buying the use of prostituted women is exciting partly because this “represents an act of vengeance against ‘good’ women’s demands for monogamy and sexual restraint”. The secrets and lies that the buyers resort to excite them, she says, and they “disempower and so harm” and enact “revenge” on other people such as wives (158). In the last decade, in response to Article 9 of the 2000 Protocol on Trafficking in Persons (Raymond 2001), research on buyers intensified (see, for example, MacLeod et al. 2008; Blevins and Holt 2009; Farley et al. 2011b). Article 9 calls on signatories to reduce the demand for trafficking by a variety of means, including legislation and education. The adoption by a number of states of legislation that penalizes men who buy “sexual services”, Sweden in 1999, followed by South Korea, Norway, and Iceland, has encouraged this developing interest in the buyers (Ekberg 2004). If buyers are to be discouraged, it is necessary to know what motivates them. This newer research, also, provides much evidence that men seek to buy power over prostituted women. This power to command is very clear in the fi ndings of the study Men Who Buy Sex, for instance (Farley, Bindel, and Golding 2009). In the study 47 percent of the 103 male buyers interviewed considered that “women did not always have certain rights during prostitution”. Moreover, 27 percent said that once a buyer has paid, he is “entitled to engage in any act he chooses” (ibid., 13).

REHABILITATING THE BUYERS In response to the burgeoning literature that problematizes buyer behavior and seeks to understand how to change it, there is an emerging pro-buyer literature, from the “sex work” position, which seeks to rehabilitate the buyers and portrays them as ordinary, harmless men, exercising their rights in the marketplace as consumers. This literature tells us, for instance, that although there is a worryingly high level of male buyers who murder prostituted women, only a minority of them do this. “This level of violence is committed by a very small number of clients” (Sanders, O’Neill, and Pitcher

The “Agency” of Men

63

2009, 86). Most buyers, these researchers report, do not intend to be violent and engage in the sex industry with “a set of morals, etiquette and codes of conduct” (ibid.). Teela Sanders’s Paying for Pleasure (2008) is a good example of this approach. Her book is a riposte to the feminist researchers and activists whose work has portrayed men’s buying behavior in a negative light and argued for the “Nordic” model of penalizing the buyers. She criticizes “some extremists” who see the male buyers as “perpetrators of oppressive sex acts”, and as seeking out “paid-for sex entirely because of power and their dominant social and economic position” (ibid., 6). Sanders, a member of the UK branch of the Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP), takes the NSWP position in considering prostitution to be “genuine labor” (2008, 10). For those who take a sex work position, and are focused on enabling the sex industry to thrive, it is necessary to defend the male buyers and represent them as innocuous clients of a legitimate business. She accuses abolitionist feminists of being “man-hating” and explains that her book “bucks against this trend” and “sheds light on the humanity of men who buy sex” and “provides a platform” for the “voice” of these men “who have rarely been consulted or represented”. She continues that the male buyers are a “powerful group in their everyday status position”, but they have “no political power or voice regarding their sexual identity and practice” (ibid.). Sanders says that she refers to “sexual services as pleasure” in order to put forward the “possibility that not all sex work is damaging, coerced or against the sex worker’s will” (ibid., 11). The problem with this formulation is its one-sidedness. The male buyers may indeed experience pleasure, but there is much evidence that the women who are prostituted experience the precise opposite (Farley, Bindel, and Golding 2009). Men’s pleasure does not negate women’s pain, but, in prostitution, is likely to be the cause of it. Sanders argues that rather than seeking power, men seek “intimacy” in their prostitution buying. This is an unusual use of the term, considering that the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1990, 1099) defi nes it as “closeness”. Since women must perforce be used by a large number of buyers in order to make a living, intimacy is not likely for them. The idea that intimacy can be one-sided, with one party being the object of another’s intimacy although they wish to be anywhere else but there, is in rather stark contrast to its usual meaning. A significant problem with relying on the accounts of the male buyers to understand the realities of prostitution is that this extracts the individual behavior of buyers from the social and political context of male domination in which it takes place, one aspect of which is the fact that many of these men are married to women who are being deceived. In Sanders’s work, as in all the buyer research referred to here, about half of the men were in relationships with women. The men Sanders interviewed who were in relationships did not want their women partners to fi nd out what they were doing, lest they leave them. The world her mainly middle-class and educated British buyers inhabit is one in which many women have become conscious of

64 Sheila Jeff reys the possibility of equality and mutuality in relationships, and the “double standard” in which women were expected to reconcile themselves to the fact that husbands would engage sexually with other women is no longer so well accepted. Sanders also comments that these men understand their behavior as “acceptable, non-threatening and in many ways reflective of normal male heterosexual sexual scripts” (2008, 69). This is a problem for the men’s partners, who are likely to want more consideration in their sex lives than the buyers give to prostituted women. Men’s prostitution behavior is not consonant with women’s equality in relationships.

ONLINE BUYER WEBSITES Sanders sourced most of her interviewees from the online site PunterNet, where men in their thousands place their comments on prostituted women they have used. The site serves to advertise prostitution but also creates a community of buyers. Sanders is positive about PunterNet, commenting that the online “community” provides buyers with self-acceptance that they need because they are “sexually disenfranchised by a society that is still troubled by accepting sexual difference among consenting adults” (2008, 81). Use of the term disenfranchisement could be seen as attaching too much seriousness to the travails of men who are deceiving their wives and paying to have power over entry to another person’s body for their own pleasures. Sanders’s view as to the significance of these sites is now commonly expressed in academic papers that have a positive approach to male buyers (Cunningham and Kendall 2011; Soothill and Sanders 2005). Soothill and Sanders say that there must be no attention from the “health police” to these sites because they play such an important role, the male buyers “police themselves” (2005, para. 8, 7). The sites are wholly positive, they conclude, because they create safety in the sex of prostitution, “the regulation of behaviour online transfers to the off-line real-life encounters between men and women, relying on each other to reach their desired goal, usually in a safe and consensual manner” (para. 8, 9). Research that takes a more critical perspective on these online buyer sites, which connect men both domestically and internationally, gives a rather different glimpse into the mind-set of those who use them and their attitudes to prostituted women. One US study has developed a glossary of the specialized argot the buyers have developed to communicate about their interests, a language that is found replicated on buyer sites from the US to the UK and Australia (Blevins and Holt 2009). The study comments on how these sites increase the confidence of buyers and enable them to aim for superior status in the online buyer community by becoming a “pooner”, that is, a man who is very experienced both as a buyer and online (ibid.). The men neutralize any possible negative feelings they may have about their behavior by inventing a new language, and they describe themselves

The “Agency” of Men

65

as “mongers, trollers, or hobbyists” (ibid., 626). They have developed a language that the researchers consider reduces the women to objects for sale, such as the term spinner, which refers to, according to a buyer, “a girl who is so tiny in proportion that you can put her on top of your bone and ‘spin’ her like a top” (629). The commodification of women is further illustrated by the use of a term taken from the sale of cars, mileage, to indicate “women whose appearance reflected the physical and emotional toll that sex work takes on prostitutes” (630). The appendix, which details the argot that the buyers use, suggests that the online sites examined in the US, at least, were not concerned with safety and health—for example, BBBJTC, which is oral sex without a condom to orgasm, or BBJTCWS, which indicates that the buyer ejaculates on the woman’s face, or “anilingus” meaning “oral stimulation of anus”. This research suggests that the community of buyers online may provide training in how to abuse women rather than a guide to safe sex.

THE MALE SEX RIGHT If the behavior of male buyers is considered from a feminist perspective that recognizes that men and women are unequally placed in a system of power relations, the men’s behavior does not look benign. It is an aspect of that which feminist political theorist, Carole Pateman (1988), calls the “male sex right”. It is not reciprocal, because women do not have this right, and it is created from male domination. Access to women’s bodies for sexual, reproductive, and labor purposes is a privilege that men have traditionally acquired either through marriage or through prostitution, both practices in which women are exchanged between men for use (Jeff reys 2009). The idea that men have such a right dies hard. It is still being propagated by sex advice writers, for instance, who direct women to service men’s sexual desires irrespective of their own desire. When this servile practice by women is called “sex”, what is actually being described is a rather specific kind of sex that is, according to feminist theorists (Barry 1995; Tyler 2011), the “sex of prostitution”, that is, the one-sided sexual use of a woman in which the woman’s pleasure and personhood are irrelevant. A good example of the enforcement of the male sex right, and the sex of prostitution, on nonprostituted women in the present is presented by the work of the influential Australian sex advice writer, Bettina Arndt. Arndt was editor of the Australian edition of the sex magazine Forum, a product of the sexual revolution, in the 1980s. She wrote her book The Sex Diaries out of a concern that men were not getting sufficient access, or what she calls, using the language of the marketplace, supply. “What I hear about most is the business of negotiating the sex supply” (Arndt 2009, 2). She says women should “just do it” whether they want to or not, and excoriates the women who refuse to do this for treating men’s “yearnings” with

66 Sheila Jeff reys “contempt”. She blames feminism for this situation, “Women’s right to say ‘no’ has been enshrined in our cultural history for nearly fi fty years . . . The right to say ‘no’ needs to give way to saying ‘yes’ more often—provided both men and women end up enjoying the experience”; she instructs women to stop “rationing” sex (ibid., 12). The effect of women being able to say no has been a serious problem for men, and once again she uses the language of the marketplace to express this. “But there’s also no doubt that women now feel entitled to close up shop. Safe in the knowledge that they are no longer under any obligation to put out when they are not in the mood, sexual rejection easily becomes a way of life” (47). It is feminists who are to blame for men’s misery because they alerted women to the right to say no, she explains. “Yet the idea of having sex without desire is now considered reactionary, a challenge to the feminist orthodoxy that has ruled our sexual lives for decades” (79). Prostitution, of course, provides the most excellent example of women who are “having sex without desire”. Women’s tendency to be reluctant to service men sexually in the absence of desire has historically been noted and campaigned against by the sexologists, or scientists of sex, and their popularizers, sex advice writers (Jeffreys 1985/1997, 1990/2011). Women have had no absolute right to deny men their “sex right”. It was only from the 1980s onward that the right of women in marriage to control access to their own bodies was recognized in law in some countries (Jeff reys 2009). Prostitution instantiates the male sex right, and its apologists seem to implicitly accept that men have such a prerogative. The increasingly widespread recognition that women do not have to accept sexual use without desire may play a part in the increasing attractiveness of prostitution, where men still have access to the oldfashioned pleasures of being able to coerce women, through their need for subsistence, into sex they do not want.

MALE BUYERS IN THE GLOBAL SEX INDUSTRY The exercise of the male sex right leads to the development of the global sex industry. The behavior of male buyers harms women in domestic prostitution industries through damage to their physical and mental health and, arguably, harms the status of all women, since women’s opportunities in the workplace, their relationships, and public space are all affected by men’s use of prostituted women. These harms have been enumerated and detailed elsewhere (Jeffreys 2009). I shall concentrate in the following pages on two harms that male demand, through the exercise of the male sex right, has on women in the global sex industry: the exploitation and exercise of racism and the trafficking of women. Even supposing that Teela Sanders is correct, and prostitution buyers in Western countries such as the UK are decent fellows making legitimate choices in the marketplace, their behavior provides the demand for a global sex industry that is based on gross inequality, the

The “Agency” of Men

67

subordinate status of women, and racism. Individual male buyers create a force in the form of demand that exploits these systems of subordination to deliver girls and women as “supply” into the industry (Roby and Tanner 2009). From involvement in domestic prostitution industries, buyers may branch out to take part in the global sex industry through webcam prostitution in which men in the UK, for instance, can pay to see women and girls in the Philippines and other poor countries strip and engage in sex acts. They can engage in prostitution tourism, the male order bride industry, and the global exchange of women to nurture trade and business relationships. These activities are not benign in their effects and are likely to exploit the class and race inequalities that are the foundation of propelling women into prostitution and enabling trafficking.

RACISM IN THE GLOBAL SEX INDUSTRY Research on prostitution has paid insufficient attention to the way that racism structures and infuses the global sex industry. There are two ways in which this occurs. Race functions as akin to economic class, that is, the women trafficked and sold in the global sex industry are the poorest and most vulnerable of women, and the poorest and most vulnerable of women are most likely to be those who are racially oppressed. Race as class leads to the overrepresentation of racially subordinated and indigenous women in national sex industries in states such as Australia, Canada, and the US. Race as class explains the way in which poor women are transported from Asia and Africa to rich countries to be sexually used by men of their own ethnicity and by racially privileged men in the trafficking of women into prostitution and pornography. Also, racism functions as racialized misogyny, in which racist sexual stereotyping fuels the cruel excitement of the global sex industry for the male buyers. This is most clearly seen in the way in which the US pornography industry uses black and Asian women, for instance. The titles of the porn movies and their descriptions online are full of racially directed hate (Dines 2010). In prostitution industries all over the world, the poorest and most vulnerable women are recruited or sold by their parents or husbands/boyfriends into brothels and onto the street. These are commonly women whose impoverishment is the result of racial discrimination, such as poor education and job opportunities, homelessness, and loss of land and subsistence in the process of globalization. In Canada and the US, and in New Zealand, Taiwan, and Australia, indigenous women and girls in particular, often at very young ages, make up a considerable percentage of those who are prostituted, a percentage much larger than their share of the population as a whole. Researchers into the prostitution and trafficking of “native women” in Minnesota argue that the overrepresentation of native women must be understood in relation to the history of colonialism in which the

68

Sheila Jeff reys

“European system of prostitution was imposed by force on tribal communities through nearly every point of contact between Europeans and Native people” (Farley et al. 2011a, 14). Native women in the US have suffered severe rates of victimization from sexual and domestic violence, as well as high rates of PTSD, extreme poverty, homelessness, and chronic health problems (ibid., 16). The overrepresentation is extreme, with native women accounting for 24 percent of the women on probation for prostitution in Minnesota despite the fact that they comprise only 2 percent of the local population. This study found that the demand for the native women came overwhelmingly, 78 percent, from white European-American men. In Australia, too, there is an overrepresentation of indigenous women in street prostitution. A 2006 study carried out in Sydney, New South Wales, which accessed street prostituted women via outreach agencies, found that 23 percent of their sample identified themselves as being of aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) origin (Roxburgh, Degenhardt, and Copeland 2006). The percentage of the population of New South Wales that is indigenous was estimated in the same year to be 2.2 percent (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006). The present-day practice of prostituting indigenous Australian women has historical roots. Indigenous girls and women were prostituted in large numbers by the male colonizers who opened up the outback for trade, cattle, and mining (Frances 2007).The racism that underpins the industry is also indicated in the overrepresentation of black American women in prostitution in the US. Valandra, from the agency Breaking Free, identifies prostitution as “an extension of slavery that disproportionately affects African American women and girls” (2007, 196). Vednita Nelson (1993) explains how racism makes black women and girls especially vulnerable to sexual exploitation and keeps them trapped in the sex industry. She says it does this by limiting educational and career opportunities for African Americans and through the workings of the welfare system. Nelson compares the current practice of white men trawling cities looking for black women to buy to slavery. Thus, “Today, middle-class white men from the suburbs drive through the ghettos of America to pick out whichever Black women or girls they want to have sex with, as if our cities were their own private plantations” (ibid., 84). Buyer demand is expressed as racialized misogyny in the legalized prostitution industry of Queensland, Australia, where women are marketed by skin color and ethnicity. The Prostitution Licensing Authority in that state, which oversees the legal sector, regulates advertising, vetting advertisements to ensure they are of an approved size and do not include forbidden language. The advice on advertising policy contains four pages of approved words and phrases for use. The words include Asian, Greek, slave, submissive, Spanish, your bust size, donkey. Approved phrases include “18 year old, busty, brunette”, “mysterious Oriental temptress”, “Asian, pretty, friendly”, “all Australian babe”, “Asian delight”, “charcoal black chicky babe”, “sexy Japanese, friendly and attractive” (quoted in Jeffreys 2010a,

The “Agency” of Men

69

229). In Queensland the sex work advocacy group SSPAN defends retention of such language by saying that it is vital for working, since the male buyers want to buy bodies of a particular skin color and may even be violent if they do not get what they want. They explain, “The fetishisation of race and ethnicity are an integral part of the sex industry. Clients want to be able to locate a ‘type’ without ringing dozens of advertisments”, and problems may occur “if sole operators can’t inform potential clients of their skin colour” and “they will potentially be exposed to violent situations” (SSPAN 2006, 5). Many of the women who are racially identified in the Queensland industry are likely to be trafficked.

TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN The racism of the global sex industry is particularly evident in the trafficking of women to supply the demand from buyers in the burgeoning prostitution industry. Trafficking for prostitution consists of women and girls being recruited by pimps and traffickers for transport to destinations away from their homes, within countries or between them. The World Conference against Racism in 2001 had trafficking as the fi rst of its five themes (WCAR 2001), but the racism involved in trafficking is rarely commented on in the academic literature on the subject. It is manifest in two ways: in the transportation of poor women who are overwhelmingly from countries with a history of colonization or exploitation by the West and who are likely to be of a different ethnicity from the male buyers at the destination, and in the explicit racialized misogyny with which the women are sold to male buyers and treated by them. Trafficked women are kept in debt bondage, a modern form of slavery, in which they are told by traffickers that they must pay off large debts before they may earn any money. In Australia, for instance, this debt may be up to fifty thousand dollars and has to be repaid through sexual use by up to eight hundred male buyers over a period of months (Maltzahn 2008). Some women are recruited by trickery, violence, or kidnapping. Although most are likely to know that they will be prostituted at their destinations, they are ignorant of the conditions of slavery they will face. In many European countries that tolerate or legalize prostitution, trafficked women constitute the majority of women in the industry (Jeff reys 2009). Australia has been sheltered by its island status, but the percentages are going up. A 2010 study of prostituted women attending a sexual health clinic in western Sydney found that 54.5 percent were born overseas, and 32 percent were from non-English-speaking backgrounds (Kakar et al. 2010). Among those born overseas, 32.7 percent were born in China, 15.3 percent in Thailand. Others were from Vietnam and Korea. The study reflects only those prepared or permitted to attend such a clinic, so is not necessarily a good indication of the percentage of women from Asian backgrounds. There is a persistent

70 Sheila Jeff reys argument from sex work organizations and academics who take the sex work position in Australia that such Asian women are simply migrant laborers who choose to come to Australia and should not be seen as trafficked (Scarlet Alliance 1998). But women from Asia are unlikely to arrive in Australia through their own agency, because of lack of language skills, fi nances, and connections. They are most likely to have been trafficked and in debt bondage. Prostituted women who have been trafficked are appreciated by male buyers because the women’s ability to control the way they are used is even more constrained than for other women. In a study of buyer motivations in London, the usefulness of trafficked women was well expressed by an interviewee who said, “You can do a lot more with the Oriental girls like blow job without a condom, and you can cum in their mouths . . . I view them as dirty” (Farley, Bindel, and Golding 2009, 21). The women are under such extreme conditions of debt bondage, threats, and control that they are in no position to refuse unsafe practices. The way that trafficked women are treated in Melbourne, Australia, is evident on the website Melbourne Brothels, which advertises the legal brothels of Melbourne and provides details of the services they offer. It is at once noticeable that many of the brothels have Asian-themed names, with words such as exotic, harem, and lotus commonly featured. On the web pages of the brothels, the male buyers conduct a conversation with each other about their sexual prowess in their encounters at the brothels and what they think of the women in them. From this we learn that even when the brothels do not have an Asian-themed name, the women in many of them are entirely or mostly Asian. Nonetheless, these brothels do not come under the scrutiny of the authorities despite laws against trafficking. The women are described by the buyers as being reluctant, as not speaking any English, as being shouted at by the Korean pimp. It is quite unlikely that they came to Melbourne under their own steam. Apart from providing evidence of racism as class, these web pages offer much evidence of racialized misogyny. The male buyers, who are likely to be non-Asian from the clear exoticizing of Asian women that they engage, constantly refer to the Asian-ness of the women they encounter and the women they buy: “I am a bit partial to young asian chicks”; “Was introduced to about six (maybe more) asian ladies almost all at once”; “She’s Thai but fair and has a great set of enhanced breasts”; “Mamasan waves hello to me” (Melbourne Brothels 2011). There is evidence of the pain the women suffer: “sexy asian girl . . . suddenly stopped after like 10 minutes, claiming she was sore because I was too big! I am sorry, but flattery will NOT get you everywhere” (ibid.). There is evidence of increased trafficking, with buyers commenting on the “VERY ASIAN turn” at the Tender Touch brothel, and the comment that this brothel was just “SMACKING OF HOT KOREAN GIRLS and one or 2 thais” (ibid.). The buyers complain that the Asian women do not speak English. At the Tender Touch, a buyer comments, “3 girls on offer. 1st 2 intro’s were

The “Agency” of Men

71

terrible, just no enthusiasm on display and despite some prompting from me still nothing. Young girls forgotten their names and obviously inexperienced” (Melbourne Brothels 2011). At Cherry Blossoms a buyer complains, “I love Asian women . . . But I sometimes fi nd that their English is lacking, which can make it difficult to hold a decent conversation” (ibid.). Some of the Asian women did not show sufficient enthusiasm for the practices the buyers wanted to enact on or in them, with one commenting, “She was very innocent and accommodating—full kissing, fi ngering anal but wouldn’t let me drop load over her pretty face”. Another buyer comments that Lala, who “squealed in Korean”, was “not the most responsive or enthusiastic recipient of DATY” (ibid.). DATY is male buyer slang for oral sex performed on a prostituted woman, meaning “dining at the Y”, referring to the shape made by a woman’s parted legs (Blevins and Holt 2009). In some cases the buyer feels the need to reprimand the prostituted woman he has paid to use for having hair on her genitals or some other flaw. In the case of a Taiwanese woman at the Cherry Blossoms brothel, a buyer commented, “While unshaved, her bush is not a jungle like some Asian ladies. I stroked the hair and carefully explained to her that most Asian men like this, but many Western men like shaved” (ibid.). The agency of male buyers creates the demand that creates the trafficking supply chain. From the Melbourne Brothels website, it seems that the non-Asian male buyers do not simply create trafficking through a demand larger than the local women can supply, but that they actively select trafficked women for their use.

AGENCY ACROSS BORDERS Although I have only had space here to consider a limited number of practices in which the agency of men creates the harms of the global sex industry, there are many other areas in which male buyers travel beyond their own borders to exercise their sex right and these include prostitution tourism, the male order bride industry, and business prostitution in which business and professional men create bonds and make deals in the world economy. When men become involved in these international opportunities, they carry the harms they are already perpetrating in their home countries to new contexts. They continue to exploit racism and create the demand for this harmful industry in growing and more varied forms in the global prostitution marketplace. When they return home, they may import the practices they sample abroad. A 2011 study, for instance, in which 1,125 Danish tourists aged sixteen to thirty-four were interviewed as they returned from their holiday at a Bulgarian tourist resort, suggests both the way that prostitution tourism has been normalized and the effect on the Danish industry (Morten and Tutenges 2011). The researchers found that 12.5 percent of the men admitted to paying for prostitution during their holiday, and 47 percent of these did so for the fi rst time. Strip clubs were

72 Sheila Jeff reys visited by 48 percent of the men, 32 percent for the fi rst time. The authors suggest that prostitution tourism cultivates buyer behavior, so that these young men return to Denmark as experienced buyers and create further demand in that country. As with the behavior of male buyers in the domestic market, the behavior of prostitution tourists has undergone a rehabilitation, this time in the academic discipline of leisure and tourism studies (Ryan and Hall 2001). Thus two male professors of leisure studies specifically reject feminist criticism of sex tourism and prostitution in scathing tones. They say that “much of the debate on sex tourism . . . has been hijacked by a feminist rhetoric within which the client is the male and the prostitute female . . . It also implies that the prostitute is the victim” (ibid., 37). The field research and interviews carried out by feminist prostitution tourism researchers, on the other hand, provide good support for the notion that prostitution tourists from the rich Western world seek to compensate themselves for the loss of masculine status they experience from an increase in women’s equality. O’Connell Davidson’s work on male sex tourists to Thailand demonstrated that they were all strongly motivated by the opportunity to “live like kings” or “playboys” (1995, 45). The men she interviewed had what she calls a “misogynistic rage” at Western women in general for acting as though they are men’s equals. The rage is at “women who have the power to demand anything at all, whether it is the right to have a say over who they have sex with and when, or the right to maintenance payments for their children” (ibid., 53). “Sex tourism,” says O’Connell Davidson, “helps British men to reinforce and construct a powerful and positive image of themselves as a particular kind of white heterosexual man” (52). Men who participate in the male order bride industry express similar sentiments (Jeffreys 2009). Corporate and business prostitution in the domestic marketplace in countries such as Australia and in cities in Asia where international businessmen congregate, such as China, has been developed to accommodate the synergy between the demand for sexual access and the need to oil the wheels of commerce (Jeffreys 2010b).

CONCLUSION I have argued here that male buyers are not ordinary choice makers in the marketplace who deserve to be rehabilitated from the unkind stereotypes attached to them by feminist “man haters”. The vast majority of research on male buyers suggests that they are not benign in their motives, but do seek power and control over women to shore up their masculine status. The development of a literature that rehabilitates the male buyers should be a source of concern for scholars who are critical of the sex industry. Whatever the motives of individual men, the choices of male buyers en masse have the effect of creating a harmful industry both domestically and internationally.

The “Agency” of Men

73

Their demand brings the supply of trafficked women from poor countries to service their racialized misogyny; it brings racially subordinated and indigenous women and girls into domestic sex industries in numbers hugely disproportionate to their proportion in the population; and it creates prostitution tourism industries and the male order bride trade. The demands of male-run corporations and professions create business prostitution and ensure that global business remains secret men’s business and that women cannot have equal opportunities. The exercise of agency by male buyers creates global demand, which has effect in a world structured by the subordination of women, class and race inequality, racism, and colonialism. As most of those researching the behavior of male buyers argue, it is by seeking to change the choices of individual men, and inhibiting their agency, that the harms of prostitution may most readily be brought to an end.

REFERENCES Agustin, Laura. 2007. Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry. London: Zed. Arndt, Bettina. 2009. The Sex Diaries: Why Women Go Off Sex and Other Bedroom Battles. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2006. 4705.0 Population Distribution, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, 2006. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/ [email protected]/mf/4705.0. Barry, Kathleen. 1995. The Prostitution of Sexuality. New York: NYU Press. Blevins, Kristie R., and Thomas J. Holt. 2009. “Examining the Virtual Subculture of Johns.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 38 (5): 619–48. Cunningham, Scott, and Todd D. Kendall. 2011. “Prostitution 2.0: The Changing Face of Sex Work.” Journal of Urban Economics 69:273–87. Dines, Gail. 2010. Pornland. Melbourne: Spinifex. Doezema, Jo. 2001. “Ouch! Western Feminists’ ‘Wounded Attachment’ to the ‘Third World Prostitute.”‘ Feminist Review 67:16–38. Ekberg, Gunilla. 2004. “The Swedish Law that Prohibits the Purchase of Sexual Services: Best Practices for Prevention of Prostitution and Trafficking in Human Beings.” Violence against Women 10 (10): 1187–1218. Farley, Melissa, ed. 2003. Prostitution, Traffi cking and Traumatic Stress. Binghamton, NY: Haworth. Farley, Melissa, Julie Bindel, and Jacqueline M. Golding. 2009. Men Who Buy Sex: Who They Buy and What They Know. London: Eaves. Farley, Melissa, Nicole Matthews, Sarah Deer, Guardalupe Lopez, Christine Stark, and Eileen Hudon. 2011a. Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota. Saint Paul, MN: William Mitchell College of Law. Farley, Melissa, Emily Schuckman, Jacqueline M. Golding, Kristen Houser, Laura Jarrett, Peter Qualliotine, and Michelle Decker. 2011b. Comparing Sex Buyers with Men Who Don’t Buy Sex. “You Can Have a Good Time with the Servitude” v. “You’re Supporting a System of Degradation.” Boston: Psychologists for Social Responsibility Conference. Frances, Raelene. 2007. Selling Sex: A Hidden History of Prostitution. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.

74 Sheila Jeff reys Jeff reys, Sheila. 1985/1997. The Spinster and Her Enemies. London: Pandora. . 1990/2011. Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution. London: Women’s Press. . 1997. The Idea of Prostitution. Melbourne: Spinifex. . 2004. “Prostitution as a Harmful Cultural Practice.” In Not For Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography, edited by Christine Stark and Rebecca Whisnant, 386–99. Melbourne: Spinifex. . 2009. The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade. London: Routledge. . 2010a. “Brothels without Walls: The Escort Sector as a Problem for the Legalizing of Prostitution.” Social Politics 17 (2): 210–34. . 2010b. “The Sex Industry and Business Practice: An Obstacle to Women’s Equality.” Women’s Studies International Forum 33 (3): 274–82. . 2012. “Beyond ‘Agency’ and ‘Choice’ in Theorizing Prostitution.” In Prostitution, Harm and Gender Inequality, edited by Maddy Coy, 69–86. Farnham: Ashgate. Kakar, Sheena, Karen Biggs, Charles Chung, Shailendra Sawleshwarkar, Adrian Mindel, Katerina Lagios, and Richard J. Hilton. 2010. “A Retrospective Case Note Review of Sex Worker Attendees at Sexual Health Clinics in the Western Suburbs of Sydney.” Sexual Health 7:3–7. MacLeod, Jan, Melissa Farley, Lynn Anderson and Jacqueline Golding. 2008. Challenging Men’s Demand for Prostitution in Scotland. A Research Report Based on Interviews with 110 Men Who Bought Women in Prostitution. Glasgow: Women’s Support Project. Maltzahn, Kathleen. 2008. Traffi cked. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. McKeganey, Neil, and Marina Barnard. 1996. Sex Work on the Streets: Prostitutes and Their Clients. Buckingham: Open University Press. Melbourne Brothels. 2011. Westside. http://www.melbourne-brothels.com/westside-x/; http://www.melbourne-brothels.com/manhattan-terrace/; http://www. melbourne-brothels.com/tender-touch/; http://www.melbourne-brothels.com/ cherry-blossoms/. Millett, Kate. 1975. The Prostitution Papers. Saint Albans: Paladin. Morten, Hesse, and Sebastien Tutenges. 2011. “Young Tourists Visiting Strip Clubs and Paying for Sex.” Tourism Management 32:869–74. Nelson, Vednita. 1993. “Prostitution: Where Racism and Sexism Intersect.” Michigan Journal of Gender and Law 1:81–89. O’Connell Davidson, Julia. 1995. “British Sex Tourists in Thailand.” In (Hetero) sexual Politics, edited by Mary Maynard and June Purvis, 42–65. London: Taylor and Francis. . 1998. Prostitution, Power and Freedom. Cambridge: Polity. Oxford English Dictionary. 1990. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pateman, Carole. 1988. The Sexual Contract. Cambridge: Polity. Potterat, John J., Devon D. Brewer, Stephen Qul Muth, Richard B. Rothenberg, Donald E. Woodhouse, John B. Muth, Heather K. Stites, and Stuart Brody. 2004. “Mortality in a Long-Term Open Cohort of Prostitute Women.” American Journal of Epidemiology 159 (8): 778–85. Raymond, Janice G. 2001. Guide to the New UN Traffi cking Protocol. North Amherst, MA: Coalition against Trafficking in Women. http://action.web.ca/ home/catw/readingroom.shtml?x=33647&AA_EX_Session=d055064d712a28 d6ede7e600832a9c5b. Roby, Jini L., and Jacob Tanner. 2009. “Supply and Demand: Prostitution and Sexual Trafficking in Northern Thailand.” Geography Compass 3 (1): 89–107.

The “Agency” of Men

75

Roxburgh, Amanda, Louisa Degenhardt, and Jan Copeland. 2006. “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder among Female Street-Based Sex Workers in the Greater Sydney Area, Australia.” BMC Psychiatry 6. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ articles/PMC1481550/. Ryan, Chris, and Michael C. Hall. 2001. Sex Tourism: Marginal People and Liminalities. London: Routledge. Sanders, Teela. 2008. Paying for Pleasure: Men Who Buy Sex. Uffculme Cullompton, Devon: Willan. Sanders, Teela, Maggie O’Neill, and Jane Pitcher. 2009. Prostitution: Sex Work, Policy and Politics. London: Sage. Scarlet Alliance. 1998. Scarlet Alliance Briefi ng Paper. http://www.scarletalliance. org.au/library/slavery-briefi ngpaper. Soothill, Keith, and Teela Sanders. 2005. “The Geographical Mobility, Preferences and Pleasures of Prolific Punters: A Demonstration Study of the Activities of Prostitutes’ Clients.” Sociological Research Online 10. http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/1/soothill.html. SSPAN. 2006. Response to the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission Interim Position Paper (December 2005). 31 January. Sullivan, Mary. 2007. Making Sex Work: The Failed Experiment of Legalized Prostitution in Australia. Melbourne: Spinifex. Tyler, Meagan. 2011. Selling Sex Short: The Pornographic and Sexological Construction of Women’s Sexuality in the West. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Valandra. 2007. “Reclaiming Their Lives and Breaking Free. An Afrocentric Approach to Recovery from Prostitution.” Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work 22 (2): 195–208. WCAR. 2001. United Nations World Conference against Racism. United Nations. http://www.un.org/WCAR/.

5

Geek Myths Technologies, Masculinities, Globalizations David Bell

I’m pulling this chapter together around the time of two events—one global (at least in its coverage), the other distinctly local—that resonate with the paradox of the geek. The fi rst is the death (and strange afterlife) of Steve Jobs, the founder and former CEO of Apple Inc., usually figured as an archetypal geek. Jobs’s death has led to endless media discussion of his life and style, his views and his impact on many people’s lives. Like Steve Wozniak and Bill Gates, Jobs appears in most geek histories as personifying a key moment in the tale: the moment when geeks got rich (Feineman 2005; Varma 2007). The local event that also resonates with the key themes in my chapter was a social event organized by the student society in the geography school where I work. The theme of the party? “Dress Like a Geek”. I overheard some of my students discussing how they’d do this, what geek attire looks like—and they were all able to boil “geek” down to a handful of sartorial signifiers. So Jobs’s obituaries celebrated what Jon Katz (2000) calls “the geek ascension”, yet a class of geography students can still comfortably and comically parody geekiness on a night out. There’s the geek paradox, the oxymoron captured in the tag “geek chic”. In this chapter I want to think about this paradox, following the (computer) geek through popular culture, the workplace, the “creative city”, and around the world. In so doing, I aim to explore how geekdom as a particular articulation of masculinity has been both revalued and transnationalized, especially in relation to debates about the new global economy.

GEEK STUDIES Most discussions of the geek begin with origins and meanings and trace aspects of the etymology of the geek. There are, indeed, countless discussions of the arcane differences between geek and nerd—something to do with the balance between obsessive overinterest in specialist knowledge, an orientation toward intelligence, and degrees of self-awareness (I’ll be using these two terms almost interchangeably here). We can trace a family of terms that are sometimes used interchangeably, but that for other users have specific

Geek Myths

77

connotations and histories. Let’s call this the “dork-dweeb-nerd-geek-anorakswot-egghead-boffin” continuum. The origins of the word geek are slightly uncertain, but dictionaries always mention early usage to refer to a circus performer who specialized in “freakish” acts (biting the heads off chickens is always cited), with a more recent take-up of the term to mean someone unusually interested (obsessed even) in particular kinds of knowledge and expertise, often connected to technologies such as radio, computers, and the Internet. Other discussions broaden out their taxonomies to include, inter alia, science geeks, comic book geeks, role-player geeks, video game geeks, sci-fi geeks, and so on (Kirk 2005; Tucker 2009). I’m less interested in the question of origins and keener to explore how the geek is currently talked and written about, and how geekiness is conferred on particular people and particular practices—and with asking what’s going on when a person is labeled a geek or chooses to label themselves as a geek. I’m interested in geek knowledge and practice as a form of (sub)cultural capital and in thinking about how the geek is used to say things about ways of being oriented toward technologies and ways of doing masculinities. As Ulf Mellström (2004, 2) comments, “the topic of technology and masculinity remains an underdeveloped branch of the critical men’s studies tree”, so my aim is to contribute to the development of that branch through a critical discussion of the figure of the geek. Mellström’s comment brings us straight to the issue of gender. Notwithstanding the rise of “geek girls” (see Inness 2007), my interest is primarily in the male geek, or in the geek as a way of doing masculinities that at once resists, reaffirms, and ironizes hegemonic masculinity. In the burgeoning “popular geek culture” that I will discuss in a moment, geekiness is taken to symbolize particular (often devalued, sometimes revalued) masculine characteristics. Work on geek girls addresses this equation, in fact, exploring ways in which femininities might be alignable with geekiness, but also how geekiness might put up barriers that limit women’s and girls’ entry into geek culture and geek jobs. As Karin Westman (2007) argues, it’s only with the IT boom since the 1980s that geekdom has been coded so heavily male, although she sees this changing with the “rewiring” of IT by geek girls today. Nevertheless, Westman (2007, 25–26) concludes that “in the cultural imagination, ‘geek’ still suggests, first and foremost, a reclusive and socially awkward male immersed in the minutiae of computing”. Westman’s discussion brings together a number of previous studies that have explored geekiness as a form of masculinity that effectively discourages women’s entry into certain academic and professional fields, such as computer science and engineering (for example, Faulkner 2007; Margolis and Fisher 2002; Varma 2007; for an interesting exception, see Mellström 2009). While there is a modest but fascinating academic literature on geeks, or what we might label “geekology”, there is a parallel strand of popular representation. This includes an emerging popular literature that jokily models itself variously on self-help books, spotters’ guides, and even (of course)

78

David Bell

computer manuals. There are books like The Little Book of Geeks (Kirk 2005), The Geek Handbook (Halpin 2000), the self-administered diagnostic Are You a Geek? (Collins 2005), and some interesting books supposedly aimed at the (female) partners or would-be partners of (male) geeks, such as A Girl’s Guide to Dating a Geek (Inouye 2007) and I Geeks (Tucker 2009). These jokey books all do their own kinds of cultural work, which is just as interesting and important as academic geekology and which also traces the geek paradox succinctly—the books for women acknowledge that dating a geek is something they might want to try, not least because geeks are now getting rich. In fact, Omi Inouye’s guidebook suggests that getting a “girl” can turn an undesirable nerd into a marginally more desirable geek, helping both geek and girl to progress socially and economically. And while I haven’t tried to trace the screen histories of the geek (although see Kendall 1999a), there are a couple of current television shows that center on forms of geekiness that I have spent some time thinking about (and a lot of time watching): The Big Bang Theory and The IT Crowd. The latter is a UK sitcom about the IT department of a large corporation and centers on the geeky pratfalls of the two “techies”, Roy and Moss, and their decidedly non-techie female boss, Jen. The Big Bang Theory is a US sitcom about four science geeks (three physicists and one engineer), two of whom share an apartment, Odd Couple style. The comic foil for their geekiness is their neighbor, Penny, who (at least initially) plays the role of “dumb blonde” (much as Jen fulfi ls this role in The IT Crowd) in order to highlight the men’s geekiness. The Big Bang Theory is, in my mind, one of the most interesting and nuanced pop-cultural explorations of the world of geeks, with a knowing and affectionate humor. The series also has global appeal, being screened (according to Wikipedia) in more than seventy countries from Albania to the United Arab Emirates, despite its apparently US-specific context and cultural references. So it speaks to and about the “global geek”, a theme I shall return to later. In case you don’t watch The Big Bang Theory or have missed all the discussions of Steve Jobs and how geeks became cool, I’ll provide you with a composite sketch of the male computer geek drawn from and repeated in the emerging geekology mentioned in the preceding. Computer geeks are depicted as mainly white, middle-class heterosexual (but desexualized) males, lacking in social and interpersonal skills and obsessed with arcane and specialist knowledges and skills (Turkle 1984). They value the devalued—forms of fringe and popular culture—and reject those things given high status by the rest of society (Feineman 2005). Yet increasingly, as we shall see, they are being brought back in from the margins, their skill sets and knowledges being given new value in the creative economy, their presence being taken as a sign of the tolerant and edgy culture of certain neighborhoods, and their expertise commanding high salaries and a changing work culture around the world (Katz 2000). They therefore occupy at the moment an interestingly ambivalent cultural location, on a shifting

Geek Myths

79

social landscape (Coupland 1995). While it’s true that not long ago they might have been characterized as, in Neil Feineman’s (2005, 10) words, “a pale group of distracted, unstylish, unathletic, uninvolved wallflowers who taped their thick, horn rimmed glasses with duct tape, [and] wore pocket protectors filled with mechanical pencils and ball point pens in nondescript polyester shirts”, that characterization is changing (although many of the stereotypes persist or are even heightened). The issue of gender is arguably one area where this tension is currently playing out.

GEEK MASCULINITIES There is a materially and symbolically powerful relationship between men and technology that runs deep, both historically and in contemporary societies. (Mellström 2004, 2) As noted, many geekology studies center on the issue of gender, highlighting that geekiness often articulates a particular form of masculinity that is “outside” of more conventional or hegemonic forms, but that nevertheless flexes male privilege and exclusiveness, blocking women’s access to certain fields of study and work. For example, in her study of masculinities in pre-Web 2.0 text-based online environments called MUDs (multiuser domains), Lori Kendall (1999b, 2000, 2002) scrutinizes the “hegemonicness” of male geek identity, asking whether the playful, ironic articulation of masculinity she fi nds in MUDs disqualifies participants from subscription to hegemonic masculinity. She shows how her geeks read each others’ apparently overtly misogynistic and sexualized banter as an ironic expression of their lack of sexual prowess and sexual attractiveness (although she is herself ambivalent about this tactic, as it maintains the denigration and exclusion of women). Kendall concludes that her participants enact a form of masculinity that both diverges from and converges with hegemonic masculinity, and ends up calling it “not-quite hegemonic”—a formulation that could be read to reveal nothing more than a shifting in the meaning and working of “hegemonic-ness”, or the incorporation of certain aspects of geekiness within hegemonic masculinity (Kendall 2000, 272; see also Kendall 1999a, 1999b). Other geekologists have come to similar conclusions, seeing in geek masculinity a complex negotiation of outsiderhood and privilege, even outsiderhood as privilege, which sometimes suggests possibilities for gender inclusivity, but at other moments reinstates rigid gender boundaries and hierarchies. Christina Dunbar-Hester (2008) tracks this negotiation in her ethnography of radio activists. She contrasts an egalitarian geek politics with a gendered division of skills, expertise, and labor wherein the archetypal geek pastime, tinkering, remains a male domain (on tinkering and masculinity, see also Faulkner 2000; Mellström 2004). She detects this

80 David Bell mismatch between activist politics and tinkering practice, centered around the hardware of radio broadcasting. While technical tinkering might be framed as unmasculine” when compared with more rugged, athletic, or manly pursuits—a key component of the devaluing of the geek—DunbarHester persuasively argues that the technology itself was being used by her respondents to reinterpret or reframe masculinity, to do masculinity differently but not necessarily less hegemonically. The men in the radio ham group defi ned their own sense of masculinity that they saw as oppositional to the mainstream (and as “pro-equality”) but working in practice to perpetuate women’s exclusion from its core activity, hardware tinkering. Tinkering as a performance of (geek) masculinity flexes certain modes of embodied expertise and technical ability that also speak about confidence: self-confidence in being able to open the “black box” and tinker with its workings, either to improve or change the technological object’s performance or just as an exercise in curiosity. As the hackers that Sherry Turkle (1984) studied show, technical mastery enables those whose masculinity “fails” to meet conventional ideals to fi nd an alternative, a “work-around”, whereby they can produce a different regime of value. Ron Eglash (2002) notes how nerd identity can be both a threat to and also a resource for masculinity. He sees a particular cultural logic at work in US masculinity, which values being a “real man” and using “manly” technologies (power tools, weapons, trucks, and tractors)—in this cultural logic, computers and science are not “manly” enough. Nevertheless, an emerging geek masculinity can be seen to challenge this emasculation, recentering marginalized masculinities through an alternative economy that values technical expertise—and this might potentially open up space for other marginal identities to be revalued (Eglash 2002; Feineman 2005). Winifred Poster (2009, also this volume) names this “techno-masculinity” and traces the different inflections and performances of techno-masculinity emerging in the global IT economy. Although Poster acknowledges the limits of this techno-masculinity (and notes the continuing problematic gendering at work within it), commentators have identified that this “revaluing” of geekiness is repositioning geeks in the workplace, in global flows, in cities, and in culture. As Kevin Kelly (1998, 993) wrote, “technology now has its own culture, the third culture, the possibility culture, the culture of nerds—a culture that is starting to go global and mainstream simultaneously”.

GEEKWORK AND GEEK SMARTS Corporate life is no longer the white Anglo-Saxon male in a white shirt and dark tie. If you are going to be working with women, blacks, gays, and people from every country on earth, does the geek really stand out as much? The rules are different now. In addition, the pace of technology has made it almost impossible to keep up unless you are at least a

Geek Myths

81

little bit geeky. If you want to compete today you had better have a few geeks on your staff. (Mark, respondent in Katz 2000, 15) And so we enter the next chapter of the geek paradox, neatly summed up by “Mark”, a correspondent with Jon Katz, who spots a key change in corporate culture: geeks are now welcome, valued, needed. And Benjamin Nugent (2008, 138) similarly delineates the paradox of the new geek economy: “on the one hand, the nerd is a despised figure, a failure of masculinity. On the other hand, that very demasculinized images is associated with professions that wield economic power and the ability to transfigure other people’s lives”. But this new recognition brings new problems: the higher profi le, status, and value of geeks as workers presents challenges for conventional corporate culture, as “Mark” highlights. Workplaces and work practices need to change to meet the needs of geeks. Douglas Coupland’s novel Microserfs (1995) portrays this new work culture very evocatively, showing the reframing of what work is and who does it, where and when (for a discussion, see Thompson 2003). The new work landscape of places like Silicon Valley expresses some of these changes, with “office parks” or “campuses” blurring the line between work and nonwork, and the casualness of the work culture further distancing geekwork from “normal” office work. But remember that Coupland’s book is called Microserfs, hinting at alienated labor even in this geek-friendly workplace. While Microsoft is compared favorably to older IT companies such as IBM, much of the early part of the novel centers on the problems of this work—the “cramped, lovestarved, sensationless existence at Microsoft”, as one character describes it (Coupland 1995, 90). The solution is to leave Microsoft, to form their own company (which works out of one character’s parents’ house). Away from Coupland’s vivid fictionalized portrayal of geekwork, these shifts are presenting new anxieties for managers. These anxieties—and their solutions—are captured in the management guidebook Leading Geeks (Glen 2003), a fascinating attempt to explain geeks and their behaviors and motivations to corporate managers (assumed to be non-geeks, contra the model at Apple or Microsoft of the geek-boss managing geek-workers). Management consultant Paul Glen begins his guide with three simple observations: “geeks are different from other people. Geekwork is different from other work. Power is useless with geeks”. He delves into the inner mind of geeks, explaining how they might be recruited, managed, motivated, and retained. He also describes the challenge for the geek-leader of managing relations between geeks and non-geeks at work. The fundamental premise of Leading Geeks is that geeks are important but difficult, and that standard management techniques will not help in managing geeks. In line with other studies, Glen discusses how schooling plays a large role in producing geeks (and producing others’ attitudes toward them; see also Francis 2009). Praised for individual achievement in a competitive environment where such achievement might also be devalued (by “cool kids”),

82 David Bell geeks have learned to value other smart people, but are ambivalent about joining groups, especially when other members are non-geeks: there is an “irreconcilable tension between the need to work alone and the need to work with others” (Glen 2003, 65). Furthermore, the geeks’ lack of socialization (other than with fellow geeks) makes workplace interaction equally tricky. “Many managers”, Glen notes, “believe that geeks are arrogant and recalcitrant” (47). And they are less motivated by money, so the geek-leader needs to fi nd other means to “incentivize” geeks: “many see themselves as people of ideas, not of commerce, and above the crass commercialism of the marketplace” (87). Yet geeks are also possessed of a clear work ethic centered on solving problems, and this work ethic is itself a source of value— the blurring of work and nonwork, work and play, work and leisure, work and home, can mean the almost infi nite expansion of work (in relation to this issue and Microserfs, see Heffernan 2000; Thompson 2003). The causal, playful, “no-collar” workplace that characterizes a lot of geekwork is designed to keep geeks happy, meaning productive. Leading geeks is, after all, about maximizing the economic contribution of this labor force. Key to this maximization is, as noted, an understanding of what makes geeks tick. Glen (2003) attempts to explain the “subculture” of geeks, noting its distinct habits and the distinct forms of value or capital it considers worth accumulating. At the center of this is the notion of “geek smarts”, the forms of knowledge that geeks value and deploy, and the ways in which “success” is measured. But geek smarts also speaks of a lack of other forms of knowledge or intelligence, such as knowledge of how to behave “properly” or emotional intelligence. This is a conundrum for the geek-leader, as Glen essays: Several times in my career, I’ve had to fi re people of immense intelligence and technical ability. Firing them seemed like an incredible waste of talent, but they had proved themselves incapable or unwilling to modify their behaviours to become productive members of their project teams. No matter how smart, capable, and creative they were, their net contributions to their projects were negative due to their impact on others. (2003, 38–39) Glen’s frustration speaks to a core characteristic of the geek—an asocial (and sometimes antisocial) attitude that (through lack of capability or willingness) limits geeks’ engagements with non-geeks, or renders such engagements “negative”. This is, of course, a recurring trope in the pop culture of geeks: the geekiest of the geeks in The Big Bang Theory, Dr. Sheldon Cooper, consistently responds to human social mores with incredulity or distaste. He sometimes applies his scientific mind to try to unlock the mysteries of human behavior but often cannot uncover any explanation that meets his standards of rational inquiry. And the various guidebooks listed earlier all contain advice or comment on this very same problem:

Geek Myths

83

Are You a Geek? offers advice on masking your intelligence and fitting in with social situations—laughing at a joke you don’t find funny, rather than overanalyzing it, for example (Collins 2005). In pondering the question of geek (or nerd) smarts, Nugent (2008) considers geekiness in relation to the “autism spectrum”, and while I am unconvinced by his line of argument, he is right to explore the particularities of geek smarts—this is not just about being intelligent; it’s about how intelligence is deployed and valued (Turkle 1984 discusses something similar in the case of “hackers”). One related symptom, described and discussed very intensely in Microserfs, is “protracted adolescence”. Here, one of the central characters, Abe, writes an email (complete with typos) about how the new economy itself engages in adolescent protraction as a way to exploit geekwork: The tech system feeds on bright, asocial kids from diveorced backgrounds who had pro-education parents. We ARE in a new industry: there aren’t really many older poeple in it. We are on the vanguard of adoldescence protraction. . . . Just think about the way high tech cultures puroposefully protract out the adolescence of their employees well into their late 20s, if not their early 30s,. I mean all those NERF TOUYS and FREE BEVERAGES! And the way tech firms won’t even call work “The office:, but instead, “the campus.” (Coupland 1995, 310–11) Abe’s gripes and the problem of geek smarts and the travails of leading geeks notwithstanding, Glen’s guidebook starts from the proposition that geeks are important to business, and that businesses therefore need to know how to attract and retain geek-workers. This issue has also been explored in the context of urban economic change, and the phenomenon of the “creative city”.

GEEKS AND THE CITY After years and years of persecution, ridicule and never, ever getting the girl (or guy), geeks are finally, irrefutably, certifiably chic. They appear on the covers of magazines, win Oscars and Grammys, eat at the best tables in the best restaurants . . . and elevate the price of real estate in every important city in the world. (Feineman 2005, 9; my emphasis) The preceding statement, especially the emphasized fi nal part, signals a remarkable revaluing of the geek: how can the presence of asocial/antisocial, badly dressed misfits make house prices go up? The answer lies in the so-called rise of the creative economy and in the phenomena of the creative class and creative cities. These ideas, best associated with their most fervent proselytizer, Richard Florida (2002, 2012), have become cornerstones of urban economic policy for more than a decade. In the early 2000s,

84

David Bell

Florida and his colleague Gary Gates described a new correlation that they observed in US cities: “the leading indicator of a metropolitan areas’ hightechnology success is a large gay population” (Florida and Gates 2001, 1). As one follow-up media article summarized it, “where gay households abound, geeks follow” (Bishop 2000; see also Eakin 2002). Florida and Gates also found strong positive correlations between high-tech “success” and numbers of artists and foreign-born residents, leading them to suggest that “diversity” in general is a strong indicator of high-tech growth. This simple set of observations was seized on enthusiastically by city boosterists and urban economists, as well as by “diversity” campaigners. Florida has been on a perpetual global road show since then, selling his take on the “creative city” to any city that needs his help—and many apparently do. While his ideas have met with harsh criticism from academics (for example, Peck 2005), they are immensely popular with the people practicing entrepreneurial governance. But what do Florida and Gates’s observations really tell us? The argument goes like this: a high presence of cohabiting gay couples is taken as a visible sign of “tolerance”—if gays can settle in a neighborhood that is a sign that other “outsiders” will also be welcomed (if not welcomed, then at least tolerated). People working in high-tech—geeks—also feel themselves to be “outsiders” and are therefore in search of “tolerant” places to live and work. Somehow, in their migratory patterns, they divine those places with high proportions of gay households and make these same places their home. Gays, bohemians, creatives, immigrants, and geeks are therefore the key players in urban fortunes today. Where, as journalist Bill Bishop (2000) put it, “the old economy avoided difference”, the new economy “demands change, brains, mobility, difference”. The picture painted is of “edgy” neighborhoods with a frisson of difference. In “successful” postindustrial cities, this mix of creatives, geeks, and gays is seen to have produced a new convivial ecology centered on the three Ts—technology, tolerance, and talent. Setting aside the many problems with Florida’s thesis, method, and conclusions, we cannot ignore the seductiveness of this idea. Yet it assumes that all these key groups share a common orientation to “difference”; that they can happily cohabit and commingle in boho neighborhoods. Yet some geekologists have noted tensions in the relationship between geeks and other creatives. Nick Heffernan (2000), for example, in his discussion of Microserfs, shows the geeks’ distrust of marketing colleagues: the computer programmers see marketing as “insufficiently creative or ‘tech’ to merit interest or respect” (95), while Ben Nugent (2008) sees something troubling afoot in the rise of “geek chic” (a stylistic appropriation of certain aesthetic signifiers of geekdom). Nugent comments critically on this trend, noting how the nerd aesthetic is a kind of anti-aesthetic that has subsequently been taken up by what he calls the “fake nerd”. Nugent spots fake nerds among media and creative types, in fact, spying their uniforms of “bulky glasses, floppy hair, sweaters, low-top canvas sneakers useless for athletic activity” (2008,

Geek Myths

85

123). He also notes that it has become commonplace to assume the epithet, to say “I’m such a nerd”. These observations lead Nugent to ponder the countercultural capital being accrued by fake nerds, to ask what’s gone on to make the nerd identity suddenly so hip. Microserfs had already supplied part of the answer, in highlighting the new economic standing of IT geeks and their role as saviors of postindustrial society. Richard Florida does much the same thing in his discussions of the creative class. In fact, Florida’s alignment of geeks and creatives helps make sense of the “fake nerd”—as Nugent laments, remembering a hip event he attended in New York: “I saw a crowd of people dressed as if the creative industries were a high-school clique: nerds” (126). But Nugent is cynical about this appropriation of geek aesthetics, rather than seeing it as some kind of emergent stylistic common language or sartorial symbol of tolerance. The UK sitcom of 2005, Nathan Barley (Channel 4 television), nailed exactly this act of aesthetic appropriation, with its witless creatives developing exact the “fake nerd” lifestyle that Nugent fi nds so suspect. Here geekdom becomes a form of kitsch and also a form of symbolic violence (Holliday and Potts 2012). Although Florida’s ideas were fi rst elaborated in the USA, he has since witnessed their translation and reinterpretation worldwide (Florida 2012). Other academics have road tested his thesis in different national contexts, noting some interesting variations. And in a more recent book, Florida (2007) turned his attention to the global scale, arguing that the US might in fact be losing its edge, its competitive advantage, as the creative class goes global (Dreher 2005).

GLOBAL GEEKS A computer geek is worldly in the most modern sense. (Varma 2007, 361) I want to begin my consideration of globalization and geeks by returning to the small screen, and to The Big Bang Theory. One episode from the fi rst season, “The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization”, captured in the plotline of a half-hour sitcom some of the key issues here. Of course, The Big Bang Theory has in one of its central characters, Rajesh Koothrappali, a vivid depiction of one form of geek globalization: Raj is from India and has moved to Pasadena to study for his PhD. He communicates with his parents via webcam and laptop, and provides a running commentary on US–Indian cultural differences. But in this particular episode, global geekdom plays out in two other interesting and interconnected ways. The main plotline of the episode centers on professional academic rivalry, intellectual property ownership, and joint research—a combination ending in a fistfight between the two central characters, Sheldon and Leonard, on the podium at a physics conference. But the episode is bookended by scenes speaking to a global

86

David Bell

geek aesthetic and culture. At the beginning of the episode, the four central characters have wired up the domestic appliances in Leonard and Sheldon’s apartment, handing over control via the Internet. Lights go on and off, remote control cars drive around, the stereo plays Also sprach Zarathustra (famously used on the soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey), each action controlled remotely by unnamed geeks in Szechuan Province, China, and Tel Aviv, Israel. Later, a YouTube clip of Leonard and Sheldon’s squabble “goes viral”, and in the closing scenes we see two Chinese geeks watching the clip online, commenting on how pathetic and geeky the two physicists are. Suddenly, the lights in their apartment flash on and off, and one reads from the computer monitor that they are being controlled from Pasadena. “Awesome!” they enthuse in subtitled Chinese. Just to make sure the audience gets the point, in the closing credits these two are named “Chinese Leonard” and “Chinese Sheldon”. The global geeks share the same humor, attire, technological curiosity, pastimes, forms of relationship. In this episode, therefore, we can clearly see an idea of global geekdom. But it is not just an issue for sitcoms to lampoon. As Richard Florida (2007) says, the economic force of his “creative class” thesis has gone global, redrawing the world map of geek culture. In his discussion of an emerging “third culture” (nerd culture), Kevin Kelly makes a similar point: Techno-culture is not just an American phenomenon, either. The third culture us as international as science. As large numbers of the world’s population move into the global middle class, they share the ingredients needed for the third culture: science in schools; access to cheap hi-tech goods; media saturation; and most important, familiarity with other nerds and nerd culture. (1998, 993) Yet comparatively few geekologists have looked beyond the USA to track this transnationalizing; as Ulf Mellström (2009) notes, there has tended to be a Western bias in studies of gender and technology—his own work on computer science in Malaysia shows how national context rewrites the gender–technology (and geek) equation. Yet even the pop-lit on geeks is noting this trend (Halpin 2000) and the management gurus aren’t far behind: Paul Glen (2003, 48–49) writes that “today’s technology office draws talent from every corner of the world. . . . The chronic shortage of talented workers has resulted in two distinct patterns of work globalization: the melting pot office and the virtual office”, leading to a “polyglot geek world culture”. That last statement resonates both with The Big Bang Theory and with emerging studies of “work globalization”; Christopher Kelty’s (2005) ethnography of geeks in Bangalore, for instance, fi nds him hooking up with assorted programmers and other computer workers, fi nding a shared fondness for, among other thing, heavy metal music, kitschy theme pubs, and ironic business cards. He notes changing international relations that open

Geek Myths

87

(and close) doors to the physical migration of IT workers—a phenomenon often referred to as “body shopping”. A. Aneesh (2006) also discusses Indian IT workers’ involvement in body shopping but adds that in the computer sector it is not always necessary to move physically, bodily—there are various forms of “virtual migration” that enable IT workers to migrate their labor without their bodies. Offshore programming labor and tech support (often via call centers) are among the most prominent forms of virtual migration. As Aneesh explains, one key feature of this labor force that lubricates both forms of migration is the universality of programming—not only is “code” a common language, but it has penetrated more and more aspects of work and life, making programmers (or their skills) especially mobile. This common language, and the value of being able to “speak” it, propels the transnationalization of geek masculinity. Yet, as scholars of globalization remind us, the various flows that carry ideas, money, people, technologies, and images around the world are nonisomorphic, their impacts uneven (Appadurai 1990). Globalization does not straightforwardly equate to homogenization. While there are some common elements in “world geek culture”, it is “polyglot” in more than a literal sense. And the direction of global flows is not simply from “the West” and toward “the rest”. Winifred Poster (2009, also this volume) teases out some of these themes, thinking about how US–India ICT work and worker flows are impacting specifically on formations of what she calls “techno-masculinity”. Taking a scalar approach, Poster explores how these forms of masculinity centered on ICT “do not have static forms, but take distinct shapes at three different levels—the national, global, and transnational” (2009, 123). Flows of ICT work/workers have, she argues, brought forms of masculinity—and gender–technology interfaces—from “north” and “south” into intimate contact. This has not simply led to a homogenizing of techno-masculinity around a US model, however. What’s emerging is indeed a polyglot, transnational geek culture, new formations of masculinity—although Poster is ambivalent about whether this challenges or reconsolidates hegemonic masculinity.

CONCLUSIONS This problem, of what geekdom means for (hegemonic) masculinity, recurs in a number of the discussions by geekologists. Lori Kendall (1999a, 261), for example, sees a “reconfiguration of hegemonic masculinity to include aspects of the once subjugated masculine stereotype of the nerd”, relating this to changes in the global economy and the partial “defeminization” of white-collar office work. In Ron Eglash’s (2002, 49–50) prognosis, meanwhile, geek identity today has the potential to “both maintain normative boundaries of power and [to] offer sites for intervention”; as he adds, this identity is “a potential paradox that might allow greater amounts of

88

David Bell

gender . . . diversity into the potent locations of technoscience, if only we could better understand it”. My hope is that the discussion I have provided here will contribute to that understanding. If, as Feineman (2005, 17) concludes, “the future ultimately belongs to the geeks”, what will that future look like? In this chapter I have sought to think about geeks as a complex form of “techno-masculinity”. I’m aware that I have set aside the issue of “geek girls” and debates about the potential de-gendering of some aspects of geekdom. This is not because I disagree with this line of argument; it is simply to keep my focus on the specific issue working in the interplay of my three subtitle terms: technologies, masculinities, globalizations. Nor have I discussed other aspects of geekdom considered in important geekological analyses, such as “race”, class, and sexuality (Eglash 2002; Heffernan 2000; Kendall 1999a). In mapping current configurations of geek culture, my aim has been to explore how a particular articulation of transnational masculinity “works”. While a defi nitive account of geek culture is still waiting to be written, we are at least beginning to understand the impact of this once-marginal, now central identity.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special thanks to Martin Parker for pointing out some important aspects of “geek smarts” and for helping me think about the “creative city”; to audiences in Leeds and Linkoping for offering comments on earlier iterations of this work; to the editors and all at Tema Genus and GEXcel; and especially to Jeff Hearn, for inviting me along to talk about geeks.

REFERENCES Aneesh, A. 2006. Virtual Migration: the Programming of Globalization. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Appadurai, A. 1990. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Public Affairs 2 (2): 1–24. Bishop, B. 2000. Where Gay Households Abound, Geeks Follow. http:// mo.statesman.com/specialreports/content/specialreports/gaysurvey/techgays. html Collins, T. 2005. Are You a Geek? 103 Ways to Find Out. London: Ebury Press. Coupland, D. 1995. Microserfs. London: Flamingo. Dreher, C. 2005. The Gay/Hipster Index. Salon.com. http://www.salon. com/2005/04/21/florida_32/ Dunbar-Hester, C. 2008. “Geeks, Meta-Geeks, and Gender Trouble: Activism, Identity, and Low-Power FM Radio.” Social Studies of Science 38 (2): 201–32. Eakin, E. 2002. “The Cities and Their New Elite.” New York Times. http://www. nytimes.com/2002/06/01/arts/the-cities-and-their-new-elite.html. Eglash, R. 2002. “Race, Sex, and Nerds: From Black Geeks to Asian American Hipsters.” Social Text 20 (2): 49–64.

Geek Myths

89

Faulkner, W. 2000. “Dualisms, Hierarchies and Gender in Engineering.” Social Studies of Science 30 (5): 759–92. . 2007. “‘Nuts and Bolts and People’: Gender-Troubled Engineering Identities.” Social Studies of Science 37 (3): 331–56. Feineman, N. 2005. Geek Chic. London: Thames and Hudson. Florida, R. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books. . 2007 The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent. London: Collins. , ed. 2012. Global Creative Class. Aldershot: Ashgate. Florida, R., and G. Gates. 2001. Technology and Tolerance: The Importance of Diversity to High-Technology Growth. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Francis, B. 2009. “The Role of the Boffi n as Abject Other in Gendered Performances of School Achievement.” Sociological Review 57 (4): 645–69. Glen, P. 2003. Leading Geeks: How to Manage and Lead People Who Deliver Technology. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Halpin, M. 2000. The Geek Handbook. New York: Pocket Books. Heffernan, N. 2000. Capital, Class and Technology in Contemporary American Culture. London: Pluto. Holliday, R. and T. Potts. 2012. Kitsch! Cultural Politics and Taste. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Inness, S. A., ed. 2007. Geek Chic: Smart Women in Popular Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Inouye, O. M. 2007. A Girl’s Guide to Dating a Geek. London: Omi M. Inouye. Katz, J. 2000. Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho. New York: Villard. Kelly, K. 1998. “The Third Culture.” Science 279:992–93. Kelty, C. 2005. “Geeks, Social Imaginaries, and Recursive Publics.” Cultural Anthropology 20 (2): 185–214. Kendall, L. 1999a. “Nerd Nation: Images of Nerds in US Popular Culture.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 2 (2): 260–83. . 1999b. “‘The Nerd Within’: Mass Media and the Negotiation of Identity among Computer-Using Men.” Journal of Men’s Studies 7 (3): 353–69. . 2000. “‘Oh No! I’m a Nerd!’ Hegemonic Masculinity on an Online Forum.” Gender & Society 14 (2): 256–74. . 2002. Hanging out in the Virtual Pub: Masculinities and Relationships Online. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kirk, L. 2005. The Little Book of Geeks. Cheam, Surrey: Crombie Jardine. Margolis, J., and A. Fisher. 2002. Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Mellström, U. 2004. “Machines and Masculine Subjectivity: Technology as an Integral Part of Men’s Life Experiences.” Men and Masculinities 6 (4): 1–15. . 2009. “The Intersection of Gender, Race and Cultural Boundaries, or Why Is Computer Science in Malaysia Dominated by Women?” Social Studies of Science 39 (6): 885–907. Nugent, B. 2008. American Nerd: The Story of My People. New York: Scribner. Peck, J. 2005. “Struggling with the Creative Class.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29 (4): 740–70. Poster, W. 2009. “Subversions of Techno-Masculinity in the Global Economy: Multi-Level Challenges by Indian Professionals to US ICT Hegemony.” In GEXcel Work in Progress Report Volume V. Proceedings from GEXcel Theme 2: Deconstructing the Hegemony of Men and Masculinities Autumn 2008, edited by J. Hearn, 123–35. Linkoping and Örebro: Institute of Thematic Gender Studies, Linköping and Örebro Universities.

90 David Bell Thompson, G. 2003. Male Sexuality under Surveillance: The Offi ce in American Literature. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Tucker, C. 2009. I Geeks: the Offi cial Handbook. Avon, MA: Adams Media. Turkle, S. 1984. The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. New York: Simon and Schuster. Varma, R. 2007. “Women in Computing: The Role of Geek Culture.” Science as Culture 16 (4): 359–76. Westman, K. E. 2007. “Beauty and the Geeks: Changing Gender Stereotypes on the Gilmore Girls.” In Geek Chic: Smart Women in Popular Culture, edited by S. A. Inness, 11–30. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

6

Hegemony, Transpatriarchies, ICTs, and Virtualization Jeff Hearn, Alp Biricik, Helga Sadowski, and Katherine Harrison

In 1991 in a Cambridge University laboratory two computer scientists, Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky, wanted to keep their eyes on the availability of fresh coffee while they were working. Accordingly, they fi xed a recycled video camera to an old computer and then a video frame-grabber on top of the coffee machine placed outside their working environment, called the “Trojan Room”. In the name of having more “control” over the coffee, they posted the very fi rst real-time cybersurveillance recording process on the Internet:1 they could watch it from other places. This, one of many examples of the reach of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and virtualization, has led into many kinds of transnational cybersurveillance experiences that have since grabbed the attention of many Internet surfers (Campanella 2002). Transnationalizations take many forms and have many implications for intersectional gender relations, for men and masculinities, for hegemony. They comprise acutely contradictory processes, with multiple forms of difference, presence, and absence for men, and women, in power and men, and women, who are dispossessed materially or in terms of aspects of citizenship. Different transnationalizations problematize taken-for-granted national, organizational, and local contexts; gender relations; and men and masculinities in many ways. This chapter builds on critical debates on men, masculinities, hegemony, and patriarchy in relation to intersectionalities and transnationalizations. It uses the concept of transnational patriarchies, or transpatriarchies for short, to speak of the structural tendency and individualized propensity for men’s transnational gender domination. More specifically, focusing on nondeterminate structures, forces, and processes, not comprehensive unity or fi xity, we examine some of the contradictory impacts of ICTs on the hegemony of men. One key aspect of both transnationalization and ICTs is the move toward virtualization. This is especially of interest in the continuing tensions between structuralism and poststructuralism. Indeed virtualization highlights the contradiction between how poststructuralism has often prioritized a philosophy of absence over a philosophy of presence and yet also

92

Jeff Hearn, Alp Biricik, Helga Sadowski, and Katherine Harrison

the importance of the present text itself. In this context, hegemonic texts are also virtual, and virtual texts are becoming hegemonic. Thus we focus much of our discussion on questions of absence/presence of men in certain virtual worlds and communities. 2

TOWARD TRANSNATIONAL HEGEMONY OF MEN? The concept of hegemony has figured strongly in studies on men, for example, as “male hegemony”, and “hegemonic heterosexual masculinity”, but most influentially through the concept of “hegemonic masculinity”. Hegemony addresses relations of power and ideology, domination of the “taken for granted” and “common sense”, and power through apparent consent and complicity, even if provisional, contingent, and backed by force, within what has been called the “fundamental outlook of society” (Bocock 1986). Hegemony encompasses the formation of social groupings, not just their operation and action. It invokes assumptions of structure, but it is not structuralist. It ranges across social arenas—material, economic, political, cultural, discursive—rather than prioritizing the economic or the cultural. However, in studies on men, hegemony has often been employed in a somewhat restricted way, with a relatively narrow focus on hegemonic masculinity. Rather, it is “men” who or which are far more hegemonic than masculinity. Going back from masculinity to men, to examine the hegemony of men, involves addressing the hegemony of men: the double complexity that men are both a social category formed by the gender system and dominant collective and individual agents of social practices (Hearn 2004a). Dominant uses of the social category of men have often been restricted by, for example, class, ethnicity, racialization, and (hetero)sexuality. Less examined are constructions of the category of men in terms of assumptions about bodily presence/absence (as in virtualization and relations to ICTs), nationality/national context, and transnationalization (Hearn 2011). Hegemony can no longer be understood as based on the notion of “fundamental outlook” of a specific “society”, nation, or the nation-state; it needs to be seen within the framing of the transnational. Recent applications of hegemony to the analysis of men and masculinities have usually neglected changing relations to the “form” of the social, and more especially moves from the fundamental outlook of a given “society” toward the transnational, including toward the virtual as a major mode of sociality. Thus, alternatively we now examine some aspects of transnational hegemony of men, through the lens of virtuality and ICTs. In these moves, structured gender domination shifts from being limited to a national, societal context toward transnational contexts. To represent this shift, we employ the concept of trans(national)patriarchies, or simply transpatriarchies (Hearn 2004b, 2009). Interestingly, most formulations of patriarchy, like those of hegemony, have been characteristically based

Hegemony, Transpatriarchies, ICTs, and Virtualization

93

on domination within a particular society or nation. The nation has often been represented in the modern era as one of the most powerful forms of hegemony. Limiting patriarchy, like hegemony, to a particular society, nation, or “culture” is increasingly problematic. New and changing forms of transnationalizations have defi nite socio-spatial dimensions, as in the observation, limits, and transcending of national sovereignties in law and culture. They operate partly very much in the flesh, partly virtually—creating new forms of extended power for certain groups of men. There are many ways in which transpatriarchies and transpatriarchal powers and processes extend through various transnational means, for example, transnational individual and collective nonresponsibility of men and processes of surveillance and their disruption. Such changes may bring loss of some men’s expected security and privilege, with shifts of the locus of power from individual to transnational. Also, transpatriarchies involve opportunities for recouping patriarchal power, transnational movements, and formation of transnational social, political, cultural spaces. These can be intensely contradictory in their experience and effects (Hearn 2006, 2009). These structural and agentic differentiations, with and without force, suggest multiply differentiated (trans)patriarchies, stable and changing, fi xed and flexible. They comprise new potentialities and hegemonies of men, both persistent and contested.

ICTS, VIRTUALITY, MEDIASCAPES ICTs, like large multinational companies, are difficult to control and police. Equally, it is hard for ICT users to control and police whoever it is who controls and polices their own data produced through ICTs. Telephone companies know when and who people call, but consumers do not know what those companies do in pooling or selling on such data. 3 ICTs appear to be becoming a key taken-for-granted element of transnational hegemony of men within transpatriarchies. The “core” regions of the world, and certain men there, still have major power to shape ICTs, although that is to some extent being subverted (see Poster’s chapter, this volume). ICTs have multiple effects in transforming work and employment: they enhance moves from primary and secondary manufacturing toward tertiary and quaternary economies, make some jobs redundant, change the form and labor process of other jobs, make the work of many precarious, produce value for capital and capitalists, and create jobs for some. Arguably, they bring polarization of job markets, greater splitting between high-skill and low-skill jobs, and automation of many white-collar jobs (Autor 2010; Autor and Dorn 2012). For example, the processes of large-scale legal work and fi nancial transactions are similarly much affected, with automated trades comprising 70 percent of the Wall Street stock market (O’Hara and Mason 2012).

94 Jeff Hearn, Alp Biricik, Helga Sadowski, and Katherine Harrison ICTs facilitate global restructuring of the international division of labor, with transnationalization of work and outsourcing increasing not only in less skilled but also middle- and high-skilled work. The largest corporations are increasingly dominant, exceeding the power of nation-states and national economies many times over, with some such corporations in turn subcontracting business to other, often smaller, corporations and profits ensuing. The development of ICTs raises questions for how the core, capitalism, corporations, and transpatriarchies are and change. The power of some men is enhanced on a large, partially global scale; meanwhile, such changes have implications for reducing many men’s prospects of long-term secure employment in the sector of their choice or as earlier assumed. Arguably, it is becoming more difficult to see what is happening with men, how they are changing, and what is happening with gender relations as a consequence of ICTs. Not enough is known about the changes arising from the ongoing negotiations between ICTs and men’s and women’s daily lives, including their relationships, their identities, and their quality of life. In the next decade, the number of mobile Internet users is forecast at five billion people, with more than seven billion Internet-enabled devices (Davis 2008). While in many regions, ICTs are becoming an unavoidable element of everyday hegemonic realities, especially for younger generations, we certainly do not mean that the actions, experiences, and effects of men whose lives are not dominated by ICTs are to be neglected. Indeed, part of the power of ICTs in the transnational hegemony of men is the fact that many men and women are excluded from and by ICTs. An everyday example is the transnational constructions of what counts as the “news” by Fox News, CNN, the BBC, and increasingly Al-Jazeera. ICTs and virtuality challenge historical constructions of nation-state and hegemonic politics of space. They facilitate models of organization, in both corporate and more general senses, highlighting transformations of boundaries in nations, locales, and subjectivities. ICTs are not disembodied technologies; they operate in local or more precisely translocal or glocal social practices. One of the most salient of these forms of men’s and masculine power is in relation to media and technology, and more specifically the novel technologies of the ICTs, since programming, hacking, and other domains of the ICTs have been connoted as masculine (see chapters by Bell and Poster, this volume). In developing a framework to analyze current cultural global flows, Appadurai coined a set of terms to grasp the new global cultural economy seen as a “complex, overlapping, disjunctive order that cannot any longer be understood in terms of existing center-periphery models” (1996, 32). One such “scape”, alongside ethnoscapes, technoscapes, and fi nancescapes, is mediascapes: referring “both to the distribution of the electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information [ . . . ] and to the images of the world created by these media” (ibid., 35). Mediascapes display strips of reality that cocreate “imagined worlds”, in which imagination becomes social practice:

Hegemony, Transpatriarchies, ICTs, and Virtualization

95

No longer mere fantasy (opium for the masses whose real work is elsewhere), no longer simple escape (from a world defi ned principally by more concrete purposes and structures), no longer elite pastime (thus not relevant to the lives of ordinary people), and no longer mere contemplation (irrelevant for new forms of desire and subjectivity), the imagination has become an organized field of social practices, a form of work (in the sense of both labor and culturally organized practice),and a form of negotiation between sites of agency (individuals) and globally defi ned fields of possibility. (31) At the same time, it is becoming less and less easy to draw clear lines between these scapes, especially with emerging technologies, such as smart phones and Web 2.0. Rather, it would appear that these different scapes are converging, as well as being gendered and sexual(iz)ed. Thus, ICTs are not just either visual and/or audio technologies or texts, but rather exist within and create material social relations. Specifically, ICTs use multiple complex technologies characterized by instantaneousness, asynchronicity, time/space compression, reproducible image production, creation of virtual bodies, blurring of the “real” and the “representational” (Hearn and Parkin 2001). Wellman (2001) has set out the “social affordances of computerized communication networks”: broader bandwidth, wireless portability, globalized connectivity, personalization. ICTs are ever changing, becoming cheaper and more widespread, although beyond the reach of many. They can facilitate both less and more democracy, with technologies for both greater centralized surveillance and decentralized temporary autonomous zones (TAZs), along with growing online activism. The novelties of mediascapes and such features of ICTs are nowhere more visible than in the virtual spaces of the Internet, specifically in relation to emphases on reciprocity as witnessed in Web 2.0. With this shift of users increasingly becoming produsers or even prosumers (neologisms combining producer, user, and/or consumer), rather than being merely consumers of Internet content, notions of agency have seemed to increase in importance. The social web is an increasingly important contributor to constructions of specific imagined worlds at the intersections of individual sites of agency and globally defined fields of possibility. In some respects this might appear to be linked to blurring of the concept of nationstates, as well as of rigid distinctions between virtual/real world and virtual/real communities; however, it should be emphasized that such possible blurrings appear very different, or differentially relevant, in various parts of the world. The sheer increase of numbers, followers, and prosumers, does not say much about the power behind, and how ICTs may reproduce, even increase, inequalities. Indeed, somewhat paradoxically, at the same time certain nation-states have become extremely powerful in defi ning the borders of the virtual and what counts as the social, as, for instance, in Internet restrictions in Turkey, China, and recent debates on the USA.4

96 Jeff Hearn, Alp Biricik, Helga Sadowski, and Katherine Harrison Examples of specific communities that transgress the borders of virtual and real worlds are more than ever in evidence. The increased visibility of certain groups, as well as their (supposed) increase in political and cultural power, can be traced alongside the emergence of, for example, the (for some) notorious (h)acktivist group Anonymous (Olson 2012), Pirate Parties (whose political agenda was initially solely on Internet-related issues), and the Occupy movements, with their immense transnational repercussions. Bloggers on fertility legislation online have amassed sufficient critical mass to change national political processes off-line (Ratliff 2009); transnationally, the tumultuous events of and since the 2011 “Arab Spring” have been strongly influenced by ICTs. All these movements are based on, borne out of, or highly influenced by the specific socio-technical, material-discursive possibilities that ICTs and the novel manifestations of Web 2.0 offer. At least in these examples, various questionings of the division between real and virtual communities have been shown to have some historical validity. Furthermore, certain Web 2.0–based communities seem to influence offline public politics, knowledge production, social practices, and imagined worlds in ways as yet not fully specifiable or easily explained. Nevertheless, we may ask of such various political and related social changes: who is being represented (in both senses) here? Who is exercising power, and who is excluded? What are the gender powers and dynamics? What do they tell about the rethinking of transnational men and masculinities? When the Internet gradually became a mainstreamed mass information and communication medium, some early critics imagined cyberspace as an almost utopian space (cf. Nakamura 2008). It was sometimes assumed that markers such as race, ethnicity, gender, or class would recede into the background and/or that users could easily adopt markers, radically different from their actual lived realities, as they pleased. In this way, a virtual space outside the heterosexual matrix and hegemonic power structures seemed possible. Furthermore, public communities could be built with disregard of people’s physical location, with reason to expect, however overoptimistically and ungroundedly, that geographical, political, economic, social, class, and ethnic boundaries could be left behind in virtual spheres. Others saw more dangers in overly optimistic readings of the Internet, particularly in relation to gendered bodies (Sobchack 1995). Such political commentaries are variable in the extent to which questions of gender power, indeed men and masculinities, are seen as likely to be reinforced or undermined. In any event, visions of a digital liberating space have in many ways proved to be wrong. Large parts of the world have little or no access to the Internet, for political or developmental reasons (the “digital divide”); most login interfaces keep up the gender binary by only allowing to choose between male and female; and white men build the dominant centers in the Internet’s (considered as “relevant”) content production. It thus becomes more and more evident that the Internet is not “the magic democracy-enhancing bullet that earlier Internet utopians thought it might be” (Nakamura 2008,

Hegemony, Transpatriarchies, ICTs, and Virtualization

97

29). This is especially so since the user has changed from a pure consumer to a prosumer, who more actively contributes to the websphere; it seems that power relations of this kind increasingly become more visible. Furthermore, it is crucial to use an intersectional framework to speak of ICT masculinities and hegemonies within online spaces, as with the notion of “digital citizenship” (cf. Mossberger, Tolbert, and McNeal 2008). While citizenship as developed by T. H. Marshall (1950) has been criticized from feminist perspectives for its inclusions, exclusions, and gendered nature (cf. Lister 1997; Yuval-Davis and Werbner 1999), this has been explored to only a limited degree with digital citizenship. Similarly, digital citizenship has not explicitly been an arena of engagement in critical studies of men and masculinities. Focusing on digital citizenship has the advantage that it enables talk about hackers, programmers, and prosumers, or more general “digital literates”, at the same time. If large parts of the Internet, and more specifically its Web 2.0 communities, are dominated by predominantly white men, this might lead to unidirectional information flows that are missing diversified perspectives. The Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, one of the best-known and most successful Web 2.0 enterprises based on virtual communities, is such a case. This “free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project” (self-description) with its eighteen million articles recently has been criticized for how this “free collaboration” looks in practice. In fact, only 12.6 percent of the contributors were female, according to the survey by Glott and Ghosh (2010). It thus can be said that men, that is, very largely certain kinds of Western men, have built a new dominant center here, as illustrated in the domination of men’s voices in turn-taking in online fora (Herring, Johnson, and DiBenedetto 1995), the cult of the “star” blogger (Shirky 2003; Karlsson 2007), and routine sexism and racism (Olson 2012). Even with their potential to bring together contributions from different parts of the world, ICTs dominantly assist in presenting the world from the core perspective and increasing the core’s self-referentialism. In a similar fashion, the examples mentioned earlier (such as Anonymous, Pirate Parties, Occupy) are either constructed as Western masculine domains or have the connotations of predominantly male actors. In a transnational context, where ICT are rapidly gaining importance and influence, this can be a major drawback for the emancipation of disadvantaged groups. Just like the under- and misrepresentation of women and other Others in traditional media, white, male hegemonies in virtual spaces effect numerous arenas of social life: knowledge production, discourses and increasingly actual politics. Moreover, Mills Davis (2008), the chair of a Washington, DC–based research consultancy company specializing in semantic technologies, notes that the previous Web 1.0 technology was about connecting information and getting on the net, whereas the current Web 2.0 aims, supposedly, to connect people “putting the ‘I’ in user interface, and the ‘we’ into Webs of social participation”. In the upcoming later stages, Web 3.0

98

Jeff Hearn, Alp Biricik, Helga Sadowski, and Katherine Harrison

semantic technologies will represent meanings by connecting knowledge that will serve as a basis for Web 4.0—the ubiquitous Internet system that will meet the power of artificial knowledge with “the human”. In this expansion of virtual/cyberspace, multinational companies and their market strategies will also be significantly different. The information already collected has made a substantial database that changes the market strategies of multinational companies strategically and globally. “The consumer” is becoming the producer: “the prosumer”. As we write, Facebook follows Google in this direction. So, a crucial aspect of this technological transformation process might be a radical shift of the current surveillance and dataveillance mechanisms that recalls Foucault’s (1980, 164–65) futuristic question: “Do you think it would be much better to have the prisoners operating the Panoptic apparatus and sitting in the central tower, instead of the guards?” Thus the key issue remains: do ICTs reproduce current hegemonies of men or in some respects undermine them through counterhegemonies?

ICTS AS TRANSNATIONAL SEXUAL ARENAS In order to provide some kind of response to the questions posed, we devote most of the remainder of this chapter to this question in relation to the matter of sexuality. We fi rst consider ICTs as providers of dynamic visual and informational sexual material and contact; then move on to the significance of the more interactive arena of webcams and specifically coming out; and, fi nally, examine some more far-reaching possibilities for the reconstitution of sexualities, that is, including sexual practices and men. It is important to clarify that we use sexuality as an example of contemporary change in relation to ICTs, not to suggest that this is the primary arena of social change or to equate sexuality and men. ICTs can be understood as part of broader histories of the publicization of sexuality and technologies of the senses. Incipient “globalization” of sexuality through ICTs can be produced through glocalized social practices. ICTs have multiple impacts on sexual practices, with changing forms locally/globally. Speed and ease of ICTs creates many possibilities for new forms of cybersexual experimentation, such as multimedia sex, interactive sex, interactive pornography, and linking of users on random mode via webcams. 5 Virtualization processes present sites for both reinforcements and contestations of hegemony in terms of bodily presence/absence of men. These involve positive, negative, and contradictory effects of certain uses of ICTs on men’s, and women’s, sexuality and sexual violences, as men act as producers and consumers of virtuality, represent women in virtual media, and are themselves being represented, even made dispensable, at least in some representational respects. Moves to and interplays of virtualities and

Hegemony, Transpatriarchies, ICTs, and Virtualization

99

surveillances, along with changes around (cyber)sexualities at a distance and nondirect physical contact mediated by “new” technologies, constitute major historical changes with profoundly contradictory implications, perhaps comparable to the development of mass contraception. ICTs have been very successful in promoting global trafficking and men’s sexual exploitation of women, supplying encyclopedic information on prostitution and the (re)constitution and delivery of the sex trade (Hearn and Parkin 2001; Hughes 2002; Hearn 2006). This is nothing less than a major historical transformation. Pornographers have been leaders in live videoconferencing, Internet privacy, and secure payment services. This can involve buying transnational live sex shows, in which the man directs the show anywhere in the world, in real-time global communication. The “real” and the “representational” converge; sexual commodification proceeds apace. Pornography is liable to virtualization, as images once stored electronically can be reproduced and manipulated: “the woman” and perhaps “the man” become dispensable. The impact of ICTs increases potential for various global/local sexualized cultures and men’s more general pornographizing of sex. These constitute new forms of transpatriarchies, with virtual imperialist/neocolonialist exploitation alongside and supportive of direct nonvirtual imperialisms/neocolonialisms, as uses of ICTs to facilitate the global sex trade (Hearn 2006) and associated constructions of, for example, “Asian women” or “Eastern European women” (see Jeffreys, this volume): in effect, new virtual gender hegemonies. With modes of production and communication interacting differently with bodily materiality, the possibilities for the reproduction of sexual texts increase, accessible on millions of screens worldwide through e-sharing. At the same time, ICTs create major opportunities to organize sexuality differently, for new forms of sexual practice: techno-sex, high-tech sex, nonconnection sex, mobile phone sex, Internet dating, email sex, cybersex, cyberaffairs, virtual sex, multimedia interactive sex, and so on. Virtual communities of interest, for or against particular sexualities, may appear to offer safe and trustworthy arenas for support, and this may be so in some cases. Yet the web’s very familiarity can be deceptive: it may constitute a new mediatization of long-established hegemony. Comparison may be made with (critiques of) engineered “familial” corporate cultures (Ezzy 2001), developed alongside disembodied global corporate institutions. ICTs increasingly offer apparent “homes” for various sexual communities, but they are also sites for extension and diff usion of disembodied sexual capitalism, consumer cultures, and pleasures. What may initially be self-help social-sexual communities can become exclusionary, pay-to-use capitalist enterprises, capitalization operating for almost every aspect of social life. For such various complex reasons, ICTs not only act as media for sexualities and sexualized violences, but can be constitutive of them, and in new ways, in the future.

100

Jeff Hearn, Alp Biricik, Helga Sadowski, and Katherine Harrison

WEBCAMS, COMING OUT, VIRTUAL CRUISING, AND TRANSNATIONAL SPACE Since the 1991 coffee machine event noted at the start of this chapter, this real-time recording device, known as webcams, cams, livecams, homecams, or netcams (White 2003, 12), has become one of the crucial “killer applications” on the Internet (Campanella 2002). Notably, the subject of surveillance has radically moved from machines to the “human” subject. Mirzoeff ’s (2002) insightful analysis on the etymology of webcam, derived from Latin for room, raises vital questions on public–private divisions, privacy, and transforming of domestic space. Following Koskela’s (2003) captivating metaphor to address the emergent transformations, “Cam-era”, we may ask how webcamming interacts with systems of gender and sexuality in transnational contexts. And how are surveillance mechanisms integrated in this process? Bearing in mind Lefebvre’s (1995, 11) argument “(social) space is a (social) product”, it is clear that the bedroom is not “naturally” a private space (indeed, not so long ago whole families, even in certain “European” regions, were sleeping together), but rather a space constituted and regulated within networks of gendered power relations, particularly patriarchy and capitalism. Broadcasting everyday life from domestic spaces, especially transmitting live gendered and sexualized performances via webcam, to virtual/cyberspace raises critical questions on the epistemic and on the changing subject in visual/ity (Mirzoeff 2002), telepresence (Campanella 2002), and surveillance (Wise 2004). As Campanella (2002, 264) notes, “if the internet and World Wide Web present the augmentation of collective memory, then webcameras are a set of wired eyes, a digital extension of the human faculty of vision”. In the age of postmodernity, where reality is highly contested, the “human faculty of vision” is open to radical manipulations with the help of technology.6 Moreover, “collective memory” is highly selective, even more accurately forcefully forgetful, producing erasure of collective memories of some, as, for example, in the forgetting of colonialist and imperialist atrocities from the collective memory of the core regions. The manipulations are aptly demonstrated in coming out and cruising online. In Anglophone traditions, “the closet” is a term in English to describe “the denial, concealment, erasure, or ignorance of lesbians and gay men”, writes Michael P. Brown (2000, 1): “it describes their absence—and alludes to their ironic presence nonetheless—in a society that, in countless interlocking ways, subtly and blatantly dictates that heterosexuality is the only way to be”. This Anglophone core yet dissident construction has, like “coming out”, thence been exported unevenly elsewhere, for example, in some languages by translating the metaphor of “the closet” as the physical object of the “cupboard”. Examining the material spatial construction of the closet suggests analysis of “the intersecting norms of gender/sexuality” (ibid.) of the “coming-out” process.

Hegemony, Transpatriarchies, ICTs, and Virtualization

101

To put it differently, coming out, as a “never-ending” process, is an experience of performative sexualized, gendered acts of declaring the self as “gay”. Phillips (2002) sees coming out as a modern political, strategic tool of gay individuals that carries high risks of alienation, violence, and (hetero)social stigma. For Phillips, “coming out” suggests important political inputs to subvert heteronormative structures and values. Notably, the process encourages the individual to face the fear and shame of stigma while opening material, discursive, and symbolic spaces to constitute new forms of cultures and communities for political empowerment of the homosexual. Coming out provides power to present the (homo)sexual self publicly and challenges for the social value of “gay identity” by offering “an alternative to the received hegemony of the heterosexual, patriarchal ideal” (Phillips 2005, 97). Web 2.0 platforms and related ICTs, particularly webcams, have provided technological spaces for gay/queer individuals for building new networks against the regulations of heteronormative structures. Cybercommunities have become crucial transnational arenas for gay/queer individuals with computer screens sites of coming out. In this respect, and for some, ICTs diminish national borders where distances between bodies and self/other relations reduce. In analyzing gay men’s (off-line) cruising, Bech (1998, 220) notes “the interplay of gazes and glances”, thus proposing critical ground for exploring gay/queer men’s spatial-sexual experiences. This highlights the question of the hegemony of men in public space in relation to diverse spatial foundations of heteronormativity. Discussing cruising leads attention toward the amalgamated matrix relations of the closet and coming-out process in everyday life as a spatial-corporeal issue: “being oriented” (Ahmed 2006) toward “the desired” through the space of “gaydar—the game of the eyes”, the ability to recognize and interpret signs of (homo/trans)sexuality, bodily gestures, and related sexual-cultural artifacts in others and in environments (Nicholas 2004). Gaydar, as (male) surveillance constituted through a set of gendered and sexualized power relations between gay/queer wo/men, is radically visually and virtually reformulated and regulated through ICT use. Like the voyeurism in Hitchcock’s Rear Window, webcam-based web forum members can “watch others”, with both parties enjoying a mutual game where the postmodern self’s “new mantra of visual subjectivity: I am seen and I see that I am seen” (Mirzoeff 2002, 10) is practiced silently over transnational space (Biricik 2009). It can be argued that these technologies have radically transformed, regulated, and transcended sex/sexuality, gender, race, and the body, in alliance with neoliberal and patriarchal values, by promoting “the liberation of the oppressed” from the closet where the self has made her/his self visible globally. Indeed, there is extensive political lobbying, especially by groups of men, to keep the Internet as a space where (almost) anything goes. However, the kinds of cybersexual contacts discussed so far are only part of the possibilities of ICTs.

102

Jeff Hearn, Alp Biricik, Helga Sadowski, and Katherine Harrison

RECONSTITUTING SEXUALITIES, RECONSTITUTING MEN? ICTs provide other greater possibilities for what may be called cyber(org) sexualities. These can be mundane, as with greater sexual activity after heart surgery, or far-reaching innovations, such as sexually coded “implants” allowing people to seek others with similarly or presumed compatibly coded sexualities.7 The latter can be external to the body skin, in a BlackBerry or mobile phone–type device, or implanted within. While much sexual practice is likely to continue in and around established forms of social-sexual relationships, ICTs reconstitute possibilities for forms of sexuality and sexual experience, such as transnational marriage and dating websites for Muslim communities in Europe, meeting places by mutual agreement potential romantic/sexual partners (sometimes with less emphasis on physical appearance), or “safer” sexual experimentation and identity exploration. There are increasing technical possibilities for many-to-many “new sexual affordances” for mutual identification, for example, matchmaker systems combining virtual community, collaborative filtering, and web to cell phone technology, so people can know who is in physical vicinity at that moment and who shares certain affi nities and willingness to be contacted (Rheingold 2000; Wellman 2001; Schofield 2009). Simultaneously ICTs afford new forms of sexual violence, often calling into question neat separations between “real” and “virtual” (Dibbell 1993). Current technologies can also assist in making public certain emotions, through monitoring how nonverbal behavior and bodily changes convey information on intentions and feelings. This is in use through biometrics and photo-tracking of micro-movements of faces in security applications at airports. In the future it might be possible to meet people with or without knowledge of what they are thinking or feeling, emotionally, sexually. Thus one might meet someone with: (i) no such information on either side (assuming two parties); (ii) fuller knowledge of both parties; or (iii) knowledge by one but not both parties, which the other might accept or to block with filtering technology. Social-sexual contacts could be conducted in parallel social-sexual “universes”, with or without knowledge of others’ sexual or other feelings. In such perspectives, ICTs can be seen as contributing to the long story of the relations of technology and sexuality, and more precisely the conduct of machine sex. In this historical process, we might recognize moves from sexual tools/objects (for example, dildos and other devices for sexual stimulation, protective devices) toward simple and then more complex “sex dolls”, “sex robots”, and “sex machines”, and then onto sexualization of interactions with the machines themselves. There are already many lifelike “sex dolls” available with various degrees of technological sophistication, some of which can pass as human for short periods of time (Levy 2007; Schofield 2009). With ICTs, there are various more elaborate possibilities, for variation, responsiveness, and programmability. Machine sex, that is, “having sex” with and with the assistance of an object

Hegemony, Transpatriarchies, ICTs, and Virtualization

103

or a machine, can thus become much more elaborate with the possibilities for sex robots, androids, or humanoids, with enhanced features, simulated skin, orifices, sexual movement, and so on (Dorsey 1990). In the future, machines are likely to function increasingly as (sexual) intermediaries between humans—that is, “having sex” with a human or between humans mediated—in whatever way—by and through a machine. There are important distinctions to be made here, especially the extent of simulation and extent of reciprocity. There are possibilities for more complete engagement or simulation of more senses, from single-sense media (like the telephone) to more complex media (like the computer, initially words, then with visuals, then with sound—now technologies that can convert one medium to another, for example, sound to visuals), and a “more accurate” and multisensory in simulation and representing of body/flesh/ touch. This field, sometimes known as teledildonics, is likely to expand in the near future, with increasing possibilities for both sexual exploitation and radical reformulations of men and sexuality.8 A simple example is the “lovers’ cup” that registers activity when being used, drunk from, kissed by another person. These are “two cups that are connected by the internet. When either person picks up a glass, red LEDs on their partner’s glass glow gently. And when either puts the glass to their lips, sensors make white LEDs on the rim of the other glass glow brightly, so you can tell when your other half takes a sip” (Jha 2010, 3). A more advanced example is virtual reality lightweight “sex bodysuits” with haptic interfaces, so that activity and stimulation, or its effects, in one location can be reproduced or mirrored in another for another person (Levy 2007): Body suits will be able to stimulate many erogenous zones simultaneously, thereby intensifying physical experience. They will use sensors to stimulate touch and will likely be custom-fitted to accommodate a wide range of body types and proportions. Different sensor pads might be located throughout the body suit, each designed to stimulate a different region of the body in variable and programmable ways. (Maheu 1999, cited in Levy 2007, 267–68) These make possible simulations or virtualizations of the “total” body. So, as Levy puts it, in the future “instead of one lover asking the other, ‘Do you have a condom?’ the key question may become, ‘Is your bodysuit strapped on?’ or ‘Are you connected to the haptic interface?’ (2007, 268). These possibilities may change, even problematize, men and women, and men’s and women’s sexualities, such that sexuality is not tied to place and can become a newly transnational it or even reconstituted as not about contact with other fleshly persons at all. Bodysuits, teledildonics, love cups, and the like have specific relevance for men and masculinities in creating potential extensions of the reach and scope of transpatriarchal relations into the realm of touch, bodily–virtually. Such possibilities can change

104

Jeff Hearn, Alp Biricik, Helga Sadowski, and Katherine Harrison

social-sexual relationships more generally. For some, they facilitate divisions between sex, reproduction, and relationships, so that those divisions may become further “normalized”, a new normalcy of sex without relationships. These possibilities may reconstitute men’s sexualities, even what sexuality is, what sexual practices are done, and what (sexual) relationships are. They may come to problematize the notion of “some men” in more thoroughgoing ways. The possible limiting and harmful effects of robotic sex, indeed of robots on social life more generally, are not difficult to discern (Turkle 2011).9 At the same time, changing hegemonies mean changing time and space relations of and in relation to the subject.10 While some of these technologies with clear implications for changing such relations seem some way off, there is already available, for instance, the recent “killer app” Grindr, enhancing possibilities for new forms of dating between a website and smart phones.11 Such innovations suggest the emergence of new issues around class and transnational hierarchies, as those who can afford to buy and use that technology gain a “privileged” position with access to technological and sexual knowledge. Buying, selling, imagining, and engaging in sexual practices will increasingly be mediated by ICTs—with agency and power of users and participants determined by geographical location, age, gender, class, and computer literacy. Gender power relations may thus become solidified and exacerbated in some respects, individualized and self-sufficient, subverted, and even more uncertain in others (Hearn 2010).

SIGNING OFF . . . Broadening the interconnections of gender, sexuality, and transnationalization means gendering men as an explicit part of analysis. In these debates, there remains a general repeated resistance to considering men’s practices as gendered, to “naming men as men” (Hanmer 1990). Men’s practices are integral in (re)producing gender inequality between men and women and among men. These are heavily embedded in social, economic, and cultural relations, so that men’s dominant or complicit practices may easily be equated with what counts as the normal, usual, or official way of doing things: hegemony of men, as category and actors. The gendered co-constitutions of men, transnationalization, ICTs, and virtualization need to be brought into close dialogue. Despite growth in critical studies on men and masculinities, gendering men is still a lacuna in many “critical” analyses of transnationalization, even though in many transnational processes particular groups of men are the main purveyors of power. The possibility of new transpatriarchal hegemonies of men is even less on most sociopolitical agendas. Moreover, men’s subjectivities, sexual or otherwise, are subject to transforming socio-spatial forms and potentialities, increasingly according to relations of gender/sexual power and ICTs. The evolving ICTs affect and effect gender and sexuality systems where control and filtering mechanisms

Hegemony, Transpatriarchies, ICTs, and Virtualization

105

of power, particularly in the form of surveillance, are placed into the fabric of everyday life. Webcams, mobile phones, and other ICTs change possible practice, power, identity, and image making, through “revealing” rather than hiding from surveillance (Koskela 2004), in the face of “the disappearance of disappearance” (Haggerty and Ericson 2000). All “privacy” is now potentially public (Hearn 1992), although—somewhat paradoxically—the best chance of privacy may rest in “security through obscurity”: the sheer volume of data renders it impossible for everything to be simultaneously equally visible. At the same time, the ubiquitous, apparently decentralized spatial foundation of cyberspace still offers the promise of interconnecting various material/discursive/symbolic accounts that sustain a rich ground for exploring changing hegemonies. These hegemonies are likely to be at least in part virtual, socio-technological, contingent, experienced as transnational, transcending borders, problematizing of the body and sexuality, yet not necessarily undermining the hegemony of men. In this chapter we have sought to address a paradox: on the one hand, we argue that it is time to shift from masculinity to men, albeit deconstructively, yet with the spread of ICTs there are possibilities whereby men are, or appear, increasingly absent. Thus, the development of ICTs raises key questions about the core, capitalism, and transpatriarchies, and the shifting hegemony of men. So how is it that most commentaries on ICTs usually manage not to explicitly attend to the gendering of men? Is this mere carelessness or something more significant? This is itself a form of gendering of knowledge, in both practice and theory. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We are grateful to Marina Blagojević for extensive comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this chapter. NOTES 1. On whether to capitalize the internet, see Woolgar (2002); Markham and Baym (2009). 2. Interestingly, the word “virtuality derives from the Latin virtus, which means strength; this is in turn derived from vir, indicating a man or manliness, as in virility. It is also related to virtue, which indicates both “a particular moral excellence” and “superiority or excellence in respect either of nature or of operation” (http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/virtuality.htm). 3. As we write, Google’s new privacy policies, in force starting 1 March 2012, are to be investigated by EU authorities for possible legal breaches. 4. See, for example, http://map.opennet.net/, http://americancensorship.org/ for relevant commentaries. 5. See, for example, http://chatroulette.com/. 6. The software program AV Webcam Morpher enables users to play with their gender identities by streaming a “fake webcam stream” (Cam Thief 2008). The program can “trick” people by broadcasting a set of programmed

106

7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Jeff Hearn, Alp Biricik, Helga Sadowski, and Katherine Harrison “human” visual and verbal expressions, such as trick voices and faces for hello, good-bye, smile, disgust, kiss, fl irt, and so on. The software enables the user to record their audience as part of a gendered performance game. See http://emotiv.com/index.php We are grateful to Monica Obreja for providing this link. See, for example, http://collegecandy.com/2008/10/01/tele-dildo-nicscybersex-to-the-next-power/ There is a rather extensive literature, both popular and scientific, on the possible or probable effects of ICTs on the brain, in learning, thinking, feeling, and indeed human evolution. For instance, the recent iPhone 4’s Siri application: http://www.apple.com/ iphone/videos/#tv-ads-roadtrip See: http://grindr.com/

REFERENCES Ahmed, Sara. 2006. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Other. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Autor, David H. 2010. The Polarization of Job Opportunities in the US Labor Market: Implications for Employment and Earnings. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress and the Hamilton Project, the Brookings Institute. http:// www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/fi les/papers/2010/4/jobs%20autor/04_ jobs_autor.pdf. Autor, David H., and David Dorn. 2012. The Growth of Low Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market. Cambridge, MA: NBER. NBER Working Paper No. 15150, July 2009, Revised May 2012. http://www.nber.org/ papers/w15150.pdf. Bech, Henning. 1998. “Citysex: Representing Lust in Public.” Theory, Culture & Society 15 (3–4): 215–41. Biricik, Alp. 2009. “A Bedroom of His Own: Intersections of Webcams, Surveillance and Male Sexuality in the Transnational Context.” In GEXcel Work in Progress Report Volume V. Proceedings from GEXcel Theme 2: Deconstructing the Hegemony of Men and Masculinities Autumn 2008, edited by Jeff Hearn, 101–10. Linköping and Örebro: Institute of Thematic Gender Studies. http://www.genderexcel.org/?q=webfm_send/51. Bocock, Robert. 1986. Hegemony. London: Tavistock. Brown, Michael P. 2000. Closet Space: Geographies of Metaphor from the Body to the Globe. London: Routledge. Cam Thief. 2008. “Conceal your Identity with a Fake Webcam.” http://camthief. com/fake_webcam.html. Campanella, Thomas J. 2002. “Eden by Wire: Webcameras and the Telepresent Landscape.” In The Visual Culture Reader, 2nd ed., edited by Nicholas Mirzoeff, 264–78. London: Routledge. Davis, Mills. 2008. Semantic Wave 2008 Report: Industry Roadmap to Web 3.0 & Multimillion Dollar Market Opportunities. Washington, DC: Project 10X. Dibbell, Julian. 1993. “A Rape in Cyberspace.” Village Voice, 23 December, 36–42. Dorsey, Candas Jane. 1990. “(Learning about) Machine Sex.” In Machine Sex and Other Stories, by Candas Jane Dorsey, 76–97. London: Women’s Press. Ezzy, Douglas. 2001. “A Simulacrum of Workplace Community: Individualism and Engineered Culture.” Sociology 35 (3): 631–50.

Hegemony, Transpatriarchies, ICTs, and Virtualization

107

Foucault, Michel. 1980. “The Eye of Power.” In Selected Interviews and Other Writings (1972–1977) by Michel Foucault, edited by Colin Gordon, 147–65. New York: Pantheon. Glott, Ruediger, and Rishab Ghosh. 2010. Analysis of Wikipedia Survey Data. Topic: Age and Gender Differences. United Nations University MERIT. http:// www.wikipediasurvey.org/docs/Wikipedia_Age_Gender_30March%202010– FINAL-3.pdf [accessed: 12 February 2013]. Haggerty, Kevin D., and Richard V. Ericson. 2000. “The Surveillant Assemblage.” British Journal of Sociology 51 (4): 605–22. Hanmer, Jalna. 1990. “Men, Power and the Exploitation of Women.” In Men, Masculinities and Social Theory, edited by Jeff Hearn and David Morgan, 21–42. London: Unwin Hyman/Routledge. Hearn, Jeff. 1992. Men in the Public Eye: The Construction and Deconstruction of Public Men and Public Patriarchies. London: Routledge. . 2004a. “From Hegemonic Masculinity to the Hegemony of Men.” Feminist Theory 5 (1): 49–72. . 2004b. “Tracking ‘the Transnational’: Studying Transnational Organizations and Managements, and the Management of Cohesion.” Culture and Organization 10 (4): 273–90. . 2006. “The Implications of Information and Communication Technologies for Sexualities and Sexualized Violences: Contradictions of Sexual Citizenship.” Political Geography 25 (8): 944–63. . 2009. “Patriarchies, Transpatriarchies and Intersectionalities.” In Intimate Citizenships: Gender, Sexualities, Politics, edited by Elżbieta Oleksy, 177–92. London: Routledge. . 2010. “Global/Transnational Gender/Sexual Scenarios.” In Sexuality, Gender and Power: Intersectional and Transnational Perspectives, edited by Anna G. Jónasdóttir, Valerie Bryson, and Kathleen B. Jones, 209–26. New York: Routledge. . 2011. “Neglected Intersectionalities in Studying Men: Age/ing, Virtuality, Transnationality.” In Framing Intersectionality: Debates on a Multi-Faceted Concept in Gender Studies, edited by in Helma Lutz, Maria Teresa Herrera Vivar, and Linda Supik, 89–104. Farnham: Ashgate. Hearn, Jeff, and Wendy Parkin. 2001. Gender, Sexuality and Violence in Organizations: The Unspoken Forces of Organization Violations. London: Sage. Herring, Susan, Deborah A. Johnson, and Tamra DiBenedetto. 1995. “‘This Discussion Is Going Too Far!’: Male Resistance to Female Participation on the Internet.” In Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self, edited by Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz, 67–98. New York: Routledge. Hughes, Donna. 2002. “The Use of New Communication and Information Technologies for the Sexual Exploitation of Women and Children.” Hastings Women’s Law Journal 13 (1): 127–46. Jha, Alok. 2010. “Welcome to the Kitchen of the Future.” Guardian. Talking Technology: Part Two, 26 June, 2–3. Karlsson, Lena. 2007. “Desperately Seeking Sameness.” Feminist Media Studies 7 (2): 137–53. Koskela, Hille. 2003. “Cam Era—the Contemporary Urban Panopticon.” Surveillance & Society 1 (3): 292–313. . 2004. “Webcams, TV Shows and Mobile Phones: Empowering Exhibitionism.” Surveillance & Society 2 (2/3): 199–215. Lefebvre, Henri. 1995. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald NicholsonSmith. Oxford: Blackwell. Levy, David. 2007. Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human–Robot Relationships. New York: Harper.

108

Jeff Hearn, Alp Biricik, Helga Sadowski, and Katherine Harrison

Lister, Ruth. 1997. Citizenship. Feminist Perspectives. Houndmills: Macmillan. Maheu, Marlene M. 1999. The Future of Cyber-Sex and Relationship Fidelity. Brave New World Booklet. http://selfhelpmagazine.com/booklet/sexuality.html [accessed: 12 February 2013]. Markham, Annette N., and Nancy K. Baym, eds. 2009. Internet Inquiry: Conversations about Method. Los Angeles: Sage. Marshall, T.H. 1950. Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mirzoeff, Nicholas. 2002. “The Subject of Visual Culture.” In The Visual Culture Reader, 2nd ed., edited by Nicholas Mirzoeff, 3–23. London: Routledge. Mossberger, Karen, Caroline J. Tolbert, and Ramona S. McNeal, eds. 2008. Digital Citizenship. The internet, Society, and Participation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Nakamura, Lisa. 2008. Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Nicholas, Cheryl L. 2004. “Gaydar: Eye-Gaze as Identity Recognition among Gay Men and Lesbians.” Sexuality & Culture 8 (1): 60–86. O’Hara, Dan, and Luke Robert Mason. 2012. “How Bots Are Taking over the World.” Guardian. 30 March. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/ mar/30/how-bots-are-taking-over-the-world. Olson, Parmy. 2012. We Are Anonymous. New York: Little, Brown. Phillips, David J. 2002. “Negotiating the Digital Closet: Online Pseudonymity and the Politics of Sexual Identity.” Information, Communication & Society 5 (3): 406–24. . 2005. “From Privacy to Visibility: Context, Identity, and Power in Ubiquitous Computing Environments.” Social Text 23 (2): 95–108. Ratliff, Clancy. 2009. “Policing Miscarriage: Infertility Blogging, Rhetorical Enclaves and the Case of House Bill 1677.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 37 (1–2): 125–45. Rheingold, Howard. 2000. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Schofield, Jack. 2009. “Let’s Talk about Sex . . . with Robots.” Guardian, 16 September. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/sep/16/sex-robots-davidlevy-loebner. Shirky, Clay. 2003. “Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality.” Clay Shirky’s Writings about the Internet. http://www.shirky.com/writings/herecomeseverybody/ powerlaw_weblog.html [accessed: 12 February 2013]. Sobchack, Vivian. 1995. “Beating the Meat/Surviving the Text, or How to Get out of This Century Alive.” Body & Society 1 (3–4): 205–14. Turkle, Sherry. 2011. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic. Wellman, Barry. 2001. “Physical Space and Cyberspace: The Rise of Personalized Networking.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 25 (2): 227–52. White, Michele. 2003. “Too Close to See: Men, Women, and Webcams.” New Media & Society 5 (7): 7–28. Woolgar, Steve. 2002. “Five Rules of Virtuality.” In Virtual Society? Technology, Cyberbole, Reality, edited by Steve Woolgar, 1–22. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wise, J. Macgregor. 2004. “An Immense and Unexpected Field of Action: Webcams, Surveillance and Everyday Life.” Cultural Studies 18 (2–3): 424–42. Yuval-Davis, Nira, and Pnina Werbner, eds. 1999. Women, Citizenship and Difference. London: Zed.

Part II

Rethinking Transnational Men between Nations

This page intentionally left blank

Part II Introduction Marina Blagojević

In Part II the contributors turn to rethinking transnational men between nations, that is, transnational relations between and across two or more nations. This part explores processes of transnationalization that shape hierarchies between collective masculinities on an international scale, privileging those from the “core” and discriminating against those from the periphery or semiperiphery. There are various different mechanisms by which these social, economic, and discursive power differentials are being maintained and challenged, and the four chapters included here explore some of them in diverse ways: ICTs and techno-masculinities; international migrations and diasporic communities; de-development and the social and economic devastation of many “transitional countries” from the semiperiphery. Thus, in this part of the book, men and masculinities, especially dominant men and hegemonic masculinities, are deconstructed by analysis of the dynamic and hierarchical relations between nations existing within global neoliberal patterns of domination, which are both unsustainable and also in a process of deep structural transformation. Winifred Poster’s chapter on the “Subversions of Techno-Masculinity” builds on the previous part with a multilevel (national, global, and transnational) analysis of techno-masculinity in the global economy. The chapter highlights many questions about information society and implications for forms and relations of masculinity globally. For example, is technology related to masculinity in the same way worldwide? Are ICTs changing relations among masculinities, even perhaps destabilizing hegemonic masculinities, or reproducing them in new forms? ICTs represent an unusual site where patterns of masculine power may be challenged, and rearranged, with male ICT professionals from India gaining momentum relative those of the USA, and achieving, to some degree, a position of dominance. Thus this chapter looks at interactions between multiple techno-masculinities and tensions that arise when the more typical context between nations is disrupted and when competing masculinities are more evenly balanced. The chapter concludes with implications of Indian techno-masculinities for gender relations, in terms of new equalities for women and new violences against them.

112

Marina Blagojević

The next two chapters in this part address movements and migrations between nations: fi rst, migrant men and the migration experience in Australia (Howson), and, next, diasporic masculinities among Iranian men (Farahani). Chapter 8 by Richard Howson explores the concept of the “hegemony of men”, how a focus on masculinity “is too narrow” and that what is required is a turn to a more critically detailed and comprehensive deconstructive study of men. The chapter builds on three themes in deconstructing the hegemony of men and masculinities in transnational contexts: development of theoretical links between the critical studies on men and post-Marxism; use of this approach in study of migration and men; and discussion of policy implications from this in relation to men, masculinity, and transnationalization in the Australian context. Chapter 9 continues the migration theme, with Fataneh Farahani’s analysis of cultural and racial politics of representation, through diasporic masculinities among Iranian men. This is especially important, as studies on men, masculinity, and male sexuality in and from Middle Eastern contexts have not been well developed. The chapter examines the (re)presentation of masculinity and sexuality of Iranian men in Sydney, Stockholm, and London. It investigates the effects of Iranian Islamic culture and socialization, migration, or displacement experiences on men’s practices of masculinity and sexuality, and how these complicate their (re)presentation and perceptions of their masculinities and sexual experiences. By analyzing how dichotomization of “we and them” arises in different Western metropolises, prejudices that Iranian-born men face and uses of stereotypes differentiating Iranian men from “liberated” Western men in different context may be more fully understood. Chapter 10 is Marina Blagojević’s study of “Transnationalism and Its Absence: The Balkan Semiperipheral Perspective on Masculinities”. This chapter examines the phenomenon of the semiperiphery, with reference to the Balkans, Balkan men, and the shaping of masculinities. It builds on three theoretical premises: that the Balkans are at the semiperiphery, which is structurally different from both the core and periphery; that the main structural feature of the present-day Balkan semiperiphery is a complex process of de-development; and, fi nally, that both hegemonic masculinities and lives of men are largely created by that very process. It is argued that it is not transnationalism that dominantly shapes the lives of majority of men at the semiperiphery as much as it is the absence of that process, exclusion from the process, which creates an “absence of men”. This is a part of an even larger phenomenon of “surplus of humans” within the global cartography of transpatriarchal and transnational neoliberal globalization. Overall, the chapter brings together transnational change beyond and between nations, including movements, or their absence; it explores changing global hierarchies along with local and national implications. This national and local level is the concern of Part III.

7

Subversions of Techno-Masculinity Indian ICT Professionals in the Global Economy Winifred R. Poster

In the past few decades, there has been a dramatic shift in the male players of the information and communication technology (ICT) industry. While the pioneers and “geeks” (see Bell, this volume) of Silicon Valley have held reigning positions, technical professionals and entrepreneurs from India are coming to the forefront. I will argue that this is not a momentary occurrence, but represents an important restructuring of masculinities on the world scene. As the global economy shifts from an industrial to informational society, ICT represents a location where the preexisting or expected patterns of masculine power are unhinged, challenged, and rearranged. ICTs offer men—across a range of class positions and geographies—unique tools for agency. Men in the global South are using these tools to build local economies and, moreover, to contest the hegemony of the global North.1 In this chapter, I show how male IT professionals from India are gaining momentum relative to those of the United States and, in many capacities, achieving positions of dominance. I ask what tensions arise when competing masculinities are more evenly balanced. To frame these issues, I introduce the concept of techno-masculinities. It is based on several features distinct to the information society and therefore problematizes our thinking of hegemonic masculinity. Then I discuss the incursions of Indian techno-masculinities in the global economy. This happens through the agency of male actors at several tiers of the information hierarchy: ICT entrepreneurs, engineers, managers, and service workers. Across all of these positions, Indian men are using their ICT resources to assert themselves in transnational engagements with the US. The conclusion examines the implications of emboldened Indian techno-masculinities for gender relations more broadly, in terms of both supporting and engaging in new types of violence against women and other communities. The analysis draws from research from over a decade in the ICT industry, along with new analyses from a variety of sources. Original fieldwork was conducted in the US and India, fi rst in 1995–1996 with ethnographies of computer manufacturing and engineering fi rms, and then in 2002–2003 with outsourced customer service call centers in India. Methodologies include: interviews with ICT managers, engineers, factory workers, and

114 Winifred R. Poster call center agents; observations of work environments; and document analysis. More recent data collection is drawn from newspapers, governmental reports, and international data archives. I start by describing transformations of the information society, the development of techno-masculinities, and a multilevel approach for studying this issue.

TECHNOLOGICAL CHALLENGES TO HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY The link of technology to masculinity has been observed in fields ranging from gender to organizations to science and technology studies (Burris 1989; Cockburn 1985; Faulkner 2000; Gray 2000; Hacker 1981; Lohan and Faulkner 2004). Even in settings as diverse as Sweden and Malaysia, men defi ne themselves through technology. They form bonds through everyday artifacts like cars and motorbikes and complex tasks like engineering Table 7.1

Hegemonic versus Techno-Masculinities Hegemonic Masculinity

Techno Masculinity

Imagery of Manhood

Transnational Business Masculinity

• Displays of Technical Expertise • Tools of ICTs • Landscape of Virtual and Networked Spaces

Basis of Power

Government, Military, Religion, Finance, etc.

Information and Network Society • Informational Commodities • Technical Knowledge • Virtual Mutability

Geographic Location

Traditionally, the Global North

Increasingly, the Global South

Ethnic-Racial Foundation

White/European

Increasingly Nonwhite—Asian, Latin American, African

Narrative of Globalization

Neoliberalism, Imperialism

Varied, Inclusive of: • Postcolonial Social Justice • Alternative Sciences • Indigenous Knowledge

Composition

Singular and Uniform

Heterogeneous and Layered: • Global • National • Transnational Entrepreneurial Knowledge Worker IT Manager ICT Service Worker

Subversions of Techno-Masculinity

115

(Mellström 2004). Certain types of masculinity are informed by technology to a greater degree than others, however. Those merging (more or less) into a cohesive identity may be called “techno-masculinity.” Techno-masculinity departs from hegemonic masculinity in several ways (Table 7.1). To start with, techno-masculinity provides an alternate imagery of manhood. It relies on displays of technical skill, creativity, and a love of tinkering (Faulkner 2000; Lohan and Faulkner 2004). It uses unique tools for power, involving technology, computers, and information (Wajcman 1991, 2004). It operates within landscapes of communication, networks, and information, such as the Internet. These features reflect a shift away from previous imperatives of masculinity. Hooper (2001) documents the way narratives of war heroism and risk adventurism are being pushed aside to accommodate ideals introduced in the 1990s by neoliberal economists and state leaders: rational calculus, technological prowess, and expertise. This also challenges “transnational business masculinity” as the preeminent or dominant form (Connell 1998; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). It calls into question the exclusive role of economics in the dynamics of masculinity (Beasley 2008) and suggests that other notions of manhood have power in certain contexts and/or intersect with them. Techno-masculinity has a unique basis of power in society. Hegemonic masculinity has been rooted in the traditional spheres such as states, militaries, religious institutions, business. Yet in the postcolonial age, the foundations of masculinity are shifting toward technology. Chang and Ling (2000, 27) argue that “technology is driving the latest stage of capitalism” through a masculine “global umbrella of aggressive market competition,” encapsulated in the term “techno-muscular capitalism.” Aneesh (2006, 2009) refers to an emerging “algogracy” in which codes, programming, and information are dominant forms of production, governance of firms, and labor. Many of the new jobs in the economy are based in technology—and associated with men. In the US, occupations with the largest projected growth (2008–2018) include software engineers, network systems and data communications analysts, and call center workers (Lacey and Wright 2009). The information society, I argue, offers several resources for technomasculinity. One is information as a commodity. The items being traded and accruing value are data and information (Castells 2000; Peterson 2003). Significantly, this commodity is relatively easy to obtain, produce, and distribute. Information requires neither natural resources nor an elaborate production infrastructure, especially compared to previous forms of colonial extraction. It uncouples the previous, tightly bound linkage of economic power with the global North. In a coup against neoliberalism then, men in the global South can obtain the prized commodity of knowledge for production (Evans 1995). This leads to new kinds of stratification based in information, that is, a digital divide. Yet it also leads to new kinds of agencies and counteragencies, like intellectual piracy (Shiva and Holla-Bhar 1993; Sundaram 2010).

116

Winifred R. Poster

Indeed, if data and digital media are tools for male capitalists, they are also tools for the regular man. The info-society offers him knowledge power, technical skill, and the ability to reappropriate computer software and hardware belonging to somebody else for his own purposes (Poster 2011). Thus, even though the information society has its gradations, it offers ICT resources to various strata of men. The Internet and its networks provide techno-masculinity yet another resource—virtual mutability. ICTs operate in a realm of symbolic fluidity, where the body of the communicator is separated from the message of communication. This enables a transformation of identities. Here, previous forms of masculinity can be unhinged and reformed. Alternative gender, ethnic, and national identities can be generated or deployed (Nakamura 2002, 2008; Turkle 1995). Identities can be masked or hidden. In this way, ICTs involve “the creation of virtual bodies, the blurring of the ‘real’ and the ‘representational’” (Hearn 2006, 949). Deception through online spaces is a new tool for men. Techno-masculinity reorganizes the physical location of male power. Hegemonic masculinity has been fi rmly rooted in the global North. It has also been characterized by a particular movement and dynamic in international affairs: an ascendance of masculine industrial power in the global North, emanating outward to the South. Reformulating the concept, Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) point out that hegemonic masculinity now requires a “geography.” Along these lines, I argue that men in the global South are shifting the centers of economic power through resources in the information economy. Sites of technological innovation and production are emerging in countries like India, and their flows of resources and fi nance are moving in the opposite direction—toward the global North. As a related point, techno-masculinity is reworking the ethnic-racial foundation for male power in the era of the information society. Hegemonic masculinity has been associated with a particular ethnic, racial, and national makeup. Its agents and proponents have tended to be of European origin and white. With the growth of ICTs, however, we are seeing agencies by men in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, changing the “color” of the participants to brown, black, and other nonwhite categorizations. This is highly threatening to the global North, which has considered science and technology as its own. Scholars in critical race and science and technology studies have discussed this as a process of racialization (Harding 1993; Nelson et al. 2001). Technological imageries and practices in the global North have been imbued with whiteness, as male scientists and technicians have commandeered them as national and racial property. Prasad (2006, 219) illustrates these ideals in popular fiction: “[White] Americans are born with an instinct for fooling around with machines” while other ethnic groups like Native Americans “are born with an instinct for . . . hunting, fishing,” that is, fooling around with nature. With this kind of postcolonial perspective, the “love of tinkering” and other defi ning

Subversions of Techno-Masculinity

117

features of techno-masculinity are placed within a geographic and racial frame—not just a gendered one as noted earlier. Moreover, the ownership of techno-masculinity by the US is a notion that travels. Illustrating the globally hegemonic spread of this ideal, Prasad recounts how he was taught this by his childhood teachers in India. It becomes part of pedagogy worldwide. I will show how the ethnocentricity of techno-masculinity is being challenged by actors in the global South. Techno-masculinity based in the global South may offer an alternative narrative of globalization. Hegemonic masculinity in its classic form has carried a message of neoliberalism. As they increase their status and power in the global economy, some Indian men in the ICT industry will also subscribe to these ideals. They may reproduce the narratives of elites whom they are standing next to or replacing. However, counternarratives may emerge from the global South and India in particular, given its former position as a colony in the imperial project and its history in anticolonial movements. Indian activists have been leaders in the resistance against transnational power and in current anti-globalization campaigns. Thus, for Indian IT professionals, neoliberalism may not necessarily be the sole guiding principle. Furthermore, India offers a wide-ranging critique of science and technology as a field (Prasad 2006). There are many “alternative scientific movements” in India, or grassroots “peoples’ science movements” (Varma 2006). Some of these protest the historical uses of Euro-science for war and conquest. Others promote and protect indigenous sources of knowledge and technology (Shiva and Holla-Bhar 1993). And while it may seem contradictory, some even embed science and technology within religious imperatives like Hindu fundamentalism (Nanda 2003). They deploy ICTs to advance the goals of their political movements, especially their campaigns against other groups like Muslims. Alternatively, leaders like Gandhi fashioned techno-masculinities to uplift the disenfranchised. As one of the iconic figures of masculinity in India, he encouraged minimal or selective uses of technology (Sundaram 2000). His ashrams were built around alternative devices that empower local communities. Whatever the character or source, Indian paradigms of technology and science can run counter to those of the global North. Indian ICT men, in turn, may carry those diverse viewpoints in their engagements with the information economy. Finally, techno-masculinity has a varied internal structure or composition that challenges the homogeneity of hegemonic masculinity. This core concept has remained surprisingly uniform, despite its framing in the theory of “multiple masculinities” (Connell, Hearn, and Kimmel 2005). In response, scholars like Hearn (2004a, 60; my emphasis) have asked: “which men and which men’s practices—in the media, the state, religion, and so on—are the most powerful in setting agendas of systems of differentiation” between men, between men and women, and so on? Toward this end, he argues for a “gendered multi-level theory and gendered multi-actor analysis” (2004b, 273).

118

Winifred R. Poster

I adopt such an approach in considering the broad distinctions between Indian and US techno-masculinities, as well as those at specific meeting points of globalization. I show how techno-masculinities take distinct shapes in three contexts—the national, global, and transnational. 2 Strikingly, power relations between the US and Indian men change direction across these different sites. The global represents the realm of comparative national standing—how states measure up to one another in international hierarchies of technical capacity. The US exhibits dominance over India here. It is empowered in its material resources and infrastructure for carrying its techno-masculine project. This represents the closest approximation to hegemonic masculinity, in the sense of classic power by the global North over the South. The national level signifies the role of the state, media, and other institutions, in constructing an internally hegemonic vision of masculinity for a society. It varies by the degree to which technology is integral to, or rejected by, dominant masculinities. For instance, technology forms the basis of and enhances hegemonic masculinity in the political rhetoric of India, whereas in the US, technology detracts from manliness and is equated with subordinated masculinities, if not effeminacy. 3 Thus, here is where we start to see reversals in the traditional or expected order of masculinities across countries. The transnational level is where these varying techno-masculinities meet and come in contact. Hearn (2004b) underscores the “trans” element of this realm, reminding us of the critical dynamism to globalization. He describes how the transnational involves the “moving across” of actors between boundaries (like the nation-state), as well as the “metamorphosing” of such boundaries. Interactivity is a defi ning feature of the transnational. If face-to-face interaction can occur at the “local” level (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005), my objective is to show how this kind of relationship occurs at the transnational as well. In India, the meeting of transnational masculinities has been considered in the context of colonialism (Nandy 1983; Sinha 1995; van der Veer 2001). Ashis Nandy, in fact, coined the term hypermasculinity to describe the narratives and tactics of the British Empire in India: “The colonial culture depended heavily on Western cosmology, with its built in fears about losing potency . . . and the ability to be violent” (1983, 54–55). The notion of the “effeminate Bengali” Indian was created as a means of enhancing the status of the “manly Englishman” (Sinha 1995). This analysis shows how masculinities are not static, but generated through the interaction (and in this case, within a positioning of global North over South). Yet, it begs the question of what is happening in the contemporary era and in the context of the information society. In this chapter, I focus on the transnational because this is where Indian IT professionals take active roles in resisting global power. It is where we see challenges to the US dominance of techno-masculinities,

Subversions of Techno-Masculinity

119

and where preexisting positions are equalized and in some cases reversed. The fi rst section focuses on the relation of Indian to US masculinities, in other words, interactions between men. The second considers the relation of men to women, that is, Indian techno-masculinity to femininity within India and the diaspora. It describes how Indian men are using their ICT resources for and against women, and for broader social empowerment and disempowerment.

AGENCIES OF INDIAN TECHNO-MASCULINITY The transnational sphere itself is multilayered. The information society empowers men across a range of occupational and class levels, and therefore Indian masculinities are showing themselves at various sites in the transnational arena, especially with regard to the US. Here I focus on four occupational groupings of men in particular, starting at the top and working downward.4

Techno-Entrepreneurs Indian techno-masculinity has asserted itself, to begin with, at the highest echelons of the global IT economy. As CEOs and captains of industry, Indian men are challenging global North masculinities with resources of capital and enterprise. Their success often comes through fi nancing technological and informational commodities. This trend is evident in the Forbes magazine “billionaires” list of 2008. In this annual ranking of the world’s richest men, we see how the faces of elite men are changing. Until recently, these lists were dominated by pictures of men from the global North. By 2008, four of the top ten were Indian: Lakshmi Mittal ($45 billion), Mukesh Ambani ($43 billion), Anil Ambani ($42 billion), and K. P. Singh ($30 billion). Mittal, at the lead in this group, gained his fortune in telecommunications. The head of India’s most powerful ICT lobby group, Nasscom’s Kiran Karnik, was selected in 2003 as Forbes’s “Face of the Year” (Singh 2003). Several structural dynamics have empowered Indian men lately. One is a recentering of capital and fi nancial power. The global North is gradually losing its hold as the nexus of transnational markets, and India is one of the countries moving toward its place. India is currently fourth among the world’s largest economies (measured by gross domestic product), at $4.06 trillion (Shah 2011). It is trailing Japan only by a small margin, though, and will soon move up to number three. At that point, it will sit behind China (number two) and the US (number one). Collectively, these rising countries will soon reach and outpace that of the dominant countries. “By 2035 . . . the combined economies of emerging markets [including India] will be larger than (and by the middle of this century, nearly double) the economies

120

Winifred R. Poster

of the US, Western Europe, or Japan” (van Agtmael 2011, 31). Technical know-how is a prime source of their newfound dominance, as van Agtmael continues: “Multinational corporations headquartered in developing countries are increasingly challenging western companies in technology, marketing, and design.” A second structural change empowering elite Indian men is a redirection of capital flows. Instead of moving from the global North to the South, fi nances are increasingly moving from South to North, and South to South. A sign is how Indian men are buying and taking over European media fi rms. In 2008, the Times of India (the widest circulating English-language newspaper globally) purchased Scottish-based Virgin Radio Holdings for $105 million (Timmons 2008). This reflects an ironic trend in the ICT economy: the same technologies that are troubling to the media economies of the global North may be beneficial to those of the global South. The Internet has become a source of competition for traditional media outlets, and in turn, many newspaper, television, and radio fi rms in the US, Western Europe, and Japan are struggling. By contrast, those in emerging markets are primed for growth, given their rapidly expanding middle classes, consumers, and audiences. It’s quite telling that Indian men are now reversing the colonial relationship by acting as saviors of ailing ICT ventures in the global North. Indian entrepreneurs are not only sending capital to the global North; they are planting their feet and settling into high-tech regions. In Silicon Valley, Indians founded or ran 774 high-tech start-ups between 1980 and 1998 (Saxenian 2000). Several of these fi rms were supported by Indian capital or initiated as subsidiary units of Indian multinationals, like Infosys and Satyam Computers. Firms run by Asians in Silicon Valley accrued $16.8 billion in sales and employed 58,282 workers in 1998. By 2005, over half of the start-up fi rms had an immigrant as a key founder, with Indians comprising the largest group—surpassing the Chinese from earlier periods (Wadhwa et al. 2007). The same kind of pattern is happening in the Massachusetts region. Almost one-third of its science and engineering fi rms were founded by foreign-born entrepreneurs. Indians are especially successful in biotech, comprising 12 percent of the founders of those fi rms (Monti et al. 2007). Such firms yield approximately $7.6 billion in revenue, and provide 4,352 jobs to that state community. Across the US, immigrants were more than twice as likely as native-borns to start a company in 2010. Almost half of the fi fty top venture-backed fi rms are now immigrants, with Indians leading all other countries (Adhyaru-Majithia 2011). As a sign of their growing independence from the global North, India’s ICT businessmen are forming partnerships without it altogether—and instead with other men in the global South. India’s largest mobile phone company, Bharti Airtel, came close to a merger with South Africa’s top fi rm, MTN Group, in 2009. Africa is the fastest-growing cell phone market globally and second in cell phone subscribers behind Asia (Bryson 2011).

Subversions of Techno-Masculinity

121

This merger, therefore, would have formed “the third largest telecommunications company in the world” (after those in China and the UK) in terms of revenue and subscribers (Timmons 2009). Sunil Mittal, CEO from India, was in negotiation with CEO R. S. Dabengwa, a black South African. With this kind of South–South collaboration in the future, the constellations of ICT power may operate outside of the global North completely. The US state is worried by these techno-masculine subversions from the global South. A report issued by the National Intelligence Council (2008, 29, 37) warned that by 2025, “a global multipolar system will emerge” in which India is a “rising heavyweight” along with China. It is particularly concerned about “A World without the West.” In this scenario, “Western alliances will weaken” and “new powers supplant the West as leaders on the World Stage.”

Knowledge Professionals Closely related to the ICT entrepreneurs are the Indian engineers and professionals. They are also involved with exchanging data as a commodity, but they are lower in the information hierarchy and tend to be closer to the middle class. An important resource at this level of the transnational is IT labor power. Rather than through fi rms or fi nance, their agency of techno-masculinity is through knowledge production, especially “research and development” work. As highly skilled technical employees, Indians are providing a significant portion of the knowledge work for the U.S. economy (Varma 2006). Indians make up 11 percent of the US scientific and technical workforce nationwide, even though they are only 4 percent of the overall population (ibid.). Over half of the scientific and engineering workforce in Silicon Valley was foreign-born in 2000, with Indians again representing the largest share. Affi rming the gendering of this pattern, 80 percent of these Indian engineers are male, according to a survey of twenty-seven hundred conducted in 2001(Dossani 2002). These male IT professionals forge tight networks that create a “transnational capitalist class” (Upadhya 2004). Indians in Silicon Valley connect and communicate through their former IT educational institutions back in India. They also form associations, such as the Indus Entrepreneurs, which function as a source of formal mentoring and as an informal venture capital conduit for other Indian professionals. This is how, for example, Exodus Communications became a $10 billion company for K. B. Chandrasekhar and B. V. Jagadeesh. Some of these men have transferred their achievements to the political realm, so that they hold notable forms of state power. Bobby Jindal—an immigrant engineer—won a governor’s seat in Louisiana in 2007. He was the fi rst to break 191 years of white leadership in that state, and the fi rst person of Indian origin to be governor in the US. Indian-origin scientific

122 Winifred R. Poster and technical personnel living in the US have formed a variety of political action committees, such as the US-IN Pac, United States India Business Council, and Indian American Friendship Council, which have been lobbying the US government at the federal level. The fi rst chief information officer for the White House was a person of Indian origin. Vivek Kundra took on this role for the Obama administration in 2009, overseeing security, privacy, and sharing of information for the state. These Indian men are achieving technical prominence from within the core of the US information industry. 5 In the process, they are challenging racial hegemony in IT in the US and forging a path for other Indian men in what is sometimes an ethnically hostile landscape (Nakamura 2002; Nelson et al. 2001). Furthermore, Indian men are supplying critical building blocks for the US information economy. Some might argue that it is progressing through the minds of Indian (and other Asian) men (Aneesh 2006; Nayar 2008). At the same time, these men are also strengthening the ICT industry in the global South through their networks within India.

Cyber Managers From the midlevel of the transnational, Indians are challenging technomasculinities of the global North as men of high-tech multinational corporations (MNCs). These are not the owners, CEOs, or high-status professionals—they are the men who run the global fi rms. Their agency is in overseeing the policies and personnel, so one could say they administrate the infrastructure for the information economy. Their power is in their location. They contest the authority of US techno-masculinity from within the multinational fi rms. In my study, for instance, Indian male managers rarely accepted or adopted policies from the head office straight up. This happened in a US computer manufacturer (AmCo) and its transnational fi rm in India (TransCo).6 Alongside fi rms like Intel, Microsoft, Texas Instruments, Motorola, and so on, AmCo took advantage of Indian neoliberal economic reforms in the early 1990s to set up offices in New Delhi. AmCo represents the hegemony of US high-tech industries in this sense. However, when northern fi rms such as AmCo send their businesses abroad, they often hire local men as directors, who then have influence over what happens there. TransCo managers, as Indian nationals and Indian immigrants from the US, used their positions to subvert the masculinity of the US parent in several ways (Poster 2008a). To begin with, TransCo managers rejected certain employee policies from AmCo. They found that US work-family programs were failing to assist female and male employees in the local environment. Therefore, they broadened and improved those programs. They expanded “flex-time” to be more open in work arrival and departure times. They introduced new policies like “alternative work options.” Taking advantage of ICT

Subversions of Techno-Masculinity

123

infrastructures, they added possibilities for job sharing, telecommuting, and so on, so that employees could work in different locations via the Internet. They also added a series of over seventy subsidies and benefits for families (such as home cleaning service and school tuition for children) that “even the high level managers back in Silicon Valley don’t get,” to quote one of the managers. Based on their location, geography, urban conditions, philosophies, and so on, these Indian managers integrated business perspectives from multiple vantage points to make policies that were innovative and unique. In other cases, though, TransCo men wielded their authority irresponsibly. They disregarded equity and diversity guidelines from the Silicon Valley office, insisting that there was “no gender problem” in hiring and promotions in India. This left them with the worst record of women in management across all of AmCo’s Asian offices. Aside from oversight, the agencies of male managers in high-tech MNCs against women can be intentional and strategic. This has been documented in US electronics fi rms in China, Malaysia, and Mexico, as well as India, manufacturing circuit boards, televisions, and so on. The high-tech industry is notorious for transnational managers who carefully select and activate local and global narratives of gender, race, and nation to maximize their exploitation of women factory workers (Chhachhi 1999; Lee 1998; Ong 1987; Salzinger 2003; Wright 2006). These male managers in the information economy advance the profit-seeking ideals of neoliberalism laid out by hegemonic masculinity and adapt them through local lenses, to the expense of women in the global South. The transnational space is a window for Indian men—between the direct hands of authorities in either the global North (like the parent fi rm) or the global South (like the local state)—to craft technological and labor relations in their own interests. Within this context, midlevel Indian professionals sometimes use their positions and resources to override imperatives of the global North. Instead of accepting the hegemony of US fi rms, they redesign IT organizations in their own visions or with their own agendas, whether for good or bad.

Virtual Service At the lower levels of the information economy, Indians are asserting their techno-masculinities as workers in the field of ICT service. This takes place in a different transnational context of information economy: virtual spaces over the Internet. It also involves more micro kinds of agencies: interactional power within conversations between an employee and customer. Unlike the cases in the preceding, the resources mobilized here are neither fi nancial nor organizational. The information economy offers tools for working- and middle-class men in India in the form of knowledge power, technical skills, and virtual mutability.

124 Winifred R. Poster Starting around the year 2000, US fi rms began sending their back-office clerical jobs to India. Some is customer service work, heavily based in communication, and therefore operates through satellite phone connections, fiber-optic cable linkages, and the Internet. In these call centers, Indian employees handle complaints and queries from consumers in the US (and other countries). This industry has grown to half a million workers in the span of a decade. It tends to be male dominated, at about 60 percent (Holman, Batt, and Holtgrewe 2007) and often takes on masculine undertones.7 Deference is an integral part of service work, and accordingly, one might expect American consumers to be empowered over Indian workers within these conversations. However, Indian men in call centers use their technomasculine resources to destabilize those relations. Enhanced technical knowledge is one of those tools. Oftentimes, these workers are superior to the US Americans they talk to in terms of education, affluence, health, and so on. Indian call center workers are largely middle-class, young, and highly skilled men. With IT backgrounds, many have aspirations in the higher paid and more competitive sister industry of software outsourcing. On the other hand, the US consumers who use these services are often seniors, working class, single mothers, or disabled. This is especially true of collections industries that use telephone communications to target poor and less-educated consumers and computer industries that hire call center workers for technical help services. Given this imbalance, some Indian men in my study used their dominant masculinity to exploit the vulnerabilities and weaker knowledge base of US American consumers. One employee commented: “Some callers are like children. They can’t even fi nd the start button on the computer. At least with children, you can sit down and show them.” These workers would capitalize on insecurities to encourage consumers to purchase things they don’t need: “I have sold things to them which can’t be sold—like a phone message service to a housewife, who clearly doesn’t need it since she is home all the time anyway to answer the phone herself.” Male call center workers would also use the technology and information at their disposal, however simple, to gain leverage over US customers (Poster 2011). They press hold buttons on their phones (and features on the customer’s computer) to take a break. They record customers while they talk and create databases on them, independently of managers sometimes. With personalized information on their computer screens, they strategize the best way to manipulate Americans emotionally during the call, for example, how to gain their trust and then persuade them to buy a product or pay a bill. Some men in my study were eager to use virtual identity shifting to manipulate customers. Networked communications offer many techniques for swapping and morphing personas. Corporations in the global North have seen this as an opportunity to deploy “national identity management” (Poster 2007). They have asked Indian call center employees to pose as

Subversions of Techno-Masculinity

125

US Americans, conveying through their words, accent, and sounds on the phone that they are in the US. Many employees in my study resisted this process. Among the rest, however, male workers were more likely than the females to see it as beneficial. They found it to be an efficient means of enhancing their power over US consumers. They not only practiced national identity management willingly; they invented new ways of carrying it out for making the sale. Indian men in call centers use ICTs in positive ways, too, as discussed next. The point here is that even in this marginalized site of the information economy, and with less sophisticated technical tools than the elites we started with in the preceding, Indian men contest US masculinities in the transnational arena.

IMPLICATIONS OF INDIAN TECHNO-MASCULINITY FOR WOMEN What are the implications of these “subversions”? What are these rising Indian men doing with their newfound power in technology and fi nance? Are they using it for empowerment or disempowerment of their communities? Here I show how Indian techno-masculinity can be enacted in multiple ways, for society and for women. Some IT professionals use their ICTs against women. This happens in both virtual and material worlds. For instance, Indian websites emerging in the last decade have sponsored regressive messages about femininity and women. They valorize women’s subservient positions to men in the family, like Bahu.com, which refers to the Hindi word for “daughter-in-law.” Others emphasize women’s domesticity and consumerism. Namaste.com features pictures of light-skinned, bindi-adorned women shopping for the household, while men with their sons navigate fi nancial and technological flows in front of computers. These images create “a homology where middle-class Hindu femininity is articulated to issues of consumption, labor, the private and national and middle-class Hindu masculinity is linked to issues of production, capital, the public, and the transnational” (Mallapagada 2006, 214). The virtual world has become a site for Hindu fundamentalists to revive or reinforce patriarchal images (Gajjala 2003; Mallapagada 2006). These narratives are reinforced in transnational media. Themes of computer technology and transnationalism are increasingly prevalent in Indian fi lm and television, and they are equated with manhood (Pal 2010a, 2010b). Studies show that, after viewing these images, Indian men (both nationals and those in diaspora) are more likely to “reserve these public pleasures and privileges for themselves” and shield them from women (Derne 2008, 157). Violence is also integrated in this mix. Images are not only technological, but brutal, enhanced further by special effects. In turn, Indian men are often drawn to the possibilities of male strength and dominant masculinities.

126

Winifred R. Poster

ICTs are providing a landscape for new forms of harassment by Indian men. Hearn and Parkin (2001, 135) note that “the Internet and ICTs can be and are used for the delivery of sexuality, sexual performance, sexualized violence, violence and violation, as in the promotion of racist hatred and racial violence.” In India, the Internet has been the site of over ten different kinds of cybercrime against women, including cyberharassment, stalking, bullying, defamation, hacking, email spoofi ng, morphing, and pornography (Halder and Jaishankar 2008). Such practices extend to the off-line world. The entrance of Indian men to ICT positions has been associated with highly publicized physical assaults against women. Take the international call centers, for example. One incident occurred in 2003 when a call center worker, at home during the day, was arrested for raping the maid in his house (Times News Network 2003). Another case happened in 2005 when a female call center agent, Pratibha Murthy, was raped and murdered by her employee-sponsored shuttle driver, as the last one on the bus (Asian Pacific Post 2005). The global outsourcing industry involves a reversal of work time, running almost entirely at night. Women can fall prey to this temporal disjuncture. Whether they are call center workers themselves or personal employees of call center workers in their houses, women become isolated and more vulnerable to crimes by men. Furthermore, abuse by Indian IT professionals can be conducted transnationally—from positions in foreign countries. One trend is bride abandonment. Thousands of male Indian immigrants (largely employed in IT fields) reportedly go home to get married, receive the dowry, and then leave without their spouses. A parallel trend is called nowhere brides or holiday brides. These women are brought to the husband’s new country of residence, where they face a range of mistreatments: physical assault, confi nement to the house, discovery that the groom is already married, being held ransom for payments from her family back in India, or abandonment at the airport. This is especially problematic in the northern state of Punjab. Between 2009 and 2010, there were over five hundred complaints registered to the Indian state about this phenomenon. They came from twenty countries, from Thailand to Brazil to Norway (National Commission for Women 2011). The government set up a special “NRI [nonresident Indian] Cell” to handle overseas Indians and their deserted Indian brides in 2009. However, there is little recourse by the state at this point. A more gruesome transnational trend is contract murder. Between 2006 and 2008, there were twelve cases of Indian expatriates abroad hiring criminals to harm or kill enemies back in the state of Punjab. The victims are usually family members, and the confl icts are often related to property or marriage (Raaj 2008). As the ultimate example of aggression, immigrant IT professionals have used their global connections to facilitate communal and political violence back in India. NRIs in the US—including their IT fi rms in Silicon Valley—have raised substantial amounts of funds through

Subversions of Techno-Masculinity

127

tax-exempt charities for the Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Cisco, Sun Microsystems, and Oracle put such groups on their list of charities with matching donation programs for employees (Luce and Sevastopulo 2003). Those resources were linked to RSS activities in 1992 massacres, when two thousand Muslims were killed in riots in the state of Gujarat. This was one of the worst cases of sectarian violence in recent Indian history. It shows how the domain of ICTs can be appropriated by religious extremist segments of the Indian techno-science agenda. This is a cautionary tale of men and technology in the transnational realm. At the same time, there are parallel trends among Indian ICT men in promoting women’s empowerment. The examples of men organizing for gender equity are plentiful. For instance, Indian professionals like Raj Jayadev are crusaders for women’s labor rights in Silicon Valley IT fi rms (Snitow and Kaufman 2001). Many Indian immigrants are carrying their gains (both fi nancially and symbolically) back home to uplift the national economy. They do this through cross-border networks, fi rms, and fi nancial circuits. NRIs are known for their tendencies to send money back to the nation. India ranks at the top of remittance-receiving countries worldwide—$21.7 billion in 2004 (Sassen 2008). With these funds, IT professionals are sustaining their families in India and much more. Philanthropic giving to India is a frequent activity among NRIs in the US (Bornstein 2009). Many are highly committed to improving their communities in India, and have poured extensive resources into infrastructure development, educational institutions, and civic engagement centers so that people have easier access to local government (Chacko 2007). Some male IT professionals have been particularly effective in promoting women in their hometowns. An example is Jagadish Shukla, an MIT professor who saved a tenth of his salary each year for his village in Uttar Pradesh (Waldman 2003). He opened a college there with five hundred students, of whom 70 percent are female. It is not uncommon for the Indian owners, managers, and workers in ICT fi rms to use their resources for the public good. For instance, my research on high-tech MNCs shows how Indian managers can create better policies for women workers than those of either the parent or other local organizations. In the transnational space of the MNCs, these men have the ability to override and improve employee benefits from the US. Some men in call centers, likewise, have provided services for women, the indigent, and communities in crisis. They do this, moreover, for groups who are both local and international. A male call center employee in my study developed personal relationships with his female customers, calling them back regularly to counsel them on their problems (Poster 2007). Another supported women callers who were poor and single mothers, even when it meant defying his boss about forcing sales or risking their credit. ICT professionals can be quick to help in times of social emergency. In the state of Gujarat, a call center manager used his organization to help victims

128

Winifred R. Poster

in Texas during Hurricane Rita (BBC News 2005). His partner fi rm in the US was closed due to the storm, so he shifted operations to the Indian call center and set up special help lines. Employees fielded calls from hundreds of US Americans, providing information on evacuation plans and how to locate shelter. Such Indian IT professionals are performing a version of manhood that counters transnational business masculinity and other domineering forms common to the global North. They are influenced by an imagery of masculinity (perhaps similar to the historic Indian paradigms of Gandhi) that technology should be used to uplift grassroots communities rather than to exploit them.8 In this way, the deployments of techno-masculinity run across the spectrum from empowerment to disempowerment. Some are informed by neoliberal agendas of the global economy and hegemonic masculinity, others by the national context of India, and still others are created through transnational dynamics and the negotiations of spaces between sites.

CONCLUSION The value of focusing on techno-masculinity is exposing an ascendant form of masculinity on the world scene. It is not based solely in militarism, politics, or fi nance. It does not require a government, army, or bank to enact or perform it. Rather, the tools are more readily available in everyday and advanced information and communication technologies: technical education, computers, software, the Internet, mobile phones, and so on. Thus, techno-masculinity is not the domain of traditional elites alone, by class or geography. A wider range of men can practice it, especially those from the global South. Indian techno-masculinity, in particular, has risen in its presence and influence. Indian men are achieving dominance in the information economy, both at home and abroad. They are utilizing and benefitting from informational commodities, knowledge skills, and virtual mutability. Their strategies are both grand and routine, in cultivating ICT multinationals, producing ICT knowledge, and manipulating technology within phone calls. The implications of Indian techno-masculinity for global geopolitics are striking. That men in a global South country—one of the most impoverished, no less—can advance in the world economy by putting resources toward ICTs reveals a subversion if not reversal in the neoliberal order. It reflects a decentering of postcolonial power and a surge in momentum of the global South. The aim of this analysis is not to declare winners and losers in the transnational pantheon of masculinities, however, but to draw attention to shifting relations. It suggests that, with the advance of the global South through ICTs, masculinities will be in an ongoing struggle and may exhibit multiple outcomes.

Subversions of Techno-Masculinity

129

Theoretically, this analysis documents how techno-masculinity poses a challenge to hegemonic masculinity, and more specifically, to transnational business masculinity. Techno-masculinity has its own basis of power, as well as its own narrative of manhood, geography, and ethnic/racial makeup. It may converge at certain moments, but, increasingly, it is resistant and oppositional to transnational business masculinity. This chapter also shows how trends of Indian techno-masculinities are both transgressive and regressive of gender relations. While the advancement of Indian techno-masculinity represents an empowerment over that of the global North, it is also associated with many kinds of disempowerment over other groups, including women. Many questions remain. Does Indian techno-masculinity have the potential to become globally hegemonic in the way, for instance, that US technomasculinity has been in the past? How will Indian ICT professionals use their power? Will they lead a path for social justice or promote an alternative techno-science and gender order? More broadly, it will be interesting to watch techno-masculinities from other emerging economies as well—such as Brazil, Russia, and China—as well as examining the changing form and impact of their subversions.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This is a revision of work I undertook as a GEXcel Scholar, which I presented at Linköping University and published in the Theme 2 Work in Progress Report. Much appreciation goes to Jeff Hearn, Marina Blagojević, and Katherine Harrison for editing this volume, and also to Nina Lykke, Alp Biricik, and Berit Starkman for hosting me in their department. Thanks also to my fellow GEXcel scholars for comments, especially Niels Ulrik Sørensen, and to Amy Wilhelm for help with editing. I am grateful to the participants of my research whose stories informed this discussion. The opinions expressed herein are my own. NOTES 1. I use the terms global North and global South to draw attention to inequalities among countries that tend to be mapped out (at least partially) on geographic lines (i.e., US, Canada, Europe, and Japan versus South America, Africa, South/Southeast Asia, etc.). These terms reflect current sociopolitical hierarchies in a less normative manner than previous concepts, like First or Third World, developed/developing, industrialized/industrializing, and so on. However, they reify binaries and overlook important variations within and across the two zones, such as the marginalized nations in the North and the powerful nations in the South. See Rai (2002) for an informative discussion. I look forward to continued discussion on this terminology and the search for better options in the language of globalization.

130 Winifred R. Poster 2. I describe the national and global forms of techno-masculinity in more detail in another analysis (Poster 2008b). 3. This subordinated role of the geek imagery in the US provides a stark contradiction to the fi nancial dominance of the IT industry. It is a testament to the complex nature of masculinities and how a single persona can be viewed as powerful and powerless at the same time. See Kendall (2002) for an enlightening discussion of this. In my analysis, I see these two characterizations as a difference between symbolic versus material techno-masculinities, as well as a difference of dynamics on national versus global levels, and so on. 4. As I go through this list, I don’t mean to sidestep or overshadow the important role of Indian women in ICTs. Much of my other work is on the accomplishments of Indian women in the technical sphere. The relation between Indian techno-masculinity and techno-femininity is an interesting question for future studies. 5. The experience for Indian IT men in diaspora is not always rosy. There is a parallel underclass of “bodyshoppers” doing highly precarious and often exploitative contract work (Aneesh 2006; Xiang Biao 2007). They also face derogatory images appearing in Western media outlets (Amrute 2010). 6. Names of fi rms have been changed to preserve the anonymity of the informants. 7. In many parts of the world, this work is female dominated. India has a higher concentration of men for many reasons, one being that the industry operates at night to cater to the US American daylight. 8. Gandhi’s narrative of masculinity, it should be noted, was contradictory regarding gender and not always woman empowered, as Karen Gabriel (2009) has outlined.

REFERENCES Adhyaru-Majithia, P. 2011. “Indians Are Real Fuel in America’s Growth Engine, Reveals Study.” Times of India. http://timesofi ndia.indiatimes.com. Amrute, S. 2010. “Migrant Programming.” Paper presented at the STS-South Asia Conference, University of Texas at Austin. Aneesh, A. 2006. Virtual Migration. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. . 2009. “Global Labor: Algocratic Modes of Organization.” Sociological Theory 27 (4): 347–70. Asian Pacific Post. 2005. “Call Centre Rape and Murder Stuns Outsourcing Industry.” 22 December, 2. www.asianpacificpost.com. BBC News. 2005. “Indian Centre Helps Rita Victims.” 9 September. http://news. bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/4283468.stm. Beasley, C. 2008. “Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in a Globalizing World.” Men and Masculinities 11 (1): 86–103. Bornstein, E. 2009. “The Impulse of Philanthropy.” Cultural Anthropology 24 (4): 622–51. Bryson, D. 2011. “Africa Mobile Market Is Fastest Growing on Earth.” Huffi ngton Post, 9 November. http://www.huffi ngtonpost.com/2011/11/09/africa-mobilemarket-fastest-growing_n_1083832.html?view=print&comm_ref=false. Burris, B. H. 1989. “Technocracy and Gender in the Workplace.” Social Problems 36 (2): 165–80. Castells, M. 2000. The Rise of the Network Society. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Chacko, E. 2007. “From Brain Drain to Brain Gain.” GeoJournal 68:131–40.

Subversions of Techno-Masculinity

131

Chang, K. A., and L. H. M. Ling. 2000. “Globalization and Its Intimate Other: Filipina Domestic Workers in Hong Kong.” In Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites, and Resistances, edited by M. Marchand and A. S. Runyan, 27–43. London: Routledge. Chhachhi, A. 1999. “Gender, Flexibility, Skill and Industrial Restructuring: The Electronics Industry in India.” Gender, Technology and Development 3 (3): 329–60. Cockburn, C. 1985. Machinery of Dominance: Women, Men and Technical Know-How. London: Pluto. Connell, R. W. 1998. “Masculinities and Globalization.” Men and Masculinities 1 (1): 3–23. Connell, R. W., J. Hearn, and M. Kimmel. 2005. “Introduction.” In Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, edited by M. Kimmel, J. Hearn, and R. W. Connell, 1–13. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Connell, R. W., and J. W. Messerschmidt. 2005. “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept.” Gender & Society 19 (6): 829–59. Derne, S. 2008. Globalization on the Ground. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Dossani, R. 2002. Chinese and Indian Engineers and their Networks in Silicon Valley. Stanford, CA: Asia/Pacific Research Center, Stanford University. Evans, P. 1995. Embedded Autonomy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Faulkner, W. 2000. “Dualisms, Hierarchies, and Gender in Engineering.” Social Studies of Science, 30(5), 759–92. Forbes. 2008. “Billionaires 2008.” Forbes 181 (6): 80–87. Gabriel, K. 2009. “Resisting Men: Gandhi, Gender, and Anti-Colonialism.” In GEXcel Work in Progress Report Volume VI. Proceedings from GEXcel Theme 2: Deconstructing the Hegemony of Men and Masculinities Conference 27–29 April 2009, edited by A. Biricik and J. Hearn, 161–70. Linköping and Örebro: Institute of Thematic Gender Studies, Linköping and Örebro Universities. Gajjala, R. 2003. “South Asian Digital Diasporas and Cyberfeminist Webs.” Contemporary South Asia 12 (1): 41–56. Gray, C. H. 2000. “Man Plus: Enhanced Cyborgs and the Construction of the Future Masculine.” Science as Culture 9 (3): 277–99. Hacker, S. L. 1981. “The Culture of Engineering: Woman, Workplace and Machine.” Women’s Studies International Quarterly 4 (3): 341–53. Halder, D., and K. Jaishankar. 2008. “Cyber Crimes against Women in India: Problems, Perspectives and Solutions.” TMC Academic Journal 3 (1): 48–62. Harding, S., ed. 1993. The “Racial” Economy of Science. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hearn, J. 2004a. “From Hegemonic Masculinity to the Hegemony of Men.” Feminist Theory 5 (1): 49–72. . 2004b. “Tracking ‘the Transnational’: Studying Transnational Organizations and Managements, and the Management of Cohesion.” Culture and Organization 10 (4): 273–90. . 2006. “The Implications of Information and Communication Technologies for Sexualities and Sexualised Violences.” Political Geography 25:944–63. and W. Parkin. 2001. Gender Sexuality and Violence in Organizations. London: Sage. Holman, D., R. Batt, and U. Holtgrewe. 2007. The Global Call Center Project. http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/globalcallcenter/. Hooper, C. 2001. Manly States: Masculinities, International Relations, and Gender Politics. New York: Columbia University Press. Kendall, L. 2002. Hanging Out in the Virtual Pub: Masculinities and Relationships Online. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lacey, A. T., and B. Wright. 2009. “Occupational Employment Projections to 2018.” Monthly Labor Review November: 82–123.

132

Winifred R. Poster

Lee, C. K. 1998. Gender and the South China Miracle: Two Worlds of Factory Women. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lohan, M., and W. Faulkner 2004. “Masculinities and Technology: Some Introductory Remarks.” Men and Masculinities 6 (4): 319–29. Luce, E., and D. Sevastopulo. 2003. “Saffron under Scrutiny.” Business Standard, 22–23 February, 1. Mallapagada, M. 2006. “Home, Homeland, Homepage.” New Media & Society 8 (2): 207–27. Mellström, U. 2004. “Machines and Masculine Subjectivity.” Men and Masculinities 6 (4): 368–82. Monti, D. J., L. Smith-Doerr, and J. McQuaid. 2007. Immigrant Entrepreneurs in the Massachusetts Biotechnology Industry. Malden, MA Nakamura, L. 2002. Cybertypes. New York: Routledge. . 2008. Digitizing Race. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Nanda, M. 2003. Prophets Facing Backwards: Postmodern Critiques of Science and the Hindu Nationalism in India. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Nandy, A. 1983. The Intimate Enemy. Delhi: Oxford University Press. National Commission for Women. 2011. Background Note on Issues Relating to NRI Marriages. Government of India, Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs. http://punjabpolice.gov.in/nri_cell.aspx. National Intelligence Council. 2008. Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Nayar, P. 2008. “New Media, Digitextuality and Public Space: Reading ‘Cybermohalla.’” Postcolonial Text 4 (1): 1–12. Nelson, A., T. L. N. Tu, and A. H. Hines. 2001. Technicolor. New York: New York University Press. Ong, A. 1987. Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia. Albany: State University of New York Press. Pal, J. 2010a. “Of Mouse and Men: Computers and Geeks as Cinematic Icons in the Age of ICTD.” iConference Proceedings February 16: 179–87. . 2010b. “Rajnikant’s Laptop: Computers and Development in Popular Indian Cinema.” Information Technologies and International Development 6 (2): 39–54. Peterson, V. S. 2003. A Critical Rewriting of Global Political Economy: Integrating Reproductive, Productive, and Virtual Economies. London: Routledge. Poster, W. R. 2007. “Who’s on the Line? Indian Call Center Agents Pose as Americans for US-Outsourced Firms.” Industrial Relations 46 (2): 271–304. . 2008a. “Filtering ‘Diversity’: A Global Corporation Struggles with Race, Class, and Gender in Employment Policy.” American Behavioral Scientist 52 (3): 307–41. . 2008b. “Multi-Level Challenges by Indian Professionals to US ICT Hegemony.” Paper presented at the GEXcel Mini-Conference, Linkoping University, Sweden, 20 November. . 2011. “Emotion Detectors, Answering Machines and E-Unions: Multisurveillances in the Global Interactive Services Industry.” American Behavioral Scientist 55 (7): 868–901. Prasad, A. 2006. “Beyond Modern vs. Alternative Science Debate.” Economic and Political Weekly, 21 January, 219–27. Raaj, N. 2008. “Murder Outsourced.” Times of India, 24 February. www.timesofi ndia.com. Rai, S.M. 2002. Gender and the Political Economy of Development. Cambridge: Polity. Salzinger, L. 2003. Genders in Production. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Subversions of Techno-Masculinity

133

Sassen, S. 2008. “Two Stops in Today’s New Global Geographies: Shaping Novel Labor Supplies and Employment Regimes.” American Behavioral Scientist 52 (3): 457–96. Saxenian, A. 2000. “Back to India: Indian Software Engineers Are Returning with Enthusiasm and Entrepreneurial Know-How.” Wall Street Journal: Technology Journal Asia, 24 January. Shah, R. 2011. “India to Topple Japan as World’s 3rd-Largest Economy.” Economic Times, 20 September. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes. com/2011– 09–20/news/30180201_1_third-largest-economy-power-parityindian-economy. Shiva, V., and R. Holla-Bhar. 1993. “Intellectual Piracy and the Neem Tree.” Ecologist 23 (6): 223. Singh, S. P. 2003. “Karnick is Forbes ‘Face’ of the Year.” Times of India, 22 December, 7. Sinha, M. 1995. Colonial Masculinity. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Snitow, A., and D. Kaufman. 2001. Secrets of Silicon Valley (Videorecording). Oley, PA: Bullfrog Films. Sundaram, R. 2000. “Beyond the Nationalist Panopticon: The Experience of Cyberpublics in India.” In Electronic Media and Technoculture, edited by J. T. Caldwell, 270–94. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. . 2010. Pirate Modernity. New York: Routledge. Times News Network. 2003. “Call Centre Official Held for Rape.” Time of India, 15 January, 4. Timmons, H. 2008. “Indian Media Giant Buys Virgin Radio from Scottish Firm.” New York Times, 2 June, C1. . 2009. “Foreign Phone Carriers Take a Step to a Merger.” New York Times, 26 May, B3. Turkle, S. 1995. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon and Schuster. Upadhya, C. 2004. “A New Transnational Capitalist Class?” Economic and Political Weekly 27 November, 5141–51. van Agtmael, A. 2011. “Industrial Revolution 2.0.” In Annual Editions: Developing World 2011/2012, edited by R. J. Griffiths, 26–31. New York: McGrawHill. van der Veer, P. 2001. Imperial Encounters. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Varma, R. 2006. Harbingers of Global Change. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Wadhwa, V., A. Saxenian, B. Rissing, and G. Gereffi. 2007. American’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs. Durham, NC: Master of Engineering Management Program, Duke University. Wajcman, J. 1991. Feminism Confronts Technology. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. . 2004. TechnoFeminism. Malden, MA: Polity. Waldman, A. 2003. “Professor Teaches Change in His Indian Village.” New York Times, 17 August, A17. Wright, M. W. 2006. Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism. New York: Routledge. Xiang Biao. 2007. Global “Body Shopping.” Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

8

Why Masculinity is Still an Important Category (Trans)Migrant Men and the Migration Experience Richard Howson

INTRODUCTION Introducing the idea of the “hegemony of men,” Jeff Hearn (2004) questioned the way that both hegemony and masculinity have been employed in the critical studies of men (CSM) literature. In particular, that the focus on masculinity “is too narrow” and that what is required is a return to a more critically detailed and comprehensive deconstructive study of “men” (ibid., 59). This is made all the more relevant if we accept Haywood and Mac an Ghaill’s argument that in the contemporary moment men, or more accurately some men in some “Western” societies, are fi nding themselves increasingly having to engage with complex social and cultural transformations that include: the separation of sexual pleasure from reproduction and marriage . . . the development of reproductive technologies, the increasing spatial visibility of lesbians and gays, the mass production of sexual products and pornography and the emergence of HIV/AIDS. (2003, 12) While this cited commentary neglects key issues like (un)employment and can be said to be center-centric, affecting some men unevenly in different parts of the world, these realities impact on the hegemony of men in some regions and require ongoing negotiations and engagements with ways of thinking and doing. Further, within these processes many men view these transformations as creating fractures and dislocations within the hegemony of men. Transformations in what men do, with whom men engage, and what men understand emphasize the importance of going back to the social meanings about what it is to be a man, and, in this context, it is possible to see why “identity has emerged as one of the key dynamic concepts in . . . rethinking social and cultural change” (ibid., 12). In the field of masculinities theory, much of what is understood about identification is framed by Raewyn Connell’s (1995, 78) concept of hegemonic masculinity. This framing builds on the feminist push for a critical understanding of difference. For example, the work of Judith Butler (1990) questions

Why Masculinity is Still an Important Category 135 the notion of the modernist subject constituted through a fi xed, essential identity by emphasizing the importance of discourse as the constituting moment. As a consequence, Butler not only brought into question the idea of the modernist unified female subject, but, equally, opened new possibilities for an ongoing critique of identity as a static and stable category. Connell (1995), too, albeit putting the emphasis on hegemonic masculinity as a practice, showed that the idea of a modernist unified male subject could be unpacked by understanding the historical nature of the processes that give legitimacy to the current “gender order” (Connell 2002, 54). However, this order, which can also be understood as hegemony, does not operate as a singular global axiom about the nature and operation of masculinity. Rather, there are many different gender orders that articulate specific identities and practices within particular national and cultural contexts that, in turn, set out as well as integrate all the various social, economic and political “gendered regimes” (ibid., 53) that in turn take their cues from the specific or localized hegemonic form of masculinity. The aim of this chapter, then, is not to reject the argument for bringing back men as an important category in the CSM, but to show how hegemonic masculinity understood as different across contexts is an equally important category in terms of the operation of the hegemony of men. In making this argument, a particularly interesting and revealing field of study is transnational migration because in this situation men are moving between different national and cultural contexts where they are confronted, following Grillo’s (2007, 200) argument about the “multiplicity of potential trajectories”, with multiple and often confl icting ways of being men. The reason for this multiplicity is evident in Basch, Schiller, and Blanc-Szanton’s foundational defi nition of transnationalism as: the process by which transmigrants, through their daily activities, forge and sustain multi-stranded social, economic, and political relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement, and through which they create transnational social fields that cross national borders. (1994, 6) As will be shown later in this chapter, these transnational social fields contain multiple and different understandings of masculine identity and practice. Further, the negotiations required by men have the very real potential to produce antagonism and ultimately dislocation between masculine identities and practices that are sourced from the national and cultural contexts of origin and settlement. In many ways transmigration recognizes that the process of movement and settlement that is migration is not an immediately resolved reality whereby the migrant man assimilates and integrates unproblematically into the new gender order. For many migrant men, their initial experience of settlement is as a transmigrant because there is a need to balance not just multiple potential trajectories but also a state of

136

Richard Howson

“in-between-ness” (Grillo 2007, 201) even if assimilation and integration are real objectives. The approach this chapter takes in developing masculinity as an important category in CSM is one that builds on and ties together two themes that can be introduced to analysis of hegemonic masculinity within the hegemony of men but that are also relevant to understanding the transmigrant experience of migrant men.1 The fi rst of these themes is the development of a theoretical link between masculinities theory and the post-Marxist theory of Ernesto Laclau. The objective here is to offer a reading of hegemonic masculinity as the representation (and representative) of men within the hegemony of men. It will present three key concepts in post-Marxist theory: antagonism, dislocation and impossibility because these relate most directly to a deconstructive analysis of the hegemony of men. The second theme offers an application of these concepts and its framing theory into the field of transmigration. Drawing on the volume Migrant Men: Critical Studies of Masculinities and the Migration Experience (Donaldson et al. 2009), the analysis will unpack African men’s migration experiences to show how antagonism, dislocation, and impossibility operate to help understand the transmigration moment. This nexus between CSM and post-Marxist theory as applied to the field of transmigration is important because it contributes to what is at this stage an undeveloped theoretical engagement. Furthermore, it does so in a way that helps to explain the issues confronting men in new environments, where the nature of the hegemony is different and, therefore, hegemonic masculinity, too, will be different.

POST-MARXISM AND HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY As Stuart Sim (2000) argued, post-Marxism is not new, and throughout the history of Marxism—which Wolf and Cullenberg (1986) indicate should be differentiated from the specific work of Marx—there have always been attempts to interpret the theory in ways that will fit particular contexts and historical moments. However, the seminal work for contemporary post-Marxist theory is Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s (1985) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, not simply because it accepted the theoretical brand post-Marxism but because it did so in a derivative and synergetic way that drew from new Marxist, psychoanalytic, poststructuralist, and even semiotic approaches to the social and political. While recognizing the importance of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, this chapter will draw predominantly from the work of Ernesto Laclau that followed. This is because Laclau’s post-Marxism continues to emphasize the importance of the theory of hegemony and the operation of difference (see Laclau in Bowman 1999). This emphasis can be seen in Laclau’s work (see 1990, 1996, 2000, 2004) and particularly through the claims made in New Refl ections on the Revolution of Our Time that “every age adopts an image of

Why Masculinity is Still an Important Category 137 itself—a certain horizon, however blurred and imprecise that unifies its whole experience.” (Laclau 1990, 3). Modernity is an example of such a horizon that has become hegemonic and thereby enables the unification of identities, forms of consciousness, and social organization. However, the social, economic, and political spaces today are preoccupied with a growing awareness of difference and thereby the limits to the hegemony of modernity. Marx of course was fi rst to recognize and explicate certain limits to modernity that were centered on the limits to modern economic development. Similarly, this idea of the relationship between difference and limits also resonates with the transformational changes to masculinities flagged by Haywood and Mac an Ghaill. Where a system contains difference and sets limits for itself, there will always be excesses that must be managed, and this is the fundamental hegemonic cycle. Where the gender order is understood as a system of differences, the transformational changes operating on masculinity may well mark out its limits as articulated by hegemonic masculinity as well as the moments of excess within a particular hegemony of men. Therefore, if transmigrant men are in fact caught in a transnational social context where their masculine identity is confl icted between its articulation by identifications and practices from the origin as opposed to the settlement context, then the particularity of the origin and its continuation will express an excess to what is accepted in the settlement context. Post-Marxist theory does not see such excesses of the limit as representing nihilism, nor does it accept that those caught on the other side simply fall into discursive voids from which there is no possibility to engage projects of challenge and change. Instead, the excess as it is experienced by transmigrant men who are caught at the limits of the new hegemony of men and are expected to alter their masculinity to remain within the limit represent the potential for critique of forms of domination and oppression, as well as for the formulation of new transformational projects. In other words, post-Marxism offers a theory that explains the way that an existing hegemony attempts to sustain itself while also providing a framework to think through the charting of courses for challenge and change. To examine how this might develop, the starting point is the concept of antagonism (Laclau 2006, 104) that, in turn, is based on a reassessment of subordination and oppression within hegemony. A relation of subordination is a situation in which an agent is subjected to the decisions of another. For example, a worker is required to follow the instructions of their employer; a husband or a wife will be subject to the instructions of the other at times. There should be nothing in this type of relation that subverts the positive expansion of identities beyond the social relation and therefore nothing that immediately assumes the operation of antagonism, oppression, and ultimately their dislocation. It simply establishes a set of differential positions between agents within a social relation. Difference, too, does not assume the operation of oppression, but rather simply enables the construction of each social identity as different

138

Richard Howson

and positive. This social relation, therefore, does not produce in and of itself antagonism and over time the feeling of oppression within the social relation, and even beyond it; rather, it enables the conditions for ongoing cooperation (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, 153–54). A relation of oppression, then, does not develop because of the unequal operation of power practiced within the particular social relation. Instead, it requires difference within the social relation to become subverted in some way, primarily through the overdetermination of the social relation and its identities by explanatory discourses. Specifically, one of the differential identities, which began as positive, understands their position within the particular social relation as no longer able to allow for the positive expansion of its identity, both within the particular social relation but, even more importantly, outside that relation (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, 153; Laclau 1990, 16–17). For example, the erosion of the worker’s ability to expand his or her identity from worker to consumer or provider, or a wife’s ability to expand her identity from mother to worker may be seen by the husband as a constraint on his ability to expand his identity from husband to breadwinner. In turn, oppression produces two distinguishable but connected moments: the fi rst is where the subverted identity becomes an antagonism, and the second is where this antagonism marks the limit of the hegemony. In this situation, antagonism extends beyond the particular social relation and into the hegemony, exposing a social dislocation, making any claims to the completeness, stability, and universality of hegemony problematic. This rearticulation of subordination and oppression offers a way of rethinking the nature and operation of hegemony and hegemonic processes by introducing a deconstructive method. In effect, antagonisms mark out the limits of hegemony and describe the particular excesses that cannot be contained because they have no objective legitimacy and thus cannot be hegemonic. This is the very situation many transmigrant men fi nd themselves in, where their particular masculine identity and consequent practices exist at the limit of the local hegemony of men. However, in deconstructive style, even though transmigrant men and their masculinity exist as excess and so prevent the completion of hegemony, they are nevertheless constitutive elements because their very existence requires a rearticulation of the local hegemony of men for it to be able to claim completeness and, thus, universality. Therefore, if the hegemony of men is the expression of a particular gender order, any appearance of stability and completeness is—on closer analysis—problematic because, as more antagonisms emerge within the hegemony of men, its ability to maintain a certain expression of legitimacy by repressing these antagonisms and obfuscating the resultant social dislocations becomes increasingly difficult (see Laclau 1990, 1996). This deconstructive approach offers a way addressing what Hearn identified as the most interesting aspect of the agenda for examining the hegemony of men, that is:

Why Masculinity is Still an Important Category 139 the relationship between “men’s” formation within a hegemonic gender order, that also forms “women”, other genders and boys, and men’s activity in different ways in forming and reforming hegemonic differentiations among men. (2004, 60–61) Further, the claim that: hegemony is not so much, or at least not only, a matter of the social contestation and reproduction of particular forms of hegemonic masculinities as the contestation and reproduction of the hegemony of men in a particular society or combination of globalizing societies . . . both as a social category and in men’s practices. (ibid., 61) These claims point toward the importance of hegemony as the basis for understanding men and particularly the heterogeneity and transformational nature of their social and cultural reality. However, no hegemony operates purely as a material operation. Benedetto Fontana (2006, 56) makes this point in his reference to the “crucial relation” within hegemony, that is, between the material/economic and the generation of ideological, cultural, and moral/ intellectual ways of thinking. In this context, hegemonic masculinity, within the hegemony of men, acts as the key integrative mechanism because it takes on a “mediatory role” (see Howson 2009) that produces the signification of gender identities and configurations of gender practice that are in turn capable of creating legitimacy about certain aspirations and ties between men and men, and between men and women. This signification enables the hegemony of men to present the gender order it expresses as if it is a complete and ordered reality. In so doing, hegemonic masculinity’s significance for the hegemony of men and its gender order is that it sutures masculinities and femininities in a way that ensures the continuing privilege afforded to certain identities and ways of being a man (Connell 1995, 77).2 In post-Marxist theory, the idea of exclusion is born from the transformation of subordination into oppression and the creation of antagonism, where the latter marks the limit of hegemony (Laclau 2006, 108). In other words, no identity can understand itself as itself and in itself, but rather only through social relations. Thus men must continuously work to incorporate themselves into social relations in particular ways that are constitutive of gender regimes and, ultimately, the gender order. All of which are framed by the hegemony of men. So, in the last instance, knowledge of self can never be completely explained outside of the social relations in which they exist. The hegemony of men then relies on hegemonic masculinity’s mediation to construct equivalences between men and men and men and women that offer the appearance of completeness. In his writings on hegemony, Gramsci (1971, 182) flagged the impossibility of completeness by arguing that hegemony is a historical reality, and therefore it will always experience struggles and

140

Richard Howson

shifts that ensure its status as an “unstable equilibrium.” However, within the hegemony of men, struggles do not emerge and continue simply at the level of practice. Hegemony does not impose certain identifications through certain practices, a situation that becomes clear in the analysis of transmigration. Nor can the hegemony of men claim completeness on the basis of particular economic statuses in the spheres of production and the market. Buttigieg (2000) clarifies Gramsci’s emphasis on instability by showing that hegemony operates primarily through leadership and persuasion. In other words, through its ability to build what Connell (1995, 76) referred to as complicity. This suggests that the hegemony of men does not require men to prove the pure achievement of masculinity, but, rather, to build an aspiration for it (see also Wetherell and Edley 1999). In so doing, the hegemony of men creates the basis for consensus that ensures the legitimacy of its principles. In this context, hegemonic masculinity provides the signification of these principles and the consequent identities and practices. It does not express real achievement so much as real aspiration. This theoretical development that shifts hegemonic masculinity from pure practice and achievement to identification and practice as aspirational (see Howson 2006) begins to engage hegemonic masculinity within the hegemony of men in new ways. In particular, it goes some way to addressing the key criticisms of hegemonic masculinity that focus on reification and essentialism. More precisely, where hegemonic masculinity was interpreted as existing above and beyond real men but asymmetrically imposed on them and/or that its characteristics had to inhere in all men as material/natural facts.

WHY BRING HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY TO TRANSMIGRATION? The field of migration has had a troubled relationship with gender. As Michael Kimmel (2001) argued, gender is often so embedded in the processes of globalization and migration that it ends up presenting men and masculinity as invisible but axiomatic. This is not assisted by a scholarship that—when it brings gender into play—tends to concentrate on women within migration processes predominantly as subjects of oppression. In this context, by bringing the hegemony of men and hegemonic masculinity into focus within the field of migration, it is possible to expose the processes that make men and masculinities invisible (see Pessar and Mahler 2003, 814), but it also sets them up as the axiom and benchmark. A failure to consider men and masculinities within these processes has the very real potential to reproduce gender inequalities (see Kimmel 2001) as well as to ignore antagonisms and social dislocations. As set out earlier, this chapter has argued that men are always engaged in social relations that are themselves marked by certain hegemonic ways of identifying and behaving or, as Connell notes (see 2002, 54), that gender and in particular masculinities

Why Masculinity is Still an Important Category 141 is always relational. This is of particular importance for transmigration and masculinity because it requires not just consideration of relations and practices between men and men, and men and women, but of equal importance, consideration needs to be given to relations and practices between and across social and cultural spaces. So far this chapter has developed hegemonic masculinity as an important concept in an attempt to better understand the hegemony of men and, thereby, men. This importance is particularly evident in transmigration not just because of the preceding arguments, but, more specifically, because men are here exposed in the process of constructing new forms of identification and practices that engage social relations spanning original as well as settlement gender orders. Here the task for hegemonic masculinity is to deal effectively with the problem of difference that in some way must be reconstituted into the local hegemony of men of the local gender order.

MEN AND THE TRANSMIGRATION EXPERIENCE This section examines the operation of hegemonic masculinity as a form of mediation within the transmigration experience through a close analysis of Chapter 6, “Rethinking Masculinities in the African Diaspora,” by Ndungai wa Mungai and Bob Pease, in Migrant Men: Critical Studies of Masculinities and the Migration Experience (Donaldson et al. 2009). As the authors Mungai and Pease state, the data presented in their chapter draw on fifteen individual interviews and a focus group and represent significant insights into the difficulties associated with differences between men and masculinities coming and settling in Australia. 3 In particular, the authors note that Africa itself is not a “homogenous continent” either socially or culturally and so the African feminists’ admonition for the West not to think ethnocentrically when trying to understand African conceptions of gender is very applicable to developing an understanding of men in transmigration contexts (Mungai and Pease 2009, 97–98). Identities and practices are organized differently across these transnational social spaces, for example, the emphasis Africans place on “ethnic groupings, kinship and family groups” (ibid., 98) contrasts with the operation of the nuclear family within the broader individualist thrust that marks the Australian (neoliberal) gender order (Connell 2002, 54). Further, the distribution of material resources within the African family is determined by age as much as by gender differences. Notwithstanding these different imperatives, the gender regimes that are reconstructed in Australia, as the authors point out, continue to bestow on African men specific but different privileges and responsibilities. Therefore, the way that masculinity is operationalized by African men requires traditionally configured identification and practices operating within broadly traditional gender regimes that at the same time must be incorporated into a very different Australian gender order.

142

Richard Howson

Within traditional African gender regimes, such as the family, responsibility is central and imperative to men: If you are a man it does mean you have to be responsible. You have a wife, kids, house and car. . . . To . . . be complete you have to have a job [Ousmane, 34, Senegal]. (Mungai and Pease 2009, 104) However, responsibility for African men operates on a different basis than the Australian hegemonic masculine principle of breadwinning. To be responsible is fi rst and foremost an aspect of masculinity that operates through the family. Men are expected to practice “high levels” of responsibility, and this expectation, regardless of achievement, comes with privileges that all men enjoy. The crucial feature of responsibility for African men is to show that you have control over your family, that is, over female members and younger members of the family: If you are not controlling the female persons in your family people will think you are a weak man and you don’t want to be called that. So you will try to control all the females in your family. And if you didn’t work hard and earn money looking after your family, the family will keep watching and evaluate . . . [Ahmed, 34, Northern Sudan]. (ibid., 105) Even though within the African family there is a desire for equality of effort grounded in reciprocity (what can be understood as a relation of subordination), men are responsible for the family and therefore must be in control. It is also noted by Mungai and Pease (ibid.) that when responsibility is connected to religion and in particular Islam, men are put on “a pedestal, irrespective of age or abilities.” However, the identification and practice of masculinity as requiring the ability to exert responsibility over oneself and control over all women in the family is shown to be problematic in the Australian gender order. Through focus groups and interviews, the authors show that this system of privilege born of responsibility and control is very quickly placed in jeopardy following migration to Australia. In effect, the African men interviewed showed that they began the settlement process by exercising a transmigrant identity that inter alia requires a way of balancing the influence of tradition with new ways of being and doing. Specifically, African men must quickly learn to balance responsibility and control with the legitimacy in the Australian gender order that promotes the discourse of dual income households that, in turn, enables women to engage in paid work outside of the family. This expansion of the wife’s identity to paid worker, consumer, and provider is not experienced in at least some African cultures. The new discourse is thus seen by African men as subverting their identity within the familial social relation and is the beginning of their loss of control, responsibility, and, ultimately, masculinity. This places African men and masculinity at the limits of the Australian hegemony of men.

Why Masculinity is Still an Important Category 143 Breadwinning for the Australian man is a more symbolic—even ideologically sustained—aspect of masculinity than a practical reality. However, the data continue to show women in Australia doing far more domestic unpaid labor than men, supporting the argument that through this symbolic alignment, men gain a “patriarchal dividend” (see Connell 1995), part of which is a disconnection from domestic and unpaid labor. This ability to recognize the symbolic as more legitimate than the practical is not easily accepted by African men upon migration and the interview data offered by Mungai and Pease bear this out, with particular comments (see Kamau, 39, Kenya) that suggest African families are subjected to “a lot of tension between the wife and the man”, so much so that it has caused “a lot of conflict and some couples have separated.” (Mungai and Pease 2009, 107). This evidence suggests that changes to certain practices within social relations do not necessarily lead to changes in the way men understand themselves. Mungai and Pease make the point that for some men the adjustments that are required for assimilation and integration cannot be made, even though these men make it very clear that they have made adjustments to accommodate the changed circumstances in which they have landed. As the authors point out, for African men such adjustments do not mean that they must (or even can) change their identities and practices completely. Changes to the operation of control and responsibility, which are central to these men’s sense of hegemonic masculinity, must no longer be expressed in the same traditional way—a situation that becomes evident for many African men on arrival: The concept of a man . . . [has] been mapped out in a sense in my culture. You know there are certain things through those age brackets. . . . You will know exactly what you will be doing when you are a particular age. But when I came here that was not the case. So I had to establish a brand new identity . . . So yes, whatever I came with, or I was expected to have, has changed [Godar, 36, Ethiopia]. (ibid., 109) These men do not need to “forget everything they have learnt” but rather, learn to take what is “constructive and abandon what is a hindrance to the settlement process” (ibid., 108). This suggests that how men construct their identities and organize their practices, in particular around domestic work and fi nancial matters, occurs at the level of signification, representation, and cultural ideology. These men continue to aspire to what is traditionally hegemonic even though the familial social relations in which they now fi nd themselves and their family members following migration no longer allow for it. Instead, tradition must be reconfigured within a new hegemony of men and gender order. This in turn creates identifications and configurations of practice that must and do express a transmigratory reality. Mungai and Pease refer to the idea of blending cultures as the way that men learn to engage the local hegemony of men and build what was referred to earlier as equivalences. So, for example, the idea of men being able to

144 Richard Howson do “hard and dirty work” and “mateship” and “male solidarity in sport” are aspects of the local hegemonic masculinity toward which African men feel comfortable aspiring (see Mungai and Pease 2009, 109–10). Cultural blending suggests that there are characteristics of masculinities that operate at the transnational level, but that the reality of the migration experience for these men is not a simple case of arriving and being able to assimilate and integrate with the legitimate local masculine aspirations and create complicity with the demands of the new hegemony of men either in gender regimes or the gender order. For these men their experience of migration is one that should be understood as transmigratory because their settlement experience is marked by an “in-between-ness” (Grillo 2007) that exposes the antagonism and thereby the excess masculinity that cannot be contained within the local hegemony. This situation pushes African men into what Grillo (2007, 200) suggests is the experience of many transmigrants, that is, not a singular expected trajectory toward engagement with the new environment, but rather a multiplicity of potential trajectories. Hegemonic masculinity cannot obliterate the particularity of the African, or for that matter Indonesian, Latin American, or Chinese, masculine identities and configurations of practice. This indicates precisely the impossibility of completing and stabilizing the Australian hegemony of men. Hegemony is always an “unstable equilibrium” and, of course, marginalization will always exist and act as a framework for potential antagonism that when articulated/realized will produce social dislocations. What we see, however, in the African context is that hegemonic masculinity can and does produce the signification of the principles that men can aspire to and begin to create new masculinities, which, in turn, are able to produce cultural blending or equivalent relationships with other Australian men. From this position African men can and will begin to constitute the Australian hegemony of men in new ways.

CONCLUSION Throughout the volume Migrant Men, there are other numerous examples of migrant men struggling to aspire toward a new hegemonic masculinity. In other words, struggling to identify and behave as men in a new country while constantly having to negotiate with their traditional identifications and behaviors. These struggles do not emerge or continue simply at the level of practice; to assume this is to completely miss the importance that the concept of hegemony has in masculinities theory and the crucial insight Gramsci and then later Laclau would give to the concept of hegemony— that of instability. This chapter has shown a new way of approaching the operation of hegemonic masculinity and that within the field transnational migration there is a growing body of data that offers new insights into the hegemony of men and hegemonic masculinity. Further, by bringing into

Why Masculinity is Still an Important Category 145 explanatory play the key ideas of post-Marxism, we have a unique theoretical framework that offers a way to deconstruct the hegemony of men that allows for the examination of the unstable and constitutive nature of hegemonic masculinity. This work has some way to go in its development but, nevertheless, it maintains the importance of hegemonic masculinity as an important empirical category.

NOTES 1. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to the transmigrant experience of migrant men as simply producing transmigrant men. 2. The post-Marxist use of suture recognizes Derrida’s development of deconstruction as a method of analysis and emphasizes the idea that there are always traces of the old that cannot be destroyed but remain as sedimentary deposits within the process of change, even where the new is trying its hardest to exclude the old because deconstruction is precisely the method of uncovering these buried traces (see Barrett 1991, 66). As in the capitalist mode of production, money mediates and sutures the opposition exchange value and use value, but more importantly, it enables the exchange value to become the hegemonic. In theorizing the hegemony of men, this suturing task is assumed by a particular form of masculinity: hegemonic masculinity. 3. This, of course, relates more to settlement policy rather than immigration policy, but within the constraints of this chapter it cannot be developed in any further detail. However, see Hearn and Howson (2009) for a more substantive discussion.

REFERENCES Barrett, Michelle. 1991. The Politics of Truth: From Marx to Foucault. Cambridge: Blackwell. Basch, G., N. Glick Schiller, and C. Blanc-Szanton. 1994. Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Post-Colonial Predicaments and Deterritorialized Nation-States. Langhorne, PA: Gordon and Breach. Bowman, Paul. 1999. “Polemics: Against Cultural Studies.” Parallax 5:93. Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Buttigieg, Joe. 2000. “The Contemporary Discourse on Civil Society: A Gramscian Critique.” boundary 2 32:1. Connell, Raewyn. 1995. Masculinities. Saint Leonards: Allen and Unwin. . 2002. Gender. Saint Leonards: Allen and Unwin. Donaldson, Michael, Ray Hibbens, Richard Howson, and Bob Pease, eds. 2009. Migrant Men: Critical Studies of Masculinities and the Migration Experience. New York: Routledge. Fontana, Benedetto. 2006. “Liberty and Domination: Civil Society in Gramsci.” boundary 2 33 (2): 51–74. Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Grillo, Ralph. 2007. “Betwixt and Between: Trajectories and Projects of Transmigration.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 33:199–217.

146

Richard Howson

Haywood, Chris, and Máirtín Mac an Ghaill. 2003. Men and Masculinities: Theory, Research, and Social Practice. Buckingham: Open University Press. Hearn, Jeff. 2004. “From Hegemonic Masculinity to the Hegemony of Men.” Feminist Theory 5:49–72. Hearn, Jeff, and Richard Howson. 2009. “Policy, Men and Transnationalism.” In Migrant Men: Critical Studies of Masculinities and the Migration Experience, edited by Michael Donaldson, Ray Hibbens, Richard Howson, and Bob Pease, 41–59. New York: Routledge. Howson, Richard. 2006. Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity. London: Routledge. . 2009. “Deconstructing Hegemonic Masculinity: Contradiction, Hegemony and Dislocation.” NORMA: Nordic Journal for Masculinity Studies 4:6–24. Kimmel, Michael. 2001. “Global Masculinities: Restoration and Resistance.” In A Man’s World? Changing Men’s Practices in a Globalised World, edited by Bob Pease and Keith Pringle, 21–37. London: Zed. Laclau, Ernesto. 1990. New Refl ections on the Revolution of Our Time. London: Verso. . 1996. Emancipation(s). London: Verso. . 2000. “Constructing Universality.” In Contingency, Hegemony and Universality, Contemporary Dialogues on the Left, edited by Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj Zizek, 281–307. London: Verso. . 2004. “Glimpsing the Future.” In Laclau: A Critical Reader, edited by Simon Critchley and Oliver Marchart, 279–344. London: Routledge. . 2006. “Ideology and Post-Marxism.” Journal of Political Ideologies 11:103–8. Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. 1985. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso. Mungai, Nadungi Wa, and Bob Pease. 2009. “Rethinking Masculinities in the African Diaspora.” In Migrant Men: Critical Studies of Masculinities and the Migration Experience, edited by Michael Donaldson, Ray Hibbens, Richard Howson, and Bob Pease, 96–114. New York: Routledge. Pessar, P., and S. Mahler. 2003. “Transnational Migration: Bringing Gender In.” International Migration Review 37:812–46. Sim, Stuart. 2000. Post-Marxism. London: Routledge. Wetherell, Margaret, and Nigel Edley. 1999. “Negotiating Hegemonic Masculinity: Imaginary Positions and Psycho-Discursive Practices.” Feminism Psychology 9:335–56. Wolf, Richard D., and Stephen Cullenberg. 1986. “Marxism and Post-Marxism.” Social Text 15:126–35.

9

Racializing Masculinities in Different Diasporic Spaces Iranian-Born Men’s Navigation of Race, Masculinities, and the Politics of Difference Fataneh Farahani

Rouzbeh: I remember it was around 91–92. It was an Iranian young man on campus who was injured.1 My father used to go to campus, and I remember I felt that my father was close to a potential danger. My mother was very worried when my father was on campus. Then I remember my parents’ disappointments . . . and at that time they were bitter, and I think a part of that bitterness toward Swedish society still remains. And I believe that bitterness has left traces of itself behind . . . absolutely, I believe so. Fataneh: How do you mean? Rouzbeh: The fact that the government at the time somehow didn’t take what was happening seriously. They reacted very late, slowly. For them [the government], it was not a big deal until some people were seriously injured or dead. . . . I remember that my parents were disappointed, and the Swedish government reaction was representative for Swedish society. I know that this is somehow a generalization, but that was how it was felt, and that disappointment was transferred to me. Disappointment at a Sweden that did not care about a murder that happened in their society . . . Fataneh: Did your parents try to make you feel better, to make you feel safe? Did they try to hide their sense of insecurity? Rouzbeh: I do not remember if they tried to hide their sense of being unsafe, particularly with my mother, who has always overcompensated in order to make us feel safe. For example, during the Christmas holidays it was she who was the motor behind Christmas celebrations. Later on I understood that that was a strategy to make us feel less strange in Sweden. The preceding conversation is a part of my interview of over four hours with Rouzbeh, a man in his early thirties. He and I met on a rainy and gray day in a cozy and noisy coffee shop in central London while I conducted my field research on diasporic masculinities during the winter of 2009. Rouzbeh and his family moved to Sweden when he was two or three years old. He has lived most of his life in Sweden, but he has studied and worked in

148

Fataneh Farahani

several big cities in Europe. For the past two or three years he has lived in London. Rouzbeh is a well-traveled, well-read, and articulate young man with exceptional language skills and has acquired considerable cultural capital (Bourdieu 1986). Somehow he personifies the image of a cosmopolitan subject: a young male with a favorable class background, he commands an exclusive multifaceted cultural capital that includes several languages, cultures, nations, educational qualifications, and creative talents. On the other hand—as the interview passage indicates—Rouzbeh’s childhood was shaped by his parents’ decision to leave postrevolutionary Iran. This meant living with the consequences of not only downward class transition due to migration and his parents’ persistent endeavors to regain their previous position, wealth, and status, but also being positioned as “the other” in a Swedish society facing serious economic crises in the 1990s and dealing with the specific racist conditions that existed in Sweden at the time. While talking meticulously about his early childhood in Sweden during the 1990s, the racist attacks, and how he was “teased” at school, Rouzbeh—similar to most of the interviewees—downplays the impact of racism in his personal life, for instance, the fact that as a little boy he was called “Khomeini” at school and was also told by his other classmates that he had “a small penis”. When I teasingly (maybe somehow suggestively) wonder if he thinks there was any link between the fact that he was called Khomeini and that he was “accused” of having a small penis, Rouzbeh gives me a smile and disarmingly says: No, I don’t think so. But it is a good question! I don’t think so, but I am not sure if they [the classmates] had any idea about Iranian men’s penis. [laughing] I didn’t make that link anyway, but I believe physically I was a little underdeveloped than others . . . so maybe their accusation was true. But I believe I was teased somehow because it was easier to poke at me who was already odd. . . . [thinking] I was among the few who had—if not the only—immigrant parents. . . . I believe as a child I didn’t make any connection; it was only unusual at the time. I was different in a very obvious way compared with others, and it was easier to tease me. I was different, and Khomeini was big news even for the children back then. Later during the interview, Rouzbeh gives a detailed account of how bad he felt through his teenage period, and he uses the word bullying in discussing this. In the preceding passage, as you notice, he uses the word teasing (retas in Swedish). No connation with racism comes up in the discussion, at least not from him. Rouzbeh is one of the thirty-one men I have interviewed for a study of diasporic masculinities and sexualities. Through ethnographic accounts, the ongoing research aims to examine how normative values and social practices surrounding masculinity enter men’s personal narratives,

Racializing Masculinities in Different Diasporic Spaces

149

and how they articulate the cultural, social, and religious values of masculinity and sexuality in their narrations of their everyday experiences in different diasporic contexts. Based on the interviewees’ narration of their lives, I explore what constitutes the desirable, heterosexual Iranian masculine subject and how the men challenge, confi rm, and deal with those expectations. With this goal in mind, I attend to how (often downward) class mobility, visibility of race/ethnicity, and change of status, among other factors, in different diasporic contexts (re)shape men’s sense of themselves as a man, father, (hetero)sexual, and desirable masculine subject. Moreover, by studying the impact of Orientalist views on Iranian/Middle Eastern/Muslim men’s identity formations in contemporary multicultural contexts, this study aims to explore how Iranian men negotiate masculinity as they confront a variety of Orientalist stereotypes. A key issue regarding men of Iranian descent in different Western contexts (who are very often undifferentiated as Muslim or Middle Eastern men) is how they are (re) presented and through comparison with (white) Western men. By focusing on how the dichotomization of “us and them” arises in different Western metropolitan cities, this study aims to understand not only what prejudices the Iranian-born men face on a daily basis, but also how stereotypes are used to differentiate Iranian men from supposedly liberated and equalityaware Western men in different contexts. While offering a few examples of my fieldwork, for the purposes of this chapter, however, I reflect mainly on some of the theoretical, contextual, and methodological concerns that shape the current study.

THE STUDY CONTEXTS AND THE MEN IN THIS STUDY My analysis here draws on field research, individual and group interviews among Iranian-born men living in three diverse cosmopolitan cities: Sydney, Stockholm, and London. The participants of this study were selected via snowball method and were chosen through existing networks known to me as a result of my inquiries, familiarity, and some degree of involvement with the Iranian communities in the different cities. The study sample consists largely of men who had left Iran after the 1979 Revolution. The group is heterogeneous in regard to age, ethnicity, class, religious, education, political background, motivations in leaving Iran, and length of residency outside Iran. The interviewees range between twenty-seven and ninety years old (with most between thirty and fi fty). They have lived outside of Iran between two and fi fty years, but, for most of them, between ten and twenty years, with various connections to the West prior to their permanent move through professional or family visits. The interviews were mainly conducted in Persian and are the primary textual field for exploring the divergent and contingent intersections of the discourses that constitute the men’s shifting notions of masculinity.

150

Fataneh Farahani

By identifying common themes in the interviewees’ narratives, I trace the themes that surface repeatedly in the men’s narratives. For instance, some of the common themes in constructing masculinity that were mentioned throughout the course of the interviews by most of the interviewees are: the importance of fi nancial independency, (failing) to be the breadwinner, being the self-made man/being street smart, the impact of military services (sarbaazi), being keen to present themselves as a knowing (well-educated/ political/literary) subject, the impact of politics (the Iranian Revolution in particular), the influence of their fathers, divorce, unemployment, nonaccreditation or nonrecognition of educational and vocational degrees and skills, racism, and marginalization inside Iran as well as outside of Iran. While the empirical portion of this research is primarily based on the interviews, the analytical portion of the research stems from a diverse array of scholarly and nonscholarly media, fi lm, and literary works. As a way of bringing together such multidisciplinary research, I have attended a variety of Iranian cultural and social gatherings in Stockholm, Sydney, and London. I have also followed the local Persian-language television and radio programs, books, journals, and online magazines and newspapers. Therefore, I consider them the secondary empirical material for this study. Thus the research brings together two of the key methodologies recognized in contemporary qualitative research: textually oriented discourse analysis and empirical ethnographic research. Due to the diversity of the group particularly in regard to their age differences, one cannot only observe the impact of the two Iranian revolutions and their consequences in the lives of the interviewees, but also the dramatic changes in Iranian society that are also a reflection of transformation in each and every life.2 Most of the elderly interviewees (sixty-five to eighty years old) were born in traditional working-class families without formal education and have gone through conflicting class mobilities through the course of their lives. For example, while some of those hardworking (“selfmade”) men with working-class backgrounds became medical doctors, university professors, and successful scientists and businessmen, few of them were able to work in their previous professions outside of Iran. Therefore, they started to work as taxi drivers or running their own small businesses and so on after their migration. These changes in class mobilities have not only had significant impact in the lives of these men, but also has shaped the ways the men represent themselves as a man/masculine subject in dialogue with me (for more discussion, see Farahani 2010). Needless to say, in addition to age, class, ethnicity, and education, there is a clear difference in sociopolitical contexts and motivation among people who left Iran after the 1979 Revolution, which is clearly represented among the interviewees. Roughly, three different waves of migration/refugees can be noticed after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The fi rst post-revolutionary wave of dissidents, refugees, immigrants, or supporters of the previous government left Iran immediately after the revolution. The second wave appeared after

Racializing Masculinities in Different Diasporic Spaces

151

the brutal repression of 1980s, and the third wave occurred after the tenth presidential election of 2009. There are undoubtedly many students, businessmen, and skilled and well-educated Iranians who have left Iran between these main waves. Depending of their backgrounds and motivations, people have “chosen” different countries for their stay (Farahani 2012).

RACIALIZING MASCULINITIES The subject of men and masculinity formation has become a prevalent topic in Western academia during the last three decades (for example, Connell 1995; Brod and Kaufman 1994) and has contributed, among other things, significantly in challenging the classification of men as an ungendered category (Hearn and Pringle 2006). While the notions of masculinity/masculinities have been used extensively, they have also been notably criticized for a range of reasons. For instance, Jeff Hearn (2004) argues how the concept falls short due to its ethnocentrism, race-blindness, historical specificity, false causality, to some extent psychologization, and conceptual ambiguity. Moreover, in multicultural contexts, the conceptualization of the Orientalist stereotypes of Middle Eastern men as nationalist heroes and oppressive and overprotective vis-à-vis the equality-oriented and liberated Western men is vastly embedded in the Orientalist discourses (Connell 1995; Khosravi 2009). Previous writings on gender in the Middle East and Middle Eastern diasporic contexts, on the other hand, have predominantly focused on women (Bauer 2000; Ghoussoub and Sinclair-Webb 2000). As a result, studies on men, masculinity, and male sexuality in (and from) Middle Eastern contexts remain poorly examined. During the past few years, the focus on young and second-generation immigrant men has gained considerable attention in the Swedish media and academic circles (see Hammarén 2008; Jonsson 2007; León Rosales 2010). Shahram Khosravi’s (2009) ethnographic study on Iranian born men in Sweden is one of the few studies on masculinity within a Middle Eastern diasporic context. By focusing on how men’s notion of masculinity and sexuality (trans)form due to the movements across national and cultural boundaries, ethnographic research on the construction of diasporic masculinities seeks to make a contribution to fi lling the gap on a what is still a frequently neglected issue in existing debates on the construction of masculinity(ies) in different diasporic and transnational contexts.

INTERSECTING AND SHIFTING POWER HIERARCHIES WITHIN DIASPORA Migration is a profoundly gendered procedure. A gendered understanding of the reasons, processes, and consequences of displacements will defi nitely

152

Fataneh Farahani

provide new aspects for understanding and conceptualizing diaspora (Anthias 1998; Brah 2002). The relationship between displacement and construction of masculinities, femininities, and sexualities is especially complicated (Farahani 2007, 2012). Research on migration and sexuality is predominantly marked by either pervasive cultural expectations or racist and (hetero)sexist prejudices against immigrants, which often place migrant subjects in vulnerable sociocultural positions. For example, in his groundbreaking scholarships on queering (Puerto Rican) diaspora, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (2009) argues how the long-standing, historical refusal to recognize the centrality of sexuality to migration is embedded in existing prejudices and ignorance, along with conservative, reactionary, sexist, racist, misogynist, and homophobic politics. While both men and women undergo displacement, and experience its consequences differently, class, ethnicity, age, and education, among other factors, have significant effects on how each goes through the immigration process. The receiving countries also process them differently and slot them into predetermined racially gendered boxes. Therefore, men and women in the same family will experience their displacement and its consequences in different ways. The transformation of the role of immigrant men and women has been the subject of several studies. For example, by drawing on de Beauvoir’s feminist and existentialist approach, Fereshteh Enteshari (1994) discusses changes in the status of Iranian immigrant men vis-à-vis Iranian immigrant women in Sweden. While “the man” occupied the status of “self” prior to immigration, women occupied the status of “the other,” Enteshari argues. After migration, the man, for the first time, shifts into “the other” due to a decline in status and lost power. These new experiences of social and economic marginalization and racism place many Iranian men (particularly the educated middle class that forms a large group of people who left Iran) for the first time in the position of the subordinated “other.” Similar comparisons can be drawn in the migration of different ethnic and religious minorities. Iranian-Kurds, Iranian-Baloch, Iranian-Azaris, Iranian-Armenians, and Iranian Baha’is (among other ethnic and religious minorities) had already experienced discrimination due to their ethnicity and beliefs when they lived in Iran. However, middle-class Persian Iranian heterosexual male Muslim subjects belonged to the normative unracialized, unsexed, unethnicized, and ungendered group often experienced being the other for the fi rst time when they moved to the West. Similar to men who have had the luxury of overlooking the centrality of gender in shaping their lives, ethnic heterosexual Persian Muslim subjects have had the luxury of ignoring the importance of ethnicity, religion, and sexuality (among other factors) in their lives. The interviewees’ accounts in this study accord with this perspective. While men who were born and raised in Tehran often failed to understand or even recognize racism in Iran, the Kurdish, Azari, and Baha’i men in this study offered detailed accounts of racist practices in Iran, as well as among Iranians in diaspora.

Racializing Masculinities in Different Diasporic Spaces

153

One of the men interviewed is Baroj, a man of Kurdish descent in his early fifties living in London. Baroj’s education, work, and intellectual approach, according to him, is committed to social justice, and he is very much involved in social and political issues surrounding refugees’ life conditions in the UK. Like many other interviewees who have another ethnic background than Persian, he talks openly about the racism he has experienced as a Kurd in Iran and even among other Iranians in England. After giving detailed accounts of how he was treated in Iran as a Kurd during the compulsory military services (among other experiences) and in diaspora, probably to show me how normative power is integrated in my own life, purposefully and with a smile on his face, he asked me, “Do you have any Kurdish music at home? Any Baluchi music?” Not waiting for my response, he continued. “I have been in many Iranian-Persian homes, and they don’t have any Kurdish music. That is just a simple example. I have lots of Persian music, different sorts of Persian music, not like some who might have one Kurdish or African music in order to show off.” Later we talked about how so-called “world music”/”ethnic music” fulfi lls often (white) middle-class desires after an authentic and primitive music while removing it from its local context and history. Moreover, while Baroj deems refugee identity as his new international identity, he does not see himself only as an Iranian-Kurd. He feels he belongs to the people who are victims of forced immigration. This new identity, Baroj asserts: gave me insight of global movement, different artistic expressions, social, relationships, social changes, and gaining skills to enjoy different things and meet different people. I just opened up. I am not only Kurdish-Iranian because now I am a part of Iranian-Kurdish diaspora. I have crossed many borders through my life . . . you know, for a nomad any mountain is a home . . . and I also wanted to break the myth that a refugee cannot choose. Baroj’s account demonstrates the importance of a gendered, raced, classed, aged, generational understanding of diaspora for not only implementing an intersectional understanding of diaspora as a notion and how it relates to the new context, but also in order to grasp some of the hierarchies and intersecting forms of power that are simultaneously enacted and negotiated between and within different diasporic communities (see Sawyer 2008). Besides, by unpacking the blend of class, race, ethnicity, age, sexuality, education, length of residency in diaspora, urban/rural background, language skill, and sociopolitical and cultural status, the acknowledgment of multiple masculinities collapses into a character typology (Connell 1995, 76)—in this case, creating a typology of “Middle Eastern”, “Iranian”, or “Muslim man”. By being attentive to differences and recognizing hierarchy(ies) in diaspora, we will be attentive to the factors that

154 Fataneh Farahani might offer dominance or subordination in different contexts, depending on how they intersect with other factors.

THREE CITIES: DIVERSE SETTINGS, DIFFERENT CONTEXTS, AND INTERSECTING NARRATIVES One of the methodological concerns with regard to this study is to be attentive to not only the similarities and differences among Iranians who moved to Sydney, Stockholm, and London, but also to pay attention to how and in what ways different masculinities are constructed in different places. Earlier, I discussed how the condition of arrival and living in the “receiving” countries has imperative impact on how the masculine subjects are (re)constructed. In addition to the specific conditions of each and every country, different cohorts of Iranians have moved to and settled in the different countries. For instance, contrary to England, which attracted many Iranians even prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the existence of an Iranian community in Sweden and Australia is a recent phenomenon. Furthermore, due to the different migration and refugee policies, there is a difference between the social and political component and the ways that Iranians arrive in England, Sweden, and Australia. While a majority of Iranians who live in Sweden arrived as refugees or later due to the international refugee family reunion policy, Iranians who live in England arrived as, for example, students, professionals, or refugees. The new groups of Iranian immigrants/refugees who have spent almost their whole lives in post-revolutionary Iran add expectably—but sometimes in unexpected ways—additional nuances to the already existing heterogeneous Iranian communities (for further discussion about the specificities of arrival in each city, see Farahani 2012). In considering the differences between these three cities, it should be noted that Sweden has one of the highest levels of gender equality in the world. Thereby, the “image” of Swedish men, not only pushing prams (taking parental leave), but also (supposedly) taking on their share of the household duties, sounds familiar to many. Since the late 1990s, studies on men and masculinity construction in Sweden have expanded broadly (Pringle and Balkmar 2006). A majority of these studies have critical standpoints and are directly or indirectly intertwined with gender equality projects in Sweden. However, while in the majority of these studies men are mostly observed and examined as obstacles for gender equality, several studies are attentive to ways that the image of “gender-equal” Swedish men is constructed through and across different discourses in Sweden. For instance, Lars Jalmert, one of the pioneers of Swedish masculinities research, who invented the notion of “in principle man”, in his 1984 book Den Svenske Mannen (The Swedish Man), sheds light on Swedish men’s ambivalence toward gender equality. According to Jalmert, the Swedish man is positive

Racializing Masculinities in Different Diasporic Spaces

155

to gender equality “in principle” but not in practice. Moreover, by focusing on numerous campaigns that aim to encourage men to take their share of household responsibility and participate in equal parenting, Roger Klinth and Thomas Johansson demonstrate how Swedish men/fathers have been caught in between political visions and real life (Johansson and Klinth 2008; Klinth 2008). Furthermore, by employing intersectional analysis, some studies aim to comprehend not only which men are keen on (or reluctant) to participate in gender equality projects, but also in what ways these “good men” partake in the project. In sum, research on gender equality and masculinity politics have lately focused on how masculinity politics and the reformist agenda of state- and feminist-driven projects cooperate not only in constructing a national self-image, but also use gender equality to promote Sweden internationally (Dahl 2005; Egeberg Holmgren 2011; Järvklo 2008). These studies also explore in different ways how the gender-equal good man, as Ulf Mellström (2011) points out, is constructed through being interwoven with Swedishness, middle-class-ness, whiteness, and heteronormativity. Since a specific masculinity, as a historical and shifting phenomenon, is continuously constructed in a (power) relation to various forms of masculinities, it is noteworthy to focus on transnational masculine subjects who move to, for example, Sweden. In this process they may (dis)identify from the image of the Swedish masculine subject or from how their masculinity is represented in regard to the general image of the “Swedish” man (which represents a white, young, urban, heterosexual, well-educated man) or the other sorts of masculine subjects. While in Australia and the UK, Iranian men feel that their masculinity is compared and confronted with the “liberated” British or Australian man, the same image of gender equal (Swedish) man who stays at home and takes care of his children fails to exist in Australia and the UK in the same way as in Sweden. In addition, the high cost of nursery school makes many working Australian and British women choose to stay at home and take care of their children instead of sending them to nursery school. The same phenomenon is almost nonexistent in Sweden due to the government-supported nursery schools and twelve- to eighteen-month paid parental leave. In Iran men generally have the main responsibility for the economy of the household. One of the components, which makes a responsible and thereby a desirable heterosexual masculine subject in Iranian contexts (which, as I mentioned earlier, was confi rmed by almost all the interviewees) is to be a breadwinner and be able to take care of the family. Due to the inefficient, unreliable, and expensive nursery schools, for instance, Iranian women in Sydney and London—like many Australian and British women—tend to stay at home and take care of their children more often. Consequently, their husbands remain as a breadwinner and continue to feel responsible for their families. This is one example that shows how a different context has a different impact on how men continue to feel like a desirable masculine

156 Fataneh Farahani subject or are keen (or reluctant) to question, confi rm, or challenge their pervious roles and values. Moreover, during my fieldwork in Sydney, when I asked the interviewees and other people like colleagues and friends what comes to mind when I say “(Anglo/white) Australian man”, most of them mentioned drinking and cricket (or sport in general) as the main characteristics for Australian men. Some also mentioned being “unsophisticated” as a representative quality of Australian men.3 Despite its colonial history, Australia, like Sweden, has a relatively good international reputation for its commitment to social equality. At the same time, competitive sport (as an almost exclusively masculine arena) and collective drinking in pubs are a couple of the main arenas where masculinities are defi ned, developed, and (re)affirmed (Pease 2001). In sport and communal drinking, among other arenas, “Australian mateship” is decidedly practiced and expressed (ibid.). According to the plentiful research on Australian men’s practices, “mateship” is the Australian style of masculine behaviors (Bell 1973; Colling 1992; Pease 2001) that has its origins in colonial days and is highly cherished in war and sport. While men’s bonding, comradeship, and brotherhood are practiced in many other contexts, Australian men’s bonding is an indispensable element in constructing Australian national ideology and involves far more than just being an Australian version of men’s bonding (Altman 1987; Pease 2001). In this context, reflecting on how mateship operates is imperative not only for understanding gender relationships in Australian society, but also for gaining a deeper understanding of which men are included and which men are excluded in mateship. While the notion of men’s bonding and solidarity can be presented as a valuable virtue, as Bob Pease rightly points out, “Australian manhood and masculinity are constructed against the image of ‘others’ who were different” (2001, 195). Therefore, the “virtues” of mateship are consequently, according to Pease, “reserved for native-born white men” (ibid., 198) and exclude not only indigenous men, but also immigrant and non-Caucasian men.

POSTCOLONIAL THEORETICAL DEBATES By drawing on a postcolonial theoretical debate of the irrefutable intermingling of racist and sexist discourses, Khosravi (2009) examines how, despite their satisfactory social status, the well-educated Iranian man in Sweden persistently negotiates hegemonic discourses of immigrant/Muslim men. Torn between—what Khosravi calls—Iranian women’s liberation process and a continuous confrontation with a variety of stereotypes of Iranian/Muslim men, the men in his study, as racially and sexually marked and discernible, feel visible without being seen. Moreover, Khosravi shows how the notion of mard-e sonnati (traditional man), which is used inside Iran to identify a man who (among other

Racializing Masculinities in Different Diasporic Spaces

157

qualities) is dedicated to patriarchal values, in diasporic circumstances takes on a cultural and ethnic attribute and becomes mard-e Irani (Iranian man). This leads to, as Khosravi explains, modification of mard-e Irani from a noun to an adjective that is associated with certain characteristics, which refer to the selective behaviors/performances of men that serve to assert masculine authority over their wives and daughters (2009, 594). By drawing attention to some other nuances, I would argue that the notion of mard-e Irani is not always interwoven with negative attributes and is not always equivalent with insults, in the same way that mard-e sonnati (the traditional man) in Iran was not always pejorative in all circles and sometimes enfolded with some “positive” attributes. To give an example, being mard-e Irani may appear positive in relation to Iranian-Kurdish men or Iranian-Turkish men (from whom some of the men in Khosravi’s study try clearly to differentiate themselves). It is also imperative to reflect over the intervention and contribution of other factors to the formation and operation of mard-e Irani (Iranian man). For example, the manhood (or womanhood) of an Iranian-Kurdish individual displays itself in a different way than a man or woman who comes from the northern area of Iran. In other words, different attributes are associated with ethnicity and social background, as well as with gender differences. This explains how the manliness or womanliness of Iranian men and women inside Iran, as well as outside Iran, contains ethnic/class attributes. For instance, while the ethnicity of Persian-speaking people (ethnic Pars people) as a normative group inside Iran is unspecified, the ethnicity of Kurdish, Turkish, and Shomali (those who come from the northern area of Iran) men or women is frequently marked. For example, a major part of “Iranian” humor, which entails sexist and racist remarks, inside as well as outside Iran, is overflowing with jokes regarding a lack of gheyrat (honor, masculinity, or the jealousy of men) among men who come from the northern regions of Iran (Shomali men), as well as “unconventional” sexual behaviors of Shomali women. By adapting Foucault’s notion of “archaeology of silence” (1990) and focusing on patronizing sexist and homophobic comments and jokes that circulate within different contexts, one can examine an “archaeology of jokes and sarcasm” (see Farahani 2010). In doing so, we can reflect over not only what causes laughter, but also how and in which ways some topics/some masculine subjects (due to their dialect, class, ethnicity, and race, among other characteristics) have become the subjects of sarcasm and thus represent undesirable masculine subjects. In sum, in addition to a lack of gender analysis, I think Khosravi falls short in specifying how and in what ways the middle-class-ness of his interviewees (as immigrant men) falls outside of white masculine middleclass-ness in a context while middle-class (and working- class) masculinity is conceptualized as a white middle-class (and working-class) and immigrant men masculinity(ies) becomes, to use Khosravi’s own words, visible but unseen. Moreover, regarding the class backgrounds of the

158 Fataneh Farahani interviewees in this study, it is important to point out that due to their migration, their economic, cultural, symbolic, and social capital (Bourdieu 1989) changes in a variety of, and at times contradictory, ways; they have different tactics in order to adjust, seize, (dis)confi rm, challenge, and negotiate these changes in their lives and how these might impact their masculinity. As an example of this point, I draw on an account of Reza, a man in his late sixties living in Sydney. Reza’s high professional status and academic degree had been completely dismissed and disqualified after he arrived to Australia. He had to start working in an unqualified job in Sydney. I asked Reza if and how this drastic transformation had changed the ways in which he viewed himself as an individual, a man, a husband, or a father. Insistently, Reza declared that his feelings regarding his position as a man, father, and husband hadn’t changed in any way. He assured me that he had left Iran because of the lack of freedom of expression and individual and social liberties, and he wanted to offer his children the opportunity to live in a free country. By migrating to Australia, he achieved what he wished for. So, Reza assured me, losing his previous status was of less significance. Later on during my fieldwork in Sydney at a gathering among Iranians, I happened to meet some close relatives and friends of Reza who knew him well. While talking about the social and mental consequences of geographic and social displacements, a couple of the people in the group presented lengthy accounts of Reza’s drinking problem and the deterioration in his physical and mental health during the fi rst decade of his residency in Sydney as an example of some of the consequences of non-accreditation or acceptance of educational and professional skills in the new context. There I was with two different accounts of the same person’s (dis)integration in a new context. What am I, as a researcher, supposed to do with these different accounts? Should I dismiss everything that Reza had told me and “believe” what I “accidentally” happened to hear about him through others? Or should I completely “believe” his account? I will never, and can never, have the chance to verify all the details of the interviewees’ accounts of themselves. Nor am I interested in doing so. What interests me, however, is how Reza positions himself, how he desires to position himself in his interaction with me (for a more in-depth discussion regarding researchers’ insider/outsider role and on positionality, see Farahani 2010). It is also important to examine how and in what ways Reza (and other interviewees) is capable of fi nding value in something different from that which he was entitled to prior to his current situation. That Reza was a highly skilled, professional man was no longer widely acknowledged, and by (re) presenting himself in new circumstances as someone who values freedom more than anything else, he was, I believe, attempting to reposition himself and his value system and attain a different type of social and cultural capital (Bourdieu 1989) for regaining respect and admiration. Having said that, I am not suggesting that his previous position prohibited his valuing

Racializing Masculinities in Different Diasporic Spaces

159

of freedom and individual liberty. Since I am interested in analyzing selfpresentations of masculinities, it is not my aim to determine the veracity of the interviewees’ accounts of themselves. Rather, I consider it important to look into how the interviewees (dis)related and retold their understandings of their masculinities in the light of what they consider to be, for instance, their social background and/or current situation. During our conversation, Reza, for instance, was highly concerned to inform me how, despite the loss of his previous position and status, he was still a desirable and appreciated man in the eyes of his wife.

CONCLUDING REMARKS By focusing on the importance of studying the construction of diasporic masculinities, in this chapter I have discussed some of the contextual and methodological concerns with regard to studying masculinity, displacement, gender imbalance, and sexuality among Iranian-born men in different Western contexts. I have also argued how studying diasporic masculinity assists in addressing a lacuna in much of current masculinity studies, which, with all its layers and nuances, has tended to engage mainly with white men, as well as that in feminist/Middle Eastern studies, which, with all their complexities and differences, have mainly focused on the situation of women. A comparative ethnographic study of diasporic masculinities in three heterogeneous multicultural Western contexts has shown how diasporic masculinities are shaped differently in different contexts. Examining how Iranian men relate to different concepts of “normative” masculinities in British, Australian, and Swedish contexts is important because their narratives point to the ways they invest or are (under)privileged by the politics and conditions of diasporic life. I also have discussed different hierarchies within diaspora by focusing on intersecting factors that shape diasporic Iranian masculine subjects(s). For example, most of the interviewees, despite (sometimes) lengthy accounts of racist practices, were not so keen on presenting themselves as one who has been subjected to racist and discriminatory practices. While many of the interviewees, particularly the fi rst generation, have faced degradation of their degrees and previous work experiences, they were unwilling to understand that as a sign of discrimination. Many of them lived in marginalized suburbs and their children had experienced different conflicts and problems due to their backgrounds, names, looks, accents, and so on, but they were reluctant to see that as consequences of racist practices. At the same time, having moved or having a desire to move from the residing country to a third country (for example, from Sweden to the UK or from the UK to Australia or Canada) was often presented as a solution to escape racism. While men in Stockholm talked more openly about their experiences of racism, men who lived in London and Sydney refused to see themselves as

160

Fataneh Farahani

victims of racist practices. In fact, the only cases where some of the interviewees acknowledged that they were the subject of racist discrimination were when they were at a family divorce court. According to those men, the courts blindly and prejudicially condemned them because they were Middle Eastern men and favored their wives as Middle Eastern women. Here, I would suggest, men’s desire to present themselves as an indisputable part of a collective (white) we lies partly behind the interviewees’ more rather than lesser denial of racist practices. According to men’s accounts, racism was something that happens to Africans, Arabs, Kurds, and Turkish people who didn’t know how to adjust in this society, not to the “civilized we” who are middle-class, well-educated Iranians (although many of them did not occupy that position). A variety of intersecting factors, such as lighter skin, high education, age, language ability, occupation, looks, wealth, and social and cultural capital, have an impact on how one could feel closer to “normative” masculinity and “pass” in order to occupy a position of privilege that most of the men covertly refer to. However, the problem with “passing”, as Beverly Skeggs precisely points out, “is that someone may catch you out” (2002, 86). The narratives of men with different ethnic backgrounds demonstrate how understandings of race are also forced to be reworked in diaspora. Men with Persian backgrounds who belong to the normative powerful ethnic group in Iran have to face different racializing practices in diaspora that now mark them as nonwhite and as similar to the groups they earlier had seen themselves as so different from (such as Kurds and Turks). I have also shown how Iranian masculinity is linked to local constructions of race and whiteness, and most probably that is partly the reason behind why they refuse to see themselves as victims of discrimination. To put it bluntly, I would claim, it would mean they should hand over the image of themselves as white (and thereby civilized), which is not only a tricky task, but also provides them leeway to position themselves as higher in the existing racist hierarchies they have internalized.

NOTES 1. John Wolfgang Alexander Ausonius, known in the media as Lasermannen (“the Laser Man”) is a Swedish convicted murderer, bank robber, and attempted serial killer. From August 1991 to January 1992 Ausonius shot eleven people with immigrant backgrounds in the Stockholm and Uppsala areas. He killed one person and seriously injured the others. He fi rst used a rifle equipped with a laser sight (hence, his nickname), and later switched to a revolver. He was arrested in June 1992 and in January 1994 sentenced to life imprisonment. For a more detailed account of the context from which “the laser man” emerged, see Tamas (2002). 2. For more information, see Abrahamian (1982), which discusses Iranian society and politics during the period between the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1909 and the Islamic Revolution of 1977–1979.

Racializing Masculinities in Different Diasporic Spaces

161

3. The construction of Australian men as “unsophisticated” in popular culture, movies, and literature is closely linked with the historical fact that exiled British convicts dominated Australia’s working population in its early colonial period. The emphasis on criminality and culpability of the transported convicts seems even now to cast a shadow on how one (European/Westerner) thinks about Australian-ness, particularly as compared with other Western white subjects.

REFERENCES Abrahamian, Ervand. 1982. Iran between Two Revolutions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Altman, Dennis. 1987. “The Myth of Mateship.” Meanjin 46:63–72. Anthias, Floya. 1998. “Evaluating Diaspora, beyond Ethnicity?” Sociology 32: 57–80. Bauer, Janet. 2000. “Desiring Place: Iranian Refugee Women and the Cultural Politics of Self and Community in the Diaspora.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 20:180–99. Bell, Robert R. 1973. Mateship in Australia: Some Implications for Male–Female Relationships. Melbourne: La Trobe University Working Papers. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. “The Forms of Capital.” In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by John G. Richardson, 241– 58. New York: Greenwood. . 1989. “Social Space and Symbolic Power.” Sociological Theory 7:14–25. Brah, Avtar. 2002. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. London: Routledge. Brod, Harry, and Michael Kaufman, eds. 1994. Theorizing Masculinities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Colling, Terry. 1992. Beyond Mateship: Understanding Australian Men. Sydney: Simon and Schuster. Connell, Raewyn W. 1995. Masculinities. Berkeley CA: University of California Press. Dahl, Ulrika. 2005. “Scener ur ett Äktenskap: Jämställdhet och Heteronormativitet.” In Queersverige, edited by Don Kulick, 48–71. Stockholm: Natur och Kultur. Enteshari, Fereshteh. 1994. “Iranska Flyktingars Identitetsproblem.” Kvinnor och Fundamentalism 2:14–34. Egeberg Holmgren, Linn. 2011. IngenMansLand: Om Män som Feminister, Intervjuframträdanden och Passerandets politik. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Farahani, Fataneh. 2007. Diasporic Narratives of Sexuality: Identity Formation among Iranian-Swedish Women. Stockholm: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis. . 2010. “On Being an Insider and/or an Outsider: A Diasporic Researcher’s Catch-22.” In Education without Borders: Diversity in a Cosmopolitan Society, edited by Loshini Naidoo, 113–30. New York: Nova Science. . 2012. “Diasporic Masculinities: Reflections on Gendered, Raced, and Classed Displacements.” Nordic Journal of Migration Research 2 (2). http:// versita.metapress.com/content/g663821483376227/fulltext.pdf. Foucault, Michel. 1990. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. New York: Vintage.

162

Fataneh Farahani

Ghoussoub, Mai, and Emma Sinclair-Webb, eds. 2000. Imagined Masculinities: Male Identity and Culture in the Modern Middle East. London: Saqi. Hammarén, Nils. 2008. Förorten I huvudet: Unga Män, om Kön och Sexualitet i det Nya Sverige (The Suburb in the Head: Young Men’s Thoughts on Gender and Sexuality in the New Sweden). Stockholm: Atlas. Hearn, Jeff. 2004. “From Hegemonic Masculinity to the Hegemony of Men.” Feminist Theory 5:97–120. Hearn, Jeff, and Keith Pringle. 2006. European Perspectives on Men and Masculinities: National and Transnational Approaches. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Jalmert, Lars. 1984. Den Svenske Mannen. Stockholm: Tiden. Järvklo, Niklas. 2008. “En Man utan Penis? Heteronomrativitet och Svensk Maskulinitetspolitik.” Lambda Nordica 13:16–35. Johansson, Thomas, and Roger Klinth. 2008. “Caring Fathers: The Ideology of Gender Equality and Masculine Positions.” Men and Masculinities 11:42–62. Jonsson, Rickard. 2007. Blatte Betyder Kompis. Om Maskulinitet och Språk i en Högstadieskola. Stockholm: Ordfront. Khosravi, Shahram. 2009. “Displaced Masculinity: Gender and Ethnicity among Iranian Men in Sweden.” Iranian Studies 49:591–609. Klinth, Roger. 2008. “Best of Both Worlds? Fatherhood and Gender Equality in Swedish Paternity Leave Campaigns 1976–2006.” Fathering 6:20–38. La Fountain-Stokes, Lawrence. 2009. Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. León Rosales, René. 2010. Vid Framtiden Hitersta Gräns: Om Maskulina Eelevpositioner i En Multietnisk Skola. Stockholm: Mångkulturellt Centrum. Mellström, Ulf. 2011. “Moving beyond the Comfort Zone of Masculinity Politics?” Norma 1:1–4. Pease, Bob. 2001. “Moving beyond Mateship: Reconstructing Australian Men’s Practices.” In A Man’s World? Changing Men’s Practices in a Globalised World, edited by Bob Pease and Keith Pringle, 191–203. London: Zed. Pringle, Keith, and Dag Balkmar. 2006. Sweden National Reports on Men’s Practices—Reports on Research, Statistical Information. Law and Policy Addressing Men’s Practices. Sweden: Centre for Gender Studies. Stockholm University. Sawyer, Lena. 2008. “Engendering ‘Race’ in Calls for Diasporic Communities in Sweden.” Feminist Review 90:87–105. Skeggs, Beverley. 2002. Formation of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable. London: Sage. Tamas, Gallert. 2002. Lasermanen: En Berättelse om Sverige (The Laser Man: A Story about Sweden). Stockholm: Ordfront.

10 Transnationalization and its Absence The Balkan Semiperipheral Perspective on Masculinities Marina Blagojević

INTRODUCTION This text is based on three major theoretical premises: that the Balkans are at the semiperiphery that is structurally different from both the core and periphery; that the main structural feature of the present-day Balkan semiperiphery is a complex process of de-development; and, fi nally, that both hegemonic masculinities and lives of men are largely shaped by that very process. In the fi rst section of this text, a short discussion on the absence of semiperipheral perspective is offered. In the second, the notion of transnationalism is critically examined, to show that it is often used to neutralize and blur the very hierarchical nature of neoliberal globalization occurring “from above”. The condition of semiperipherality is further described through the process of de-development, and men and masculinities from the Balkans are contextualized into the semiperiphery through a set of research fi ndings. Finally, in the concluding remarks it is argued that it is not transnationalism that dominantly shapes the lives of the majority of men at the semiperiphery as much as the absence of positive transformation that process represents and bears; it is the exclusion from the positive aspects of the process, which is creating the “absence of men” (Hearn, 2004, 2007, 2009a). This is a part of an even larger phenomenon of the “surplus of humans” (Blagojević 2009a) within the global cartography of transpatriarchal and transnational neoliberal globalization.

ABSENCES: SEMIPERIPHERY AND MEN Feminism, both in practice and in theory, has a long tradition of dealing with absences and naming the unnamed. It is often the quest for recognition, visibility, and appreciation that has been the strongest driving force for activism, research, theories, and policies. In epistemic terms, dealing with the absences is the most fruitful, if not the only possible, approach for innovative interventions into the knowledge production. However, even when

164 Marina Blagojević some absences are “very much present”, very obvious, when they are “loud” beyond invisibility, “screaming out”, when they are almost recognized and legitimized as such, they do not necessarily have the power of reshaping the dominant knowledge map or prevailing knowledge paradigms. On the contrary, their absence might become normalized as self-understood presence, and they can even be reshaped and recycled to fit to that “new normalcy”. One of the clear cases of the infi nite inferiority and invisibility of the claim on difference within hegemonic feminist theorizing is, sadly, related to the semiperiphery. The semiperiphery, regardless of all evidence, theoreticized self-reflection, and endless and repeated efforts to communicate its own uniqueness, still stays unnamed and not referred to. Within dominating feminist theorizing from the center, which is readily and openly acknowledging the contribution of postcolonial feminist approaches, no place seems to be left for theorizing on the difference of the “Second World”, or the semiperiphery. Postcommunist feminist discourse, in comparison to the postcolonial, does not exist, or at least it is not being recognized as a body of specific knowledge, although its necessity has long been argued for (Blagojević, Duhaček, and Lukić 1995) and still is (Blagojević, Kolozova, and Slapsak 2006; Blagojević 2009a). The semiperipheral perspective also became marginalized due to the overlapping (or maybe mutual reproducing?) of political and economic “transition”, on one hand, and the cultural shift in gender studies, on the other hand, which also isolated “theory”, often meaning cultural “theory”, from the lived realities of women and men at the semiperiphery. As long ago discussed by Connell, “to adopt a view of gender as only performance, identities as inherently fragmented and shifting, is to lose a great deal. Butler (1990), the main proponent of a “performative” account of gender, is strikingly unable to account for work, child care, institutional life, violence, resistance (except as individual choice), and material inequality. These are not trivial aspects of gender” (2000, 6). In this text the issues of men and contexts are raised following this line of arguing for the nontriviality of ontologies. It seems that both the semiperiphery and men at the semiperiphery share the position of being ontological presences and discursive absences. Bringing this perspective of the semiperiphery into the theoretical debate is also a way to bring “men” back into the discussion together with “masculinities” (Hearn 2007), and vice versa. It is argued here that only through and by adequate contextual analysis can critical studies on men and masculinities make men from the semiperiphery proper objects of theoretical generalization, research exploration, and policy intervention. In fact, contextualization is a way of making the “absent present” (Hearn 2004, 2009a, 2009b), of grounding abstract theories and theorizing “from below”. Otherwise, distortions through decontextualized sweeping generalizations, or fascinating individual cases employed to illustrate the “theory”, or highly contested constructs on Balkan (and other) men that exoticize them and

Transnationalization and its Absence

165

reinvent their otherness (Todorova 1997; Bjelić and Savić 2002) prevent objective and sound analysis of their social position within the fast-changing global and local social environments. Postmodern strategies of cultural studies often simply get self-absorbed, even self-seduced with their own playing field, or playground, thus distancing dangerously from lived realities of concrete men and women. Ignoring the context of the semiperiphery allows generalizations in which “the West”, however defi ned, explicitly and even more dangerously implicitly, still figures as a norm, even increasingly so from the beginning of the “transition” (from 1990s onward) and intensified process of Europeanization. The core is becoming even more self-referential and generalizable, while the semiperiphery increasingly figures as the concrete other that deviates from the norm and therefore is inferior. But that concreteness separated from contextual analysis stays in the realms of the abstract, vague, and distorted, thus reproducing the absence of the “real”, ontological, and re/producing ideological constructs that are justifying new exclusions and hierarchies.1 One of the very tangible consequences of decontextualized knowledges about the semiperiphery are different kinds of well-intentioned public policies, including gender equality policies, which most often remain rhetoric devices, faced with the problem of so-called implementation, which is only another expression for difficulties of comprehensive intervention into the social reality, since there is inadequacy of the knowledge base (Blagojević 2009a). Further on, Balkan men are an “invisible presence” in discourses on “transition” because they represent “invisible losers” and even “denied losers”, those who often cannot even be perceived as “victims”, since they live in patriarchal societies, and they are ascribed collective responsibility for nationalisms, wars, and destruction, within the circles of gender scholars. The victimhood paradigm is almost exclusively attached to women. 2 There is a kind of a discursive vacuum for any alternative interpretation, both within and outside the Balkans. For many reasons, some of which are political by their nature, Balkan men were constructed, especially from the 1990s on, as “wild men”, “patriarchal monsters”, “violent warriors”, and so on, while women were constructed as the “major victims” of the wars and of the transition. What has largely stayed invisible is not only the very real losses that men have suffered from, but also marginalization of the large majority of men, as well as different old and new strategies of resistance they employ to cope with a hostile and insecure social environment. What has also stayed completely marginalized is the connection between men and women, better to say connectedness, which, if understood from an everyday life perspective, often means that losses of one gender are very often related to the losses of the other gender. The very construct that “women are the losers”, which was one of the “feminist-for export” inventions (Eisenstein 1997) as a major mantra for developing women’s NGOs in East and Central Europe, could be seen as a specific neocolonial strategy, which actually contributed to increasing intergender oppositions, thus

166 Marina Blagojević “liberating” an army of cheap labor force of women at the semiperiphery. This only strengthened the process of exploitation and commodification of women, through sex and care work, and their increased migration to the West, where they actually contributed to the sustaining of Western patriarchies and thus global elite transpatriarchies. This is, however, not to say that women did not pay an extraordinarily high price for the “transition”, since their work and often sacrifice for family members at the cost of their own well-being did maintain the functioning of families and institutions during “transition” (Milić, 1994, 2009; Blagojević 1995, 1999, 2009a; Babović 2009; Stanojević 2009). However, it is necessary here to bring forward another perspective, not the one of either-or, but the one of “and-and”. Both women and men did pay a high “price” for the “transition”, but those “prices” were differentiated and highly gendered. Moreover, the “prices” women paid in a way empowered them in the next run, in the next circle of time, or in the next generation. Women developed their identities along the model of “self-sacrificing micro-matriarchy” (Blagojević, Duhaček, and Lukić 1995; Blagojević 1995, 2009a), or entrepreneurial “self-invention” (Marody and Poleszczuk 2000). However, the prices that men paid disempowered them and changed deeply the content of patriarchy as a system of male domination (Nikolić-Ristanović 2002). Masculinities in the Balkans are being redefi ned within the context of an overall de-development process of the semiperiphery, on the one hand, and transnationalization of certain locations and (elite) parts of the populations, on the other. The fi rst process of de-development is defi ning the “losers”; the second process of transnationalization is defi ning the “winners”.

TRANSNATIONALISM: PRESENCE AND ABSENCE The increasing popularity of the concept of transnationalism stems mostly from its profoundly inclusionary nature, since primarily it refers to global processes of movements (of capital, commodities, migrants, ICTs), as well as the supposedly horizontal nature of change and exchange, invoked by the denotation of “trans”. The concept is being constructed and reconstructed, implying that the processes it refers to are basically more neutral and more horizontal, less centered and hierarchical, than the process of globalization, whose meaning has already been saturated by criticism related to global power differentials. From this perspective, transnationalism could be seen almost as a kind of critique of neoliberal globalism, which de facto is an instrument that Western civilization is using to maintain its dominance (Horvat and Štiks 2012). However, although “trans” invokes the idea of horizontality based on reciprocity, and certainly connectedness between different nations, it still needs to be scrutinized through rigorous analysis. The concept is becoming increasingly popular because, on the one hand, it responds to the growing need for nonhierarchical globalization and its

Transnationalization and its Absence

167

naming, while, on the other hand, it easily embraces both virtual and material movements, as well as many different ambiguities that find themselves with no name at no place. While the openness of the concept of transnationalism serves as a fruitful framework for the broad scope of issues that cannot easily be dealt with from the perspective of the “local”, material, tangible, national, or institutional, it also bears many limitations, and in a way encourages wishful thinking that can seriously distort objective analysis of social reality. Therefore, it is highly necessary to reconstruct the meaning of the concept of transnationalism, deconstructing its present, seemingly neutral usage. That could be done by showing how, to a large extent, it necessarily reflects knowledge hierarchies dominated by the knowledge produced at the core, and therefore it often bears a danger of obscuring other noncore perspectives. There are several possible strategies that can be used for demystification and de-ideologization of the concept of transnationalization, including its “distillation” from the bias of knowledge centricism, as well as self-referential epistemic practices of the core often entangled with tempocentricism. Those strategies include, fi rstly, epistemic critique; secondly, theoretical developments, which clearly defi ne the major structural causes of increased inequalities and “social suffering” worldwide (Bourdieu 1999); and, thirdly, provision of research evidence that can support those theoretical views and offer deeper insights into the group and individual practices and discourses, as well as costs and benefits, related to different degrees and manifestations of transnationalization, or its absence (Blagojević 2009b). Since close elaboration along those lines is well beyond the scope of this chapter, this text will necessarily focus on a few arguments, some more theoretical (but in the manner of “grounded theory”) and some more empirical, although scattered. Within this framework it will be argued that what is necessary is a shift from discourses on hegemonic masculinities, and especially highly contested discussions on “Balkan masculinities”, to ontologies, to the analysis of concrete men within concrete contexts, and their embodiment that is so embedded.

THE SEMIPERIPHERY: CATCHING UP AND DE-DEVELOPMENT The fact that the concept of transnationalism is mainly produced and circulated in the core necessarily creates a bias in a form of core-centered perspective, which can be overcome through inclusions of other perspectives, semiperipheral being one of them. However, while the perspective of periphery is legitimized within gender studies through postcolonial theory, semiperiphery is still largely silenced. Nevertheless, locationality cannot be ignored, since it defi nes living reality within concrete social context, it defi nes limitations for transnational flows, shapes their character, and

168

Marina Blagojević

affects diverse social agents differently. From the perspective of specific sociopolitical and geographical locations, transnational flows could be seen differently. In fact, it could be argued that both transnationalization and its absence are shaping gender regimes at the semiperiphery. It is the missing transnationalism that is clearly defi ning who are the losers and who belongs to the surplus of humans (Blagojević 2009b). While the process of transnationalization is highly rewarding for transnational elites, “liberating” them from many constraints in domain of materiality (including nationality, territoriality, and even temporality), and helping them to profit from nonregulated and open spaces of “in-betweenness”, it is the often rigid materiality of location, through citizenship and material conditions of life, as well as often imposed contextual temporality (through a certain type of historicization represented by de-development process) that actually shapes the lives of those who (mostly) stay out of the process of transnationalization. The semiperiphery is a concept that emerges from world system theory (Wallerstein 1979), but in this text it is used in a much broader sense. The renewed relevance of this concept is closely related to the process of “transition”, referring to the open-ended processes of state and social transformation that took place in former socialist/communist societies and was supposed to lead to the Western model of market economy and multiparty democracy. In short, that is a process of transformation of former communist societies within the larger context of the neoliberal globalization. The process is considered formally fi nalized for those states that became members of the EU and went through the accession process. However, in reality, there are still many deep social-structural similarities between the former communist states regardless of whether they became EU members or not, since they were formerly industrialized societies and they had experienced large-scale processes of modernization. On the other hand, there are many differences between “countries in transition”, which cannot be reduced to the fact that they all share communist legacies, since they have had very different recent histories (for example, former Yugoslavia and former Soviet states), as well as being very culturally different. The semiperiphery is here used to denote regions, states, or subregions that are positioned between the core and the periphery. However, the semiperiphery is more an analytical concept, even a “strategic concept” (Harding 1998), than an empirical generalization. In that sense semiperipherality represents a set of structural dispositions connected to locationality, which stem from the very position of being in-between. In the present intense transnationalization process, location is not a simple geographical location, but primarily a position within the global hierarchy, which is being shaped both by that very position and its own territoriality. In fact, even territoriality, meaning concrete geographical and material setting, cannot be dispensed with as irrelevant since it became very much effective through the geostrategy of neoliberal globalization. Locationality, moreover, is connected to the set of opportunity structures, and it

Transnationalization and its Absence

169

connects the global/macro level to the micro/individual level. The process of “transition” of the semiperiphery thus could be seen as a process of “becoming a center”, which is virtually impossible, since the center is a “moving target”, always reconstituting itself as a new center. The endless effort to catch up with the core creates a self-colonization tendency in the semiperiphery (Kovačević 2008). Many of the processes within the semiperiphery are largely shaped by this relation with the center, including the formation and characteristics of its gender regimes. “Catching up” creates specific gender regimes, highly dependent on women’s resources in both the private and public domains, which generally improves women’s individual and collective bargaining position. However, strong patriarchal and misogynous ideologies serve to counterbalance women’s gains, enable continuous high exploitation of their resources, and domesticate and pacify women successfully (Blagojević 2009a). Another process is also very relevant for the social structuring of semiperipheral societies, including their gender regimes. That is the process of de-development of former industrialized societies and regions, closely connected to the structural adjustment toward the “weak states and strong markets” philosophy of neoliberal development. This dedevelopment is directly linked to yet another social fact: many people, globally, and many communities and cultures, are becoming “surpluses”. Locationality of communities and cultures, their positioning within the global hierarchies, also determines the individual probability of becoming “surplus”. One of the major features of the neoliberal globalization project is that individuals all over the world are becoming not less but increasingly more dependent on locationality. Many become “surplus”, meaning socially excluded, “social problems”; they become slaves, victims of human trafficking, or part of a heavily exploited labor force in cheap labor zones, depending on their locationality (Young 2003; Harvey 2010). Individual chances are ever more being shaped by global, not local, hierarchies. Therefore, at a certain point, from the perspectives of the “losers”, “return” to the territorial and the locational (in terms of grounding into the local structures) could be a counterstrategy. The semiperiphery of Europe during a transition period has to a large extent been exposed to the complex process of de-development, which contains economic, social, and cultural elements. De-development on the level of economy relates to structural change that is linked to depreciation of human, institutional, and infrastructural capital (Meurs and Ranasinghe 2003) of the semiperipheral countries. To this list depreciation of environmental capital could also be added. In social terms, de-development could be linked to many unfavorable trends, including the following: high structural unemployment, collapse of institutions and some kind of institutional vacuum, social anomie, “captured states”, increased poverty, increased social insecurity, decreased social protection and stability, increased crime and violence (including wars), population crises, environmental devastation,

170 Marina Blagojević and so on (Blagojević 2009a, 2012; Milić 2009). The overall framework of depreciation of human capital has led to the phenomenon of a surplus of humans, where humans become irrelevant, and even more so if they are not potential consumers (meaning poor). This phenomenon affects large numbers of both women and men who fi nd themselves on the side of the “losers” of transition, those who are unemployed or underemployed and poor. The intensity of the process of de-development is closely linked to territoriality and statehood and individual and collective exposure to risks, benefits, and losses. So transnationalization, as a process that goes beyond and above the states, is to a large extent still being mediated by locationality even when it is in neoliberal mode ideologically constructed as mainly virtual. It is experienced differently in different social strata and social classes and different locations. Dependence on location is closely connected to the powerless position in the global economy. Therefore, the notion of transnationalism needs to be critically scrutinized, by contextual analysis of the semiperiphery, which still demonstrates the high importance of territoriality and locationality. Otherwise, the notion of transnationalism neutralizes and blurs the very hierarchical nature of neoliberal globalization occurring “from above”, from the transnational, territorially largely detached, spaces of circulation of the transnational-transpatriarchal global power elite.

LOCALIZING AND CONTEXTUALIZING HEGEMONIC MASCULINITIES Masculinities at the Balkan semiperiphery, being social and cultural constructs of manhood within the certain contexts, are shaped by a number of processes that deeply influence both the semiperiphery and its gender regimes. The most relevant are those related to the process of catching up and the process of de-development of the semiperiphery, on the one hand, and re-traditionalization and re-patriarchalization of gender regimes, on the other hand (Blagojević 2003; Milić 2009). It is possible to show, by complex empirical evidence, how those processes, materialized in concrete societal and economic structures, condition lives and expectations of men and women at the semiperiphery. However, these processes are not simple or one-directional or reducible to pure tangible materiality. Still, with the clear domination of “cultural theory” in gender studies, it seems more relevant than ever to go back to the realities of everyday lives and socioeconomic structures, and to show how the globalization process, while becoming localized, is producing relevant consequences for gender regimes, which have not been adequately explored in terms of costs and benefits for different parts of the world’s populations (Young 2003). As stated by Young, “The almost exclusively male global elite managing the transnational corporations and the designers of the global fi nancial architecture

Transnationalization and its Absence

171

have not only welcomed the new global order, they also have benefited the most from the increased flexibility and informality of labour, money and politics” (2003, 4). It is also highly relevant to show how that global elite, which is almost exclusively male, is in fact benefiting from sustaining a high level of exploitation of women’s resources worldwide, while at the same time producing a high level of social exclusion of “ordinary” men, thus effectively creating a “surplus of humans”. This leads to “absent presence” (Hearn 2009a, 2009b), since men themselves are in large numbers also subjected to the negative consequences of global transpatriarchies. Under the present conditions of de-development of the semiperiphery, it is men who often suffer from an even higher level of social exclusion, because they are not so “flexible” or as cheap a labor force as women. The global neoliberal project is defi ning “the losers” along the lines of deficiencies: If women, ethnic minorities, and marginalized groups do appear in any of these elite accounts, it is only in terms of their deficiencies: they lack human capital; they have failed to adapt to the speed of technological change; and they are burdened with the time-consuming task of rearing children and caring for the elderly. These deficiencies have made them the losers of globalization. (Young 2003, 5) The position of men at the semiperiphery largely conforms with this description of deficiency, given that the essence of development has also become related to de-development. And men from the semiperiphery are increasingly becoming “deficient”, and therefore a “surplus of humans”. Their deficiency in terms of their lack of know-how of reproductive work and lack of flexibility turns against them, spiraling down to their social exclusion. As previously discussed, semiperipherality reinforces intense and extensive usage of women’s resources in both the private and public sphere (Blagojević 2009a, 2012). Strong patriarchal ideologies are instrumental to those aims and serve also to domesticate and pacify women. Hegemonic masculinity is thus under the powerful influence of these extremely patriarchal ideologies, which manifest themselves in strong public misogyny and antifeminism (Blagojević 2000, 2005; Antonić 2011). This is nothing new in a global perspective, but it is the extent and quality of these configurations that make gender regimes at the semiperiphery different in comparison to both the core and the periphery. The claim here is that it is the very “catching up”, which is performed by the semiperiphery as an intense “modernization” process, that creates those specificities. It is this relational quality of the semiperiphery that is the essence of its developmental path, and that in turn deeply structures the historical features of the modern semiperiphery. Thus, semiperiphery is not simply a location, not even a simple level of analysis, but it is a structural disposition, which has the contextual power to mold and to a large extent determine referential

172 Marina Blagojević masculinities. Hegemonic masculinity at the semiperiphery is ideologically constructed in line with the values and discourses used at the semiperiphery, by which the semiperiphery constructs and explains itself, both internally and externally, and that are by defi nition related to the core, as well as being very gendered (Todorova 1997; Bjelić and Savić 2002; Kovacevic 2008; Dojčinović-Nešić 2010). So, hegemonic masculinities at the semiperiphery are even further complicated through these collective negotiations of “we-ness” (the semiperiphery) and “they-ness” (the core, the “West”), which capture the public imaginary and identity discourses from the micro and individual to the macro and societal level. In the present dominant mode of globalization and neocolonization, “the colonizer” is not one geographically defi ned society anymore, rather it is the “money society” embodied in transnational male elite, while “the colonized” is “work territory” (Young 2003), or local work society, which is “doomed” to its territoriality, but that is actually exploited and marginalized by transnational capitalist flows. Hegemonic masculinities at the semiperiphery are, thus, being constructed as quite schizophrenic, as both transnational, belonging to money society and “winners of transition”, and local, belonging to work society, and “losers of transition”. Moreover, they are also being constructed through and with ambivalence toward the core, both accepting and rejecting the core and what it represents (as seen from the semiperiphery): that is, “modernization” and/or the neoliberal mode of globalization. Masculinities are being constructed through this very complex play of different processes of remaking, reproducing the semiperipherality (through “lagging behind” and de-development); they are ambivalent and hybrid; diachronic and synchronic; re-traditionalizing and modernizing male identities; they are worked out as an interplay of local, national, and transnational; generational and transgenerational; and they produce regendering and de-gendering of men within the contexts that are themselves in intense flux. If there is anything material and tangible, it is the survival economy, with its patterned daily cycles. That is why, on a micro level, semiperipheral societies develop a model of “self-sacrificing micro-matriarchy” (Blagojević 1995a, 1995b, 2009a), which comes about as a logical consequence of historically developed model of dual-earner families (whether of farmers or industrial workers during socialism), in addition to the high dependency on women’s work and resources (time, energy, skills, networks) in the private sphere. High micro-level dependency on women is counterbalanced by equally strong patriarchal ideologies. “Transition” together with de-development only strengthened, on the one hand, dependency, and, on the other hand, patriarchal ideologies, thus causing “re-patriarchalization” and “re-traditionalization” (Blagojević 2003; Milić 2009). Hegemonic masculinities appropriate very different meanings and manifestations and are connected to different material realities at different societal levels and in different social settings. Hegemonic masculinity in one

Transnationalization and its Absence

173

macro context, due to the processes of transnationalizations and local stratifications, is becoming fragmented; thus, a given referential masculinity, usually referred to as a “male role model” in a given society, is increasingly becoming more of an ideological construct than a reflection of living, grounded, experiential, tangible, and highly differentiated masculinities. At the semiperiphery, hegemonic masculinity, as model masculinity, as an ideological construct, is defi ned in line with the values and images of the transnational business, political, and media elite. The prevailing masculinity, in empirical terms, though, is the one that is mainly defi ned with reference to the “losers from transition”. It is profoundly marked by the loss of status that men experience, in both public and private domains, during transition and the current economic crises. And that very loss is being negotiated both downward, from the model to the level of concrete daily practices and discourses, and upward, from the level of concreteness to the level of a model, which is hegemonic masculinity.

MEN IN CONTEXTS: GOING BACK TO ONTOLOGIES In any society, individual men and women negotiate their roles and identities within the framework of gender constructs that have been stabilized as a recognizable pattern, and that can be termed as “hegemonic”. However, there are huge differences between societies in terms of how stable, imposing, or absorbing this framework is. The semiperiphery consists of societies in flux, with pronounced diachronic ties (premodern, modern, and postmodern elements), and societies with weak structures, more atomized than institutionalized. If the prevailing mode of existence is related to an “economy of survival”, then gender is also highly subject to this. This means that individual strategies are often based more on negotiations within the families, which are the most relevant “survival unit”, rather than on rigid gender roles and identities. The individual socioeconomic positions of women and men are very similar, since they are mostly mediated through the family/ household unit. Consequently, the largest economic disparities, economic vulnerability, and exposure to poverty arise when there is an absence of specific “mediation” or “protection” of the family: single mothers and fathers; elderly women and men living in single households; women and men who are taking care of sick and dependent family members, while not being married; and so on. Family and kinship networks, not professional networks, represent the most relevant sources for building social capital, especially due to the process of re-traditionalization of society. However, these, as other realities of men’s and women’s lives, often stay hidden behind the “facts”, which are usually recognized as “proper” indicators of gender inequalities, especially when international comparisons are being made. Examined from the semiperipheral perspective, these indicators, which usually include education, employment, and political

174

Marina Blagojević

participation, become slightly dubious. As previously discussed, European semiperipheral societies have a strong tradition in the education of women, and women often make up the majority among university students. Consequently, there is strong feminization of higher education and research and development in almost all fields. However, this is a combination of both favorable (gender equality under socialism) and unfavorable conditions (the low status of education and science), and consequently has contradictory consequences (Blagojević 1991; Enwise Report 2004). The flexibility of women’s labor force, including the highly educated women’s labor force, in conditions of very low protection of workers’ rights, actually contributes to the increase in competition and decrease of wages. The neoliberal mantras of (corrupted) political elites at the semiperiphery, and that employment will be made through foreign investment because the labor force is cheap but educated, only lead to further downward spiraling of living conditions. Relatively small differences in percentages of unemployment between women and men in conditions of extremely high levels of unemployment, when contextualized in semiperipheral societies that are still based on family solidarity, become almost irrelevant. Also, with the gap between women’s and men’s average educational level increasing, the present chaotic labor market conditions cannot be simply interpreted as advantageous for either gender. Rather, it is a creation of an intellectual proletariat in conditions of semiperipherality. Differences between genders in economic terms, when compared with differences between core and semiperiphery, again, become almost irrelevant. Since salaries are very low, the “working poor” is a category that is increasing, and that in fact questions the very rationality of being employed, especially in the context of the complete insecurity of employment, pension, and health care benefits. The informal economy, gray and black, does not allow, again, for gender differences in the labor market to be clearly defi ned. Finally, political participation, which is quite often taken as an important indicator of gender equality, in the realities of semiperipheral societies turns into yet another ambiguity. Political participation needs to be seen within the context of a democratic deficit, lack of the “rule of law”, weak institutions, low levels of citizens’ participation (of both women and men), “captured states”, and corrupt political elites as parts of global transpatriarchies. Gender differences and inequalities at the semiperiphery obviously go beyond visibility, which is provided by these indicators. This means also that “patriarchal privilege” needs to be deconstructed by going back to ontologies and contexts. One of those avenues can also be related to assets. Assets are much better indicators of gender inequalities than employment, especially those assets such as ownership of apartments or houses. Men still have large advantages in that regard. Some surveys have provided evidence of these inequalities that are largely inherited and widespread, and in fact much wider and more relevant than the gender gap in income (Blagojević 2006, 2008). That is,

Transnationalization and its Absence

175

for example, especially visible among farmers. Although women are well represented, ranging from 40 to 50 percent in the Balkans among farmers (Blagojević 2004b), they are most often not the owners or co-owners of the farms or the houses they live in. This extremely disadvantaged position is one of the major factors of high immigration of younger women from the rural areas in the Balkans, since the prospects for the protection of their rights are very vague (Babović and Vuković 2008; Blagojević 2010). The other side of this problem is the fact that young men farmers, living in rural areas, have huge difficulties fi nding partners, young women, willing to live in the countryside. Those factors contributed to population decay in rural areas, intense aging, and an enormous lack of labor force. In the past few decades, this situation has led to “bride imports” into the rural areas of less peripheral countries from more peripheral countries (such as Albania, Ukraine, Belorussia; see Drezgić 2010). Thus, fundamental nonsustainability of patriarchalism and gender inequalities is counterbalanced by the import of even more disadvantaged women from more disadvantaged areas. This is a similar pattern to that of the import of East European women for care and sex work into the core European countries (Lutz 2002). Every center has its own periphery and semiperiphery, and thus it is highly relevant to analyze the gender consequences of their connectedness. The patriarchalism of the more central regions is often sustained by that very connectedness. Men who are at the bottom of social hierarchy cannot maintain patriarchal power in relation to the women from their own setting, at least not in the next generation, when lessons of equality are deeply embraced, so the “importing” of women becomes a “solution”. It is widely accepted that transition has encouraged re-traditionalization, re-patriarchalization, and re-familiarization, and slowed down and even partly reversed the modernization of family life and the transformation of gender relations toward higher equality. However, these processes are neither unilinear nor simple, but rather ambiguous and contradictory. The “survival economy” produces high pressure on families to adapt to the generally highly unstable and insecure, even hostile, social settings of transitional societies. The gender regime is subjected to that overall pressure, which can result in movements in either direction: one of increasing “gendering”, meaning emphasizing gender differences, through the processes of re-traditionalization and re-patriarchalization; and the other of “de-gendering”, processes of exiting from hegemonic gender constructs. The flux of the semiperiphery creates often a high discrepancy between the materiality of living conditions and the ideological constructs of gender. That is being reflected in two ways. One is the relatively high level of acceptance of gender equality on the level of attitudes, by both women and men, as research in the region is convincingly showing (Blagojević 2006, 2010; Milić 2009), while at the same time there is a high level of exploitation of women’s resources through unpaid work. For example, a recent time-use survey in Serbia has shown that although women have much lower employment rates

176 Marina Blagojević than men, they in fact spend one hour more on daily work, once unpaid work is also included (Blagojević 2012). This is in line with the conditions of semiperipherality and established patterns of successful extraction of women’s resources. It is also indicative that the preparation of food is still a very time-consuming activity, which shows how many daily practices have remained quite anachronistic, due to the low level of living standards and low purchasing power. On the other hand, there are some indications that there is a kind of new gender distribution of caring work within the family, again due to the specific situation of the semiperiphery. Caring work, which in the core countries has been to a large extent carried out by migrants, in the semiperiphery has to be redistributed within the family, since those countries do not have large-scale immigration and are at the same time heavily exposed to a high level of unemployment of women and men, as well as austerity measures. Countries in the semiperiphery have low fertility rates, small families, intense aging of the population, and high emigration. Since caring for the old is to a large extent still mostly done within the family, it is often necessarily carried out by both partners, female and male, depending on other circumstances, such as payment or work arrangements of either partner. For example, data from a large-scale survey of the national statistical office, Women and Men in the Republic of Serbia, 2011 (2011) show that in 2010, among employed persons who take care of a sick adult or an adult with special needs, men aged forty-five to fifty-four represent 44 percent and those aged fi fty-five to sixty-four 40 percent of the totals. Some previous data from other research also showed that caring for the sick and old was the most equally distributed task between genders, in comparison to food preparation, cleaning, or even rearing children (Blagojević 2006). The private sphere built around family and kinship networks still largely compensates for the lack of individual resources or institutional state support for families. However, kinship networks are imploding, especially in urban settings, due to the long-lasting process of decreasing fertility rates, which has led to the shrinking of generations. This means that the family, often the extended family, is playing an increasingly important role as a “survival unit”. Various researches are showing that gender equality is often more present in the private sphere than it is institutionally supported even by those institutions that officially bear responsibility for the “implementation of gender equality laws”. The patriarchalism of the institutions is often being sustained by old professional education gender-blind procedures and largely shared prejudices, while family life often “de-ideologizes” due to the pressures of daily survival. What makes genders un/equal in the private sphere is often related to the set of multigenerational accumulations of gender in/equalities within the concrete family or kinship network and family momentum or family life cycle. In transitional countries individual variations are large, due to the unsettled structures and diachronicities. However, the long duration of low fertility has resulted in a small number

Transnationalization and its Absence

177

of children per family, and therefore increasingly gender-neutral processes in their upbringing. Parental expectations for female and male children have become quite similar, with a high emphasis on education. On a micro level, gender equality has been encouraged by the high psychological value of children (1.4 in 2010), so the shortage of children has strengthened the process of equal treatment and high investments in children regardless of their gender. Parenthood, in line with a long tradition of child-centered family life in the Balkans (Naumović and Jovanović 2004) and parenthood as a “sacrifice” for children and the “meaning of life” (Blagojević 1997) are also becoming an important field in exercising “new” masculinities, that is, of those who put caring in focus in private life instead of a “macho” identity based on sexual virility and promiscuity. Research is showing that men increasingly enter into fatherhood activities, but they do it through activities that present more pleasure than work. They spend more time playing with children and in communication with children, but still much less time in activities related to food preparation, for example (Blagojević 2006, 2008). Escape into privacy from a devastated public sphere takes place through and by parenthood. The process of de-development, which endangered the security of livelihood and decreased state institutional support due to austerity measures, made some groups particularly vulnerable, such as single parents. According to the research data from the Western Balkans, it can be estimated that the proportion of households with single parents amount to 10–15 percent (with and without the extended family), and that the proportion of single mothers ranges from 70 to 85 percent, compared to that of single fathers ranging from 15 to 30 percent, depending on the social and cultural setting. Although the probability of, and even the reasons for, becoming a single parent are highly different for women and men, once they become single parents their living conditions become extremely similar, due to the responsibility for caring and nurturing. While men become single parents mainly due to widowhood, women become single parents for many more reasons, including violence, which is almost exclusively suffered by women. Research has disclosed that when men and women single parents are compared, there were very few differences in their actual practices and interpretations of their parental role, which could be ascribed exclusively to gender, although the wider setting is inclined to treat mothers and fathers differently. Single fathers get more support, generally, because their position is seen as “exceptional”. They might even be seen as “heroes”, while women are often seen either as victims or even “deviant” in some more patriarchal communities, because they were supposed to “sacrifice for children” and “keep the family together” at all costs. Interviews have shown that both single mothers and single fathers share the same feelings related to care, nurturing, and needs of children. They feel the same fears, insecurities, and wishes to share “the burden” of responsibility with a partner. They even

178 Marina Blagojević share similar feelings of guilt for not having enough time, money, or energy for their children. Sometimes the burden that fathers feel seems to be even heavier, since they are also confronted with the prejudice that “mothers cannot be replaced”. As one single father from Bosnia expressed, “I try to make him happy, but mother’s love a father cannot give. At least this is what I think.” Both the expectations of single mothers and fathers toward the children are the same, and their lives are centered on parenthood. The major problems they both face are inadequate institutional support (working hours of kindergartens and schools and working hours of parents do not match sufficiently); lack of fi nancial resources; lack of time (time poverty); stressful way of life with high demands for discipline, organization, and coordination; and loneliness/lack of partnership (Blagojević 2011). Semiperipheral contexts eliminate many of the differences between genders, especially those related to the use of women’s resources in the public sphere. So, women’s high level of education and high inclination toward employment and professional careers, together with relatively small pay gap, go hand in hand with those established characteristics of the semiperiphery. In many ways increased gender differences in employment could be seen as a consequence of de-development rather than a consequence of the previous patriarchalism of the semiperiphery. If gender differences are compared with other differences, such as education and rural–urban division, they are often less pronounced. However, since there are still large cultural differences and intensified re-traditionalization, some of the issues such as, for example, spatial mobility and freedom of movement could be extremely different for women and men. One research study in Bosnia and Herzegovina has shown that 97 percent of men from the survey sample declared that they can go out anytime, in comparison to only one-third of women (Blagojević 2004a). While different researches in the region consistently show that differences in attitudes between women and men are small, they still can be indicative for the specificity of gender regimes at the semiperiphery. For example, in line with the extensive and intensive usage of women’s resources, both women and men similarly perceive the role of family and occupation in their lives (Blagojević 2006). However, when it comes to perception of women’s and men’s position in society, and the question of “who has more difficult times”, there is striking asymmetry. Men perceive themselves as “victims” of transition, and women perceive themselves. This asymmetry goes beyond scapegoat theory. It is actually the problem of intensified gender competition on the labor market, as well as general shrinkage of resources that heavily affects the livelihoods of the majority of the populations. Hardships that both women and men experience are becoming increasingly difficult to communicate between genders, because the wider interpretative framework is missing, and it cannot be provided by “feminism for export” (Eisenstein 1997), which emphasized the “victimhood of women”.

Transnationalization and its Absence

179

Still, what provides some grounds for some optimism is that both women and men usually think that there will be an increase in gender equality in the future. However, the overall picture is that women and men are getting much more similar in their attitudes in relation to many issues of everyday life. But, still they are more similar in their attitudes than in their actual behavior, which is often conditioned by the structural constraints of the semiperiphery. Women are more sensitive to gender inequalities, but men feel more “threatened” than women by the equality project and respond ideologically with heavy antifeminism and neoconservatism (Antonić 2011). The backlash at the semiperiphery, although often closely connected with nationalism is also, paradoxically, fed with antifeminist arguments from the core. Thus, the semiperiphery fi nds itself again in a spiral of feedbacks and reactions to the core, which only contributes to the overall confusion and ambiguities. By imitating the core, it also reproduces its deficiencies. Gender, again and again, as a discursive construct reflects deeply the complex relation of imitation and rejection, fascination and rebellion, which the semiperiphery holds for the core. As a living reality, gender also reflects the paradoxical developmental situation as expressed in an overall de-development process. So, the contextual conditioning still proves to be relevant for reproducing gender differences.

TRANSNATIONALISM AND ITS ABSENCE: WINNERS AND LOSERS Masculinities in the Western Balkans are being defi ned within the context of an overall de-development process of the semiperiphery, on the one hand, and transnationalization of the certain locations and parts of the populations, on the other hand. The fi rst process, the one of de-development, is defi ning the losers; the second one is defi ning the winners. The level (top or bottom) and the type of transnationalization (work society versus money’ society), or even the absence of transnationalization, are determining on which part of the winner–loser continuum an individual or group will fi nd him/her/itself. The territoriality of the “work society”, its locationality within global hierarchies, is a framework for the local hierarchies, as well. However, inclusion into transnational flows depends largely on locationality, and the very locationality of the semiperiphery creates possibilities, or lack of them, for an individual and group actors. Global restructuring is making real winners of those who are integrated into global fi nancial flows, lesser losers of some of the professionals who can sell their services on the local and global markets (Blagojevic 2009a), and absolute losers of those who stay in the communities that are not integrated into the transnational flows. In those communities, local actors, even if they are in some official position as elite members, are in most cases just “little bit lesser losers”.

180

Marina Blagojević

This could be illustrated by the following example, which is deliberately reduced to its basic elements. In April 2009, Milan Simić, a forty-two-year-old worker from extremely poor Kursumlija municipality, southern Serbia, lost his job in the local bakery since he had stolen two bread rolls and several pieces of pastry. Milan Simić was a single man, a widow, living with an old father, three sons, and an unemployed brother. His household was below poor, by any standard. He lived five kilometers away, in a village, walking every day to his work and back. The other actor in this social tragedy is a manager of the bakery, Dragan Gvozdenović. Gvozdenović had found himself in this managerial position only a few weeks earlier and had a clear mandate to stop any stealing from the bakery, which was not completely privatized at that time and had a only few jobs and assets left. Under the influence of a heavy critique by the media for “cruelty” over Milan Simić, he reinstated him to work after several days. Finally, the third actor is a mayor of the municipality, a man who suddenly decided to give some very small assistance (one hundred euros) to Milan Gvozdenović. Citizens in Kursumlija had different comments on the event, but since most of them were extremely poor, they openly wondered whether they should have stolen something to be able to get some help in return (Vreme, 26 March 2009). This story is a perfect example of a dead end created by the de-development of the semiperiphery. Milan Simić is a clear representative of one of the marginalized groups of men at the semiperiphery. Moreover, as a widower, living in a rural area, in an impoverished part of Serbia, which is still not an EU member state, experiencing extreme poverty, being the single breadwinner for five dependents, and with no prospects for any positive change, he is a good example of nonhegemonic masculinity, as one of the “losers”. That masculinity, as other marginalized masculinities, is marginalized in the media, public policies, public discourses, and gender studies. Milan, his brother, his father, and most probably even his three sons, are part of a “surplus” that is being created by the combination of his sociodemographic characteristics (forty-two-year-old, widower, father of the three children, living in a rural area, worker), but even more so by the de-development and locationality of his community. And these are only the facts related to material poverty, not insights related to the “social suffering” that Milan and many other men in a similar societal position experience daily. Masculinities that are being connected to the locationalities that have remained out of the process of globalization, or transnationalization, are on the loser’s side, even if they appear to be functioning within the local hierarchies. In fact, local hierarchies are increasingly becoming irrelevant in comparison to global hierarchies. Globalization, even more than the wars in the Balkans, has created the situation in which most of the population becomes “surplus”. It is a “surplus” for the poor states, captured by transnational flows of financial capital, wars, crimes, irresponsible elites, and new political entrepreneurs, who

Transnationalization and its Absence

181

due to privatization are increasingly in a position to accumulate wealth and power, as well as due to the increasingly complicated and nontransparent transformation procedures coming from top-down Europeanization and the “debt economy”. Wars in the Balkans, as it turns out very clearly, were a method of transition and inclusion into financial capitalism, only by different means. Since local economies, well before the wars started, could not absorb the population through employment and social integration, wars even more drastically “legitimized” the “low value” of humans. After the wars, with persistent economic crises, in the neoliberal environment, this surplus of humans persists in the actual way of governing, with “captured states” and social anomie (Lazić 1994). It corresponds well with the “survival values” as opposed to “self-realization values”, which are prevailing in postcommunist societies (Inglehart 2000; Poznanski 2000). Masculinities, therefore, as any other social phenomenon from the semiperiphery, need to be reinterpreted from the place of disillusionment, in line with the recent suggestion of the Polish feminist critical thinker Ewa Charkiewicz (2012): We need to go beyond lyrical memories of democratic revolutions. Transition was conducted in the name of freedom and democracy and this discourse was used to camouflage what is fact: that this transition project was a new round of enclosures when public property was almost completely privatized or the public sector was hollowed out from inside by marketisation. ( . . . ) With the help of the EU and the international fi nancial institutions, managerial elites conducted a transition by the destruction of existing means of livelihoods and institutions by force of law, selectively privatized the state property to themselves and international investors. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge the support of the Institute for Criminological and Sociological Research, Belgrade (project number 47011, fi nanced by the Ministry of Education and Science, Serbia), and GEXcel: Centre of Gender Excellence, Linköping and Örebro Universities, Sweden, where I have been involved in the research theme, “Deconstructing the Hegemony of Men and Masculinities: Contradictions of Absence”, led by Professor Jeff Hearn (http://www.genderexcel.org/?q=node/101). NOTES 1. For example, the revival of negative stereotypes referring to “lazy Southerners”, invoked in the latest discussions about debt crises in the European Union, and the pejorative construct PIGS referring to countries of Southern Europe (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain).

182

Marina Blagojević

2. I remember one occasion when a colleague from Belgrade was delivering a lecture at CEU University, Budapest, on gender and war, when a question from a feminist in the audience came, asking who were the major victims of NATO bombing of Serbia (1999), women or men? The response was that when it comes to civilians, it should not really matter.

REFERENCES Antonić, S. 2011. Iskušenja radikalnog feminizma—moć i granice društvenog inženjeringa. Belgrade: Službeni glasnik. Babović, M. 2009. “Rodne strategije i odnosi u domaćinstvu: Srbija 2003–2007.” In Porodice u Srbiji danas u komparativnoj perspektivi, edited by A. Milić and S. Tomanović, 135–50. Belgrade: IKSI. Babović , M., and O. Vuković. 2008. Žene na selu kao pomažući članovi poljoprivrednog domaćinstva: položaj, uloge i socijalna prava. Belgrade: UNDP. Bjelić, D., and O. Savić, eds. 2002. Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Blagojević, M. 1991. “Double-Faced Marginalisation: Women in Science in Yugoslavia.” In Women in Science: Token Women or Gender Equality, edited by V. Stolte-Heiskanen, 75–94. Oxford: Berg. . 1995. “Svakodnevica iz ženske perspektive—samožrtvovanje i beg u privatnost.” In Društvene promene i svakodnevni život—Srbija početkom 90–tih, edited by S. Bolčić, 181–209. Belgrade: ISIFF. . 1997. Roditeljstvo i fertilitet—Srbija devedesetih. Belgrade: ISIFF. . 1999. “Institutions in Serbia: From Collapse to What?” In Institution Building in the New Democracies: Studies in Post-Post-Communism, edited by H.-G. Heinrich. Budapest: Collegium Budapest, Institute for Advanced Study, Workshop Series No 7. , ed. 2000. Mapiranje mizoginije u Srbiji: diskursi i prakse. Vol. 1. Belgrade: AŽIN. . 2003. “Promena vrednosti i rodni režimi u zemljama u “tranziciji”: komparativna perspektiva.” In Promene vrednosti i tranzicija u Srbiji: pogled u budućnost, 165–71. Belgrade: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung: Institut društvenih nauka. . 2004a. Gender Barometar BiH. Banja Luka, Sarajevo: Gender Centar RS and Gender Centar FbiH. . 2004b. Položaj žena u zemljama Balkana: komparativni pregled. Banja Luka, Sarajevo: Gender Centar RS and Gender Centar FbiH. . 2005. Mapiranje mizoginje u Srbiji: diskursi i prakse. Vol. 2. Belgrade: AŽIN. . 2006. Rodni barometar—društveni položaj i kvalitet života žena i muškaraca Srbija. Belgrade: AŽIN. . 2008. Rodni barometаr u Crnoj Gori: društveni položaji i kvalitet života žena i muškaraca. Podgorica: Kancelarija za rodnu ravnopravnost Crne Gore. . 2009a. Knowledge Production at the Semiperiphery: A Gender Perspective. Belgrade: Institute or Criminological and Sociological Research. . 2009b. “Transnationalisation and Its Absence: The Balkan Semiperipheral Perspective on Masculinities.” In GEXcel Work in Progress Report Volume VII. Proceedings from GEXcel Theme 2: Deconstructing the Hegemony of Men and Masculinities, edited by K. Harrison and J. Hearn, 53–66. Linköping and Örebro: Institute of Thematic Gender Studies, Linköping and Örebro Universities.

Transnationalization and its Absence

183

. 2010. Žene na selu u Vojvodini: svakodnevni život i ruralni razvoj. Novi Sad: Zavod za ravnopravnost polova. . 2011. “Single Parents in the Western Balkans: Between the Emotions and the Market.” In Gendering Transition: Studies of Changing Gender Perspectives from Eastern Europe, edited by K. Daskalova, C. Hornstein-Tomić, C. Kaser, and F. Radunović, 184–216. Vienna: Erste Foundation Series, Lit Verlag. . 2012. Žene i muškarci u Srbiji: šta nam govore brojevi? Belgrade: UN Women. Blagojević, M., D. Duhaček, and J. Lukić, eds. 1995. What Can We Do for Ourselves? Belgrade: Center for Women’s Studies, Research and Communication. Blagojević, J., K. Kolozova, and S. Slapsak, eds. 2006. Gender and Identity: Theories from and/or on Southeastern Europe. ATHENA—Advanced Thematic Network in Women’s Studies in Europe and Regional Network for Gender/ Women’s Studies in Southeastern Europe. Belgrade: Kaktusprint. Bourdieu, P. 1999. The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Charkiewicz, E. 2012. The Greenest Jobs of All. http://www.corporateeurope.org/ news/greenest-jobs-all. Connell, R. W. 2000. “Understanding Men: Gender Sociology and the New International Research on Masculinities.” Clark Lecture, Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 19 September. http://xyonline.net/sites/default/fi les/Connell,%20Understanding%20men,%202000.pdf. Dojčinović-Nešić B. 2010. “Translation as Border-Crossing: Virginia Woolf’s Case.” Trans 9. http://trans.revues.org/417. Drezgić, R. 2010. “Bela kuga” medju Srbima—o naciji, rodu i radjanju na prelazu vekova. Belgrade: Institut za fi lozofiju i društvenu teoriju. Eisenstein, Z. 1997. “Women’s Publics and the Search for New Democracies.” Feminist Review 57:140–67. Enwise Report. 2004. Turning Private Struggles into a Public Issue: Women and Science in the Enwise Countries. Brussels: European Commission. Harding, S. 1998. Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Harvey, D. 2010. The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hearn, J. 2004. “From Hegemonic Masculinity to the Hegemony of Men.” Feminist Theory 5 (1): 49–72. . 2007. “Deconstructing the Hegemony of Men and Masculinities: Contradictions of Absence.” In GEXcel Work in Progress Report Volume I. Proceedings from GEXcel KickOff Conference, edited by Adrian Stine, Malena Gustavson, and Nina Lykke, 23–35. Linköping and Örebro: Institute of Thematic Gender Studies, Linköping University and Örebro University. . 2009a. “Deconstructing the Hegemony of Men and Masculinities: The Research Theme.” In GEXcel Work in Progress Report Volume VII. Proceedings from GEXcel Theme 2: Deconstructing the Hegemony of Men and Masculinities, edited by K. Harrison and J. Hearn, 13–28. Linköping and Örebro: Institute of Thematic Gender Studies, Linköping and Örebro Universities. . 2009b. “Patriarchies, Transpatriarchies and Intersectionalities.” In Gender and Intimate Citizenships: Politics, Sexualities and Subjectivity, edited by E. Oleksy, 177–92. Abingdon: Routledge. Horvat, S., and I. Štiks. 2012. “Dobrodošli u pustinju tranzicije: postsocijalizam, Evropska Unija i nova levica na Blakanu.” In Kriza, odgovori, levica: prilozi za jedan kritički diskurs, edited by M. Jadžić, D. Maljković, and A. Veselinović, 159–76. Belgrade: Rosa Luksemburg Stiftung.

184

Marina Blagojević

Inglehart, R. 2000. “Culture and Democracy.” In Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, edited by L. E. Harrison and S. P. Huntington, 80–97. New York: Basic Books. Kovačević, N. 2008. Narrating Post/Communism: Colonial Discourse and Europe’s Borderline Civilization. London: Routledge. Lazić, M. 1994. Sistem i slom. Belgrade: Filip Višnjić. Lutz, H. 2002. “At Your Service Madame! Domestic Servants, Past and Present: Gender, Class, Ethnicity and Profession.” Feminist Review 70:89–104. Marody, M., and A. G. Poleszczuk. 2000. “Changing Images of Identity in Poland: From the Self-Sacrificing to the Self-Investing Woman?” In Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics and Everyday Life after Socialism, edited by S. Gal and G. Kligman, 151–75. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Milić, A. 1994. Žene, politika, porodica. Belgrade: ISIFF. . 2009. “Osvrt na rezultate anketnih istraživanja porodica i domaćinstava u Institutu za sociološka istraživanja u poslednjih dvadeset godina.” In Porodice u Srbiji danas u komparativnoj perspektivi, edited by A Milić and S. Tomanović, 11–27. Belgrade: IKSI. Meurs, M., and R. Ranasinghe. 2003. “De-Development in Post-Socialism: Conceptual and Measurement Issues.” Politics and Society 31 (1): 31–53. Naumović, S., and M. Jovanović. 2004. Childhood in South East Europe: Historical Perspectives on Growing Up in the 19th and 20th Century. Münster: Lit Verlag. Nikolić-Ristanović, V. 2002. Social Change, Gender and Violence: Post-Communist and War Affected Societies. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Poznanski, K. Z. 2000. “The Morals of Transition: Decline of Public Interest and Runaway Reforms in Eastern Europe.” In Between Past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath, edited by S. Antohi and V. Tismeneanu. 216–46. Budapest: CEU Press. Stanojević, D. 2009. “Porodica u postsocijalističkoj transformaciji, sociološke perspektive i problem u Srbiji.” In Porodice u Srbiji danas u komparativnoj perspektivi, edited by A. Milić and S. Tomanović, 11–27. Belgrade: IKSI. Todorova, M. 1997. Imagining the Balkans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wallerstein, I. 1979. The Capitalist World Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Women and Men in the Republic of Serbia, 2011. 2011. Belgrade: Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia. Young, B. 2003. Globalisation and Shifting Gender Governance Order(s). http:// www.jsse.org/2005/2005–2/pdf/globalization-young.pdf

Part III

Rethinking Transnational Men within Nations

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction to Part III Katherine Harrison

In this fi nal part, the focus turns to rethinking transnational men within nations. Tensions between nationalism and transnationalism here intersect with gender, class, and ethnicity, and are brought vividly to life through case studies from the USA, Turkey, the Ukraine, and Sweden. The authors show how hegemonic masculinities in each of these national contexts are renegotiated and expressed in response to perceived threats from “outside” the nation. This part is also particularly rich in terms of the range of material that the authors consider, from George W. Bush’s speeches, to Turkish websites, press, and policy documents, to fi nally an examination of images from Ukrainian popular culture. In the fi rst chapter of this part, attention is turned to the USA. James Messerschmidt examines how regional and global hegemonic masculinities were constructed by former US president George W. Bush from his 29 January 2002 State of the Union Address to announcing the US-led invasion of Iraq on 19 March 2003. The author deconstructs the speeches of former president Bush during this time period and demonstrates that his particular communicative social action discursively constructed a regional and global heroic hegemonic masculinity in an attempt to “sell” his war against Iraq. Through a close examination of the complementary triad of positions— villain-victim-hero—constructed by Bush, it becomes clear how authority was created in relation not only to the “exotic” villain figure of Saddam Hussein, but also to the people of the USA. In Chapter 12, the tensions between nationalism and transnationalism are brought into clear relief through the case study of the assassination by a young nationalist of a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor, Hrant Dink, in 2007. Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu includes “public” and media reactions to his murder, focusing on the religion and ethnicity of the parties involved, as well as how these were supported by state legislation and the reactions of politicians. Through the case study, how groups of men are involved in hegemonic practices with emphasis on the interplay of ethnicity, class, and gendered power relations is explored. In the fi nal chapter of this part, Tetyana Bureychak offers a comparative study of masculinities from the Ukraine and Sweden. By bringing together

188

Katherine Harrison

material from these different contexts, striking differences in responses to the national stereotypes—the Cossack and the Viking, respectively—are presented, and in so doing important differences between nationalist narratives and histories are revealed. History is a focal point here; comparing the relationship of present models of masculinity with historical ones shows how gendered identities have evolved within each national context.

11 Hegemonic Masculinities and the “Selling” of War Lessons from George W. Bush James W. Messerschmidt

Raewyn Connell (1987, 1995) initially conceptualized hegemonic masculinity as the form of masculinity in a given historical and society-wide setting that structures and legitimates hierarchical gender relations between men and women, between masculinity and femininity, and among men. The relational character was central to her argument, embodying a particular form of masculinity in hierarchical relation to a certain form of femininity and to nonhegemonic masculinities. Connell emphasized that hegemonic masculinity has no meaning outside its relationship to “emphasized femininity”—and to nonhegemonic masculinities (complicit, subordinate, and marginalized)— or to those femininities practiced in a complementary, compliant, and accommodating subordinate relationship with hegemonic masculinity. And in the legitimation of this relationship of superordination and subordination the meaning and essence of both hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity are revealed. This emphasis on hegemony in gender relations underscored the achievement of hegemonic masculinity largely through cultural ascendancy—discursive persuasion—encouraging all to consent to, coalesce around, and embody such unequal gender relations. Notwithstanding considerable favorable reception of the concept, it nevertheless attracted such criticisms as (i) concerns over the underlying concept of masculinity itself, (ii) lack of specificity about who actually represents hegemonic masculinity, (iii) whether hegemonic masculinity simply reduces in practice to a reification of power or toxicity, and (iv) the concept’s unsatisfactory theory of the masculine subject. Having successfully responded to each of these criticisms, Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) reformulated the concept in appropriately significant ways. Although space does not permit an in-depth discussion of the reformulated concept, in relation to the transnational arena Connell and Messerschmidt argued that instead of recognizing simply hegemonic masculinity at only the society-wide level, scholars should analyze empirically existing hegemonic masculinities at three levels: local (constructed in arenas of face-to-face interaction of families, organizations, and immediate communities); regional (constructed at the society-wide level of culture or the

190 James W. Messerschmidt nation-state); and global (constructed in such transnational arenas as world politics, business, and media). Accordingly, in this chapter, I concentrate on regional and global hegemonic masculinities constructed by former US president George W. Bush.

GEORGE W. BUSH On 11 September 2001, two hijacked airplanes flew directly into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, a third crashed into the Pentagon building, and a fourth—because of the efforts of the passengers inside— smashed into a Pennsylvania field rather than into an established structure. As the two most formidable symbols of US global economic and military power smoldered under a veil of ash, then US president George W. Bush (henceforth Bush Junior) immediately declared that “freedom, itself, was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended” (2001a). Subsequently, Bush Junior determined that to “defend freedom” he must launch a “global war on terror,” initially against Afghanistan, then against Iraq. In what follows I examine how regional and global hegemonic masculinities were constructed by Bush Junior from his 29 January 2002 State of the Union Address to announcing the US-led invasion of Iraq on 19 March 2003. I deconstruct the speeches of Bush Junior during this time period and suggest that his particular communicative social action discursively constructed a regional and global heroic hegemonic masculinity in an attempt to “sell” his war against Iraq. The relationship constituting this discourse entails a metaphorical “uncivilized” and subordinate toxic masculine villain (then president of Iraq Saddam Hussein), together with numerous metaphorical emphasized feminine and infantile victims and/or probable—in the view of Bush Junior—victims (US, Iraqi, and all “civilized” men, women, and children everywhere) as symbolizing the justification for responding militarily against Iraq; and a metaphorical “civilized” and compassionate, yet only by necessity preemptively aggressive, hegemonically masculine hero (Bush Junior) who led the war efforts. This discursive fable of metaphorical actors—a heroic masculine protector and rescuer of vulnerable and helpless feminine and infantile victims from a toxic masculine villain—is defined and structured through a hierarchical relationship between a hegemonic masculine hero and both a subordinate toxic masculine villain and emphasized feminine and infantile victims/“probable” victims. I turn now to Bush Junior’s speeches, and how, in particular, his communicative social action constructs a specific hegemonic masculine discourse. I used the method of “content analysis” (Altheide 1996; Berg 1998) to examine the significant recurring features of all of Bush Junior’s speeches (public addresses) that focused on Iraq (from 29 January 2002 to 19 March 2003); the total sample numbers fi fteen. I concentrated on speeches (rather

Hegemonic Masculinities and the “Selling” of War 191 than on other forms of discourse) because such public statements are highly accessible to both regional and global audiences. Moreover, it has been reported that through his speeches, Bush Junior was among the most—if not the most—dominant voice in the worldwide debate leading up to and during the war against Iraq (Charteris-Black 2005). Initially, I carefully and thoroughly read all of the speeches delivered and, using an open coding assessment, I formulated units of analysis (Berg 1998). The units of analysis that emerged were “Saddam Hussein”; “American, Iraqi, and all ‘civilized’ men, women, and children”; and “George W. Bush.” In the subsequent analysis, I focused on how each unit was characterized and symbolized in the speeches, how each unit was related to the other units in the speeches, and whether or not there was an identifiable narrative throughout the mix of speeches. And the content analysis revealed a definite narrative throughout Bush Junior’s set of speeches, communicating a particular story, specific characters constituting that story, and clearly defined relationships among the actors. I summarize in the following a representative sample of the concepts and phrases used by Bush Junior to construct the narrative, relationships, and actors in his speeches concerning Iraq. Throughout his speeches Bush Junior constructed then president of Iraq Saddam Hussein as an uncivilized, toxically masculine metaphoric villain, bent on violence, terror, and the oppression and repression of his people. Bush Junior repeatedly described Saddam Hussein as a “homicidal dictator” who is “skilled in the techniques of deception,” who is “addicted to weapons of mass destruction,” and who is a “torturer,” a “tyrant,” a “terrorist,” and a “murderer” (2002e, 2002f). For Bush Junior, “Saddam’s” evilness is embedded in his “nature,” resulting in opponents being “decapitated and their heads displayed outside their homes,” women being “systematically raped,” “political prisoners made to watch their own children being tortured,” and “Saddam” sending “other people’s children on missions of suicide and murder” (2002a). In short, “Iraq is ruled by perhaps the world’s most brutal dictator, who already has committed genocide,” who “embraces tyranny and death as cause and creed,” and who maintains “ruthless ambition, unconstrained by law or morality”—he is therefore the quintessential metaphoric toxically masculine villain, and because of his evil and uncivilized nature, “Saddam Hussein is a threat to our peace” (2002a, 2002b, 2002c, 2002d, 2002e). In addition to the preceding, Bush Junior stated that this naturally evil and villainous dictator had weapons of mass destruction at his disposal, together with strong ties to international terrorist networks, all of which inflated the essence of his threat (2002k). Bush Junior underlined that this combination of ties to international terrorist groups and the “stockpiling” of weapons of mass destruction created an acute situation whereby the “civilized world” was faced with “unprecedented dangers” (2002a). First, according to Bush Junior: “Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread

192 James W. Messerschmidt throughout the world like ticking time-bombs, set to go off without warning” (ibid.). Bush Junior maintained that “a terrorist underworld operates in remote jungles and deserts and hides in centers of large cities,” and these terrorists “view the entire world as a battlefield—so long as training camps exist, so long as nations harbor terrorists, freedom is at risk” (ibid.). Bush Junior underscored that “our principles and our security are challenged today by outlaw groups and regimes that accept no law of morality and have no limit to their violent ambitions,” that “America is no longer protected by vast oceans,” and that “we’ve come to know truths that we will never question: evil is real, and it must be opposed,” yet through “timely and resolute action, we can defend ourselves and shape a peaceful future” (2002a, 2002c). Thus “American” men, women, and children became the metaphorical probable victims of Saddam Hussein’s future terror who must be protected by Bush Junior. Second, accordingly, Bush Junior constantly underlined that “while there are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place,” and that the danger of “past and present actions” only “grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today—and we do—does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?” (2002e). Saddam Hussein was not simply a major threat to “American” men, women, and children, but to all “civilized” people throughout the world. Bush Junior (2002b) further emphasized that “the terror that targeted New York and Washington could next strike any center of civilization.” Because the entire “civilized world” was a possible victim, that world must be protected so as to “deliver our children from a future of fear,” and so that the “civilized” worldwide citizenry could choose “human choice against coercion and cruelty” and “lawful change against chaotic violence” (2002b). Consequently, Bush Junior (2002a, 2002e) “will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer,” and will not “ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun, that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud”—“I will not relent in this struggle for the freedom and security of my own country and the civilized world” (2002b, 2002i). Thus the “entire civilized world” also was metaphorically designated probable victims of Saddam Hussein’s future terror who were in need of protection from Bush Junior. Finally, third, in addition to emphasizing that “Saddam Hussein’s regime was a grave and gathering danger” to “Americans” and the “civilized” men, women, and children around the world (2002b), Bush Junior (2002c, 2002d) highlighted the suffering that “the world’s most brutal dictator” inflicts “on his own people”: On his orders, opponents have been decapitated and their heads displayed outside their homes. Women have been systematically raped as

Hegemonic Masculinities and the “Selling” of War 193 a method of intimidation. Political prisoners are made to watch their own children being tortured. The dictator is a student of Stalin, using murder as a tool of terror and control within his own cabinet, within his own army, even within his own family. (2002c) Bush Junior further pointed out that Iraqi men, women, and children “are the daily victims of Saddam Hussein’s oppression”: he “has used weapons of death against innocent Iraqi people” and has “committed genocide with chemical weapons, ordered the torture of children, and instituted the systematic rape of the wives and daughters of his political opponents” (2002c, 2002d). Indeed, “tens of thousands” of: ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating, electric shock, starvation, mutilation, and rape. Wives are tortured in front of their husbands, children in the presence of their parents, and all of these horrors concealed from the world by the apparatus of a totalitarian state. (2002j) In short, Saddam Hussein was involved in the “persecution” of Iraq’s entire “civilian population,” thereby turning “Iraq into a prison, a poison factory, and a torture chamber for patriots and dissidents” (2002e, 2003a). Consequently, Iraqi men, women, and children became metaphorical victims in need of rescue by Bush Junior. This story of an evil, uncivilized, toxically masculine metaphorical villain inevitably attacking “American” and other “civilized” men, women, and children of the world, as well as oppressing and repressing Iraqi men, women, and children, constitutes discursively the reason for responding militarily and preemptively against Iraq. As Bush Junior often put it: “we cannot leave the future of peace and the security” of the “civilized world” and the Iraqi people “in the hands of this cruel and dangerous man. The dictator must be disarmed.” (2002d). To protect the “civilized world” from this dangerous and villainous threat, Bush Junior metaphorically painted himself regionally and globally as the hegemonic masculine heroic protector by “confronting the threat posed by Iraq” as “crucial to winning the war on terror. Those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves” because “terror cells and outlaw regimes building weapons of mass destruction are different faces of the same evil” (2002e). Indeed, Bush Junior would lead the protection of “Americans” and the “civilized world” from “terror networks of global reach”; the United States of America “has never permitted the brutal and lawless to set history’s course”; therefore, it became his “urgent duty” to protect not simply “Americans,” but “other lives, without illusion and without fear” (2002b, 2002d, 2002e). In addition to protecting “Americans” and other “civilized” men, women, and children from the terror of Saddam Hussein, Bush Junior stated he

194

James W. Messerschmidt

would also rescue the Iraqi people from their brutal dictator. Bush Junior (2003c) made it clear that he “will tear down the apparatus of terror” and help the Iraqi people: build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant soon will be gone. The day of your liberation is near. (Ibid.) Unlike Saddam Hussein, Bush Junior believed “the Iraqi people are deserving and capable of human liberty,” and he would “help” the Iraqi people to form a “vital and peaceful and self-governing nation” (ibid.). To Bush Junior (2002j), Iraqi men, women, and children had “suffered too long in silent captivity. Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause.” Once Bush Junior had disarmed Saddam Hussein, “the fi rst and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women, and children,” the “oppression of Kurds, Assyrians, Turkomans, Shi’a, Sunnis, and others will be lifted,” and “the long captivity of Iraq will end, and an era of new hope will begin” (2002e). Bush Junior would “help the Iraqi people rebuild their economy and create the institutions of liberty in a unified Iraq at peace with its neighbors” (2002e). Indeed, “America has never sought to dominate, has never sought to conquer. We’ve always sought to liberate and to free,” and “America” will “share a responsibility to help Iraq reform and prosper. And we will meet our responsibilities. That’s our pledge to the Iraqi people” (2002f). In short, “the time has come for the Iraqi people to escape oppression, fi nd freedom, and live in hope,” and, through Bush Junior’s efforts, “the people of Iraq can shake off their captivity.” He “will give the Iraqi people their chance to live in freedom and choose their own government”; he will help the “Iraqis achieve a unified, stable, and free country”; and he will do so with “no ambition in Iraq except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people” (2002d, 2002g, 2003a, 2003d). This successful effort in Iraq will in turn “inspire reforms throughout the Muslim world,” will “encourage development and education and opportunity in the Islamic world,” will “lift up all of the Islamic world” through educated awareness “about the universal values we hold dear,” and “honest government” and “respect for women” will “triumph in the Middle East and beyond” (2002a, 2002b, 2002j). Thus, Bush Junior metaphorically constructed himself regionally and globally as the metaphorical hegemonic masculine heroic rescuer who would liberate Iraqi men, women, and children from their oppression as well as oversee their journey to freedom. Bush Junior proclaimed that he would face these global protection and rescue “dangers squarely,” “face them unafraid,” and “not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer” (2002b, 2002f). For Bush Junior, then, “history has called America

Hegemonic Masculinities and the “Selling” of War 195 to action, and it is both our responsibility and our privilege to fight freedom’s fight” (2002a). Moreover, Bush Junior (ibid.) emphasized that he, as the leader of the “free world,” would not only “do everything possible to protect our citizens and strengthen our nation against ongoing threats of another attack,” but in fact protect the entire “civilized” world: We have a great opportunity during this time of war to lead the world toward the values that will bring lasting peace . . . America will lead by defending liberty and justice because they are right and true and unchanging for all people everywhere. No nation owns these aspirations, and no nation is exempt from them. We have no intention of imposing our culture. But America will always stand fi rm for the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity: the rule of law; limits on the power of the state; respect for women; private property; free speech; equal justice; and religious tolerance. . . . We have a greater objective than eliminating threats and containing resentment. We seek a just and peaceful world beyond the war on terror. (Ibid.) Bush Junior (ibid.) went on to point out that: in this moment of opportunity, a common danger is erasing old rivalries. America is working with Russia and China and India, in ways we have never before, to achieve peace and prosperity. In every region, free markets and free trade and free societies are proving their power to lift lives. Together with friends and allies from Europe to Asia and Africa to Latin America, we will demonstrate that the forces of terror cannot stop the momentum of freedom. Bush Junior (2002e) summarized his protection/rescue strategy regarding Iraq as follows: We did not ask for this present challenge, but we accept it. Like other generations of Americans, we will meet the responsibility of defending human liberty against violence and aggression. By our resolve, we will give strength to others. By our courage, we will give hope to others. And by our actions, we will secure the peace and lead the world to a better day. Given Bush Junior’s unique “understanding of the threats of our time, and the designs and deceptions of the Iraqi regime,” he consequently had “an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring” (ibid.). If Bush Junior “fails to act,” it would “embolden other tyrants,” allow “terrorists access to new weapons and new resources,” and make “blackmail a permanent feature of world events”; through inaction, “the United States would resign itself to a future of fear,” and “that is not the America I

196

James W. Messerschmidt

know. That is not the America I serve. We refuse to live in fear. Now, as before, we will secure our Nation, protect our freedom,” and act so that “millions” throughout the world do not “live or die at the discretion of a brutal dictator. That’s not true peace, and we won’t accept it” (2002e, 2002f). Indeed, “instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety. Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed” (2003c). As Bush Junior reiterated, “We are a peaceful people. Yet we’re not a fragile people, and we will not be intimidated by thugs and killers.” To be sure, “the United States has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security. That duty falls to me as commander in chief, by the oath I have sworn, by the oath I will keep” (2003c). Bush Junior emphasized that he does not “desire to see military conflict” because he “values life and never seeks war unless it is essential to security and justice”—”Hopefully, this can be done peacefully” (2002c, 2002f). To be sure, Bush Junior is “doing everything” he can “to avoid war in Iraq,” yet he “must be willing to use military force,” but he will enter “into battle” only “as a last resort” (2002f, 2003b). Thus, for Bush Junior, he “enters this conflict reluctantly,” and, although “every measure has been taken to avoid war,” once entered “every measure will be taken to win it” (2003c, 2003d). As a result, it is only by necessity that “America” will become aggressive against Iraq, as aggression is the “only certain means of removing a great danger” to “all civilized nations” (2002e), and Bush Junior “will see to it that this judgment is enforced” (2002h). Accordingly, on 17 March 2003, Bush Junior (2003c) announced that “Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within forty-eight hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing.” Given that Saddam Hussein and his sons did not leave Iraq within the forty-eight-hour deadline, on 19 March 2003, Bush Junior launched a military attack against Iraq. “The only way to limit its duration,” Bush Junior declared, “is to apply decisive force. And I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome but victory” (2003d).

REFLECTION The combined speeches of Bush Junior present a classic example of how a construct of hegemonic masculinity is constituted regionally and globally through the social process of communicative social action. Bush Junior’s speeches were circulated widely to regional and global audiences, and a villain-victim-hero narrative was seized on by Bush Junior, who in turn, reproduced anew this widespread mythical fable. Bush Junior’s narrative is grounded historically in a cultural fascination with stereotypes of the bestial male savage and the captured, raped, and tormented female. Beginning

Hegemonic Masculinities and the “Selling” of War 197 with the captivity narratives of the 1600s and 1700s (Kolodny 1985; Carroll 2007; Castiglia 1996; Faludi 2007), and including the practice of lynching during post–Civil War Reconstruction (Messerschmidt 2006), a nationalist US culture was in part constructed centering on brutal and ruthless villains (Native American and African American men), helpless and innocent captive and abused victims (white Puritan and planter women), and rescuing heroes (white Puritan and planter men). As Susan Jeffords (1991a, 10) points out, some of the “earliest and most formative popular self-perceptions” in the United States “were bound up with the idea that racial difference constitutes a danger requiring the protection of victimized women by white men.” Indeed, the captivity and lynching paradigms helped shape and promote a peculiar regional hegemonic masculine discourse that became part of the US cultural identity (Fitzpatrick 1991). Not surprisingly, Bush Junior’s tripartite metaphorical construction of a villain-victim-hero discourse constituted a contemporary captivity narrative (see also Jeffords 1991a, 1991b). And this peculiar regional hegemonic masculinity provided the cultural material for its simultaneous global adoption. To be sure, the figure of white hero is central both to Western public imagery of the masculine and to Bush Junior’s communicative social action. As Antony Whitehead (2005, 413) puts it: “The Hero is replicated in mythology and entertainment across social divisions between men, be that through Arthurian legend, Victorian poetry, or American fi lms.” Throughout the Western world, the hegemonically masculine white hero is extolled culturally and circulated discursively in literature, the mass media, and in politics. For example, from the white heroic feature film and TV fantasy icons of Wyatt Earp, the Lone Ranger, and Hopalong Cassidy to James Bond, Dirty Harry, Rambo, Indiana Jones, Superman, and Spiderman, it is understood that these white men are the sole individuals with sufficient skills and noble qualities to conquer whatever villain threatens any victim. In these heroic fables, the same story is told consistently: the brave heroic white man conquers the diabolical villain, proves his superior masculinity with panache by rescuing the damsel-in-distress victim, and then takes his well-deserved seat at the pinnacle of the patriarchal status hierarchy (Holt and Thompson 2004). Bush Junior’s speechifying, then, was constructed in discourse that concurrently produced discourse and consisted both of “protection” and “rescue” components. The protection component of Bush Junior’s particular narrative is grounded historically in a patriarchal family structure and discourse whereby the heroic masculine protector is not a dominating and overpowering presence in the household, but, rather, he courageously confronts outside dangers in order to safeguard women and children from harm. This subordinate relationship between protector and protected, then, does not constitute submission to a dominating tyrant; rather, women and children admire their protector and contentedly submit to him in return for the protection that he offers (Young 2003).

198

James W. Messerschmidt

Similarly, in his communicative social action, Bush Junior adopted a contemporary patriarchal position of heroic masculine protector, instructing “American” men, women, and children to entrust their lives to him and he would in turn do what was necessary to keep them safe from evil, uncivilized, toxically masculine terrorists and tyrants. Bush Junior fashioned himself regionally as hegemonic masculine heroic protector of all “American citizens,” positioning himself as superior to his subordinate, dependent, and emphasized feminized subjects. Bush Junior constructed a regional relationship to the US citizenry that is analogous “to the masculine protector toward his wife and the other members of the patriarchal household,” in the sense that his “masculine superiority flows not from acts of repressive domination but from the willingness to risk and sacrifice for others,” who in turn both submit to his power and rejoice in his ability to protect them from outside villains (Young 2003, 9). Yet simultaneously, part of Bush Junior’s discourse expounding civilized compassion and lawful protection (Bush Junior) versus uncivilized cruelty and unlawful violence (Saddam Hussein) constituted a superordinate/subordinate metaphorical masculine relationship between heroic hegemonic masculinity and villainous subordinate toxic masculinity. Thus, Bush Junior’s gender characteristics were deemed superior in relation to those gender characteristics attached to both “his” dependent citizenry and to the “beast of Baghdad.” Moreover, Saddam Hussein’s specific brand of toxic metaphorical villainous masculinity—which embraced deception, death, genocide, torture, a deep connection to international terrorists groups, an addiction to weapons of mass destruction, and a hatred for the United States—was deemed exceptionally dangerous and thus subordinate by Bush Junior. By resolutely and bravely protecting US citizens from “Saddam,” Bush Junior cast himself as the righteous and thus superior metaphorical heroic protector. Indeed, Bush Junior represented “Saddam” as currently “plotting terror” against “America” and, consequently, against innocent, vulnerable, and unsuspecting citizens of the United States who were dependent on Bush Junior’s focused, steadfast, and unwavering protection to forestall any attack from “Saddam.” In contrast, then, to “Saddam’s” subordinate toxic masculinity, Bush Junior’s “protector” hegemonic masculinity constituted a valiant, resolute, and lawful safekeeping of US dependent and feminized citizens against outside aggression. In his discourse on Iraq, then, Bush Junior placed all citizens of the US— including men—in the same position: under his direction as sole male protector. Consequently, in this combined narrative, emphasized femininity is dissociated symbolically from the female body as Bush Junior feminized and infantilized the US citizenry through his discourse. Accordingly, US men, women, and children were subordinated collectively in a gendered relation to the superior qualities of their masculine protector. Bush Junior stressed the dependent and subordinate status of US citizens as heroically protected by him from Saddam Hussein. US citizens were characterized as

Hegemonic Masculinities and the “Selling” of War 199 emphasized feminine, infantile, helpless, innocent, and vulnerable charges wholly in need of protection against the evil, toxic, and subordinate masculine Saddam Hussein. In so doing, Bush Junior’s discourse denied agency to Saddam Hussein and to the entire US citizenry: the former is an “evil” creature of nature who simply acted through bodily impulses rather than through rational and strategic logic; the latter was a collective of “passive dependents” whose fate was determined through the actions of a metaphorical toxically masculine villain and a hegemonic masculine hero. Thus, Bush Junior embodied hegemonic masculinity by discursively becoming the sole player granted agency in this tripartite relationship. In addition to the preceding, as a good and heroic hegemonic masculine man protecting all the “civilized,” “freedom-loving,” and “innocent” people of the world from the evil and “uncivilized” subordinate toxically masculine villain (Saddam Hussein), Bush Junior once again constructed himself as the global hegemonic masculine heroic protector. For Bush Junior, because “the world” was at risk of imminent surprise attack and, therefore, must be protected, a new set of international relations must be developed through his efforts, in which all “civilized” nations would come together as a world community to contest “uncivilized” terrorist and nation-state toxic leaders who would support them. Accordingly, Bush Junior gained a global hegemonic masculine heroic protector status by unilaterally determining what was and what was not acceptable to international relations by establishing a new norm on which all “civilized” nations would live in harmony. In this process, then, the villain is subordinated to the hero. The former is depicted as a barbaric, uncivilized, and evil metaphorical villain who engaged in acts of unprovoked violence against innocent victims; the latter is characterized as a virtuous, patient, and peaceful metaphorical hero who engages in violence only when necessary to protect all “civilized” and “freedom-loving people” throughout the world. Consequently, a global gendered power relationship is symbolized discursively and based on superior–inferior characteristics that legitimated and differentiated unequally “hybrid” (tough and tender) hegemonic masculinity from toxic “beastly” subordinate masculinity and dependent worldwide emphasized feminine and infantile yet “civilized” men, women, and children. The worldwide “civilized” citizenry was encouraged to entrust their lives to Bush Junior, thereby constructing the US president as the morally superior and culturally ideal global patriarchal hegemonic masculine individual who would lead the international effort to protect the world. For Bush Junior, then, the villainous acts of Saddam Hussein ultimately were, or would be in the near future, attacks on global civilization. Bush Junior constructed himself as embodying the global heroic qualities necessary to check embodied toxic aggression and thus to protect global “civilized” individuals and values. Bush Junior’s global hegemonic masculinity fi rst and foremost entailed benevolently granting the villain an opportunity to avoid aggression—Saddam Hussein must immediately disarm and

200 James W. Messerschmidt leave Iraq—and when (and only when) this effort failed, Bush Junior’s sole remaining option was to be strong and to heroically lead a global collective of civilized masculine leaders to protect the world from the ruthless, vicious, uncivilized, and criminal subordinate toxically masculine villain. In this way Bush Junior constructed himself as the morally-superior-reluctantbut-critically-necessary fighter and rendered masculine violence as normal, acceptable, and mandatory in especially those situations where “probable” future lawless violence must be suppressed. Given the continued terrorist threat, protective violence became not simply justifiable, but imperative— that is, not to transgress his explicit and customary masculine interdict against violence would be itself an unacceptable transgression. Constructing himself regionally and globally as the “hybrid” hegemonic masculine heroic protector, then, Bush Junior solely controlled and neutralized the danger to the world. In addition to protection, the rescue component of Bush Junior’s narrative is likewise grounded historically in a discursive fascination with stereotypes of the bestial male savage and the captured, raped, and tormented female. Thus, Bush Junior’s tripartite metaphorical construction of a villain-victim-hero discourse constituted in part a contemporary rescue-fromcaptivity narrative at the global level. Bush Junior’s discourse established a hierarchical gendered relationship between Bush Junior and the people of Iraq by subordinating the weak, vulnerable, and thereby emphasized feminine and infantile “Oriental” to the strong, invulnerable, and hegemonically masculine “Western” US president. For Bush Junior, Iraqi men were just as dependent on him (the hero) for rescue from their villainous captor (Saddam Hussein) as were Iraqi women and children. The reality constructed in Bush Junior’s discourse was that Iraqi men were utterly incapable of confronting their oppressor and safeguarding “their” women and children from rape, torture, and brutalization and were, therefore, solely dependent on Bush Junior rescuing all from the villainous captor. To be sure, Bush Junior once again dissociated and separated femininity from the female body; he feminized and infantilized Iraqi men by aligning them with women and children, and he thereby constructed them as wholly impotent to confront their captivity. As the hegemonic masculine hero rescuing emphasized feminine and infantile Iraqi men, women, and children from their villainous subordinate masculine captor, then, Bush Junior constructed himself regionally and globally as the hegemonic masculine heroic rescuer. Indeed, the characteristics and attributes associated with Bush Junior and Iraqi men, women, and children assembled an unequal gender relationship between the Western Bush Junior and the “Oriental others.” Thus, a hierarchical power relationship based on superior–inferior embodied gendered characteristics was constructed between rescuer and captive. Moreover, because Saddam Hussein opposed the gender morality Bush Junior represented, he stood clearly outside the world as an enemy of international “civilized” gender relations and as a universal subordinate toxic

Hegemonic Masculinities and the “Selling” of War 201 masculine villain. Bush Junior’s communicative social action is a contribution to Edward Said’s (1978) notion of “Orientalism,” a discourse that posits how the “West” understands the “Orient,” and in turn how westerners understand themselves. In Bush Junior’s discourse, the “Oriental other” is either emphasized feminine and infantile (Iraqi men, women, and children) or barbaric, beastly, and subordinate toxically masculine (Saddam Hussein); thus, both “others” embodied characteristics maintaining an essential gendered inability for self-determination. Therefore, Bush Junior is discursively constructed as the sole player granted agency in the international arena: the toxic masculine metaphorical villain was a creature of nature that simply acted through bodily impulses rather than rational and strategic logic—and thus must be controlled by Bush Junior. Iraqi men, women, and children, likewise, were “passive captive things”—the metaphorical victims—whose fate was determined solely by the rescue and continued guidance of Bush Junior. Accordingly, Bush Junior solely embodied the moral, rational, and physically superior global hegemonic masculine qualities requisite to rescue successfully a persecuted and captive population while simultaneously and of necessity presiding over the Iraqi people’s progress toward freedom, democracy, and inevitable “civilization.”

CONCLUSION In Bush Junior’s communicative social action, he constructed a metaphorical hierarchical relationship between hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity as well as a subordinate toxic masculinity. And in so doing, he thereby deployed a discourse legitimating gender inequality as well as framing a rationale for military force against Iraq. Thus, Bush Junior’s presidential form of communicative social action constructed an unequal gender relationship between hegemonic masculinity, emphasized femininity, and subordinate masculinity, utilizing a villain-victim-hero narrative to legitimate gender inequality as well as a rationale primarily for unilateral military force against Iraq.1 Regional and global hegemonic masculinities merge in Bush Junior’s presidential discourse on how political leaders should behave and how the gendered world order should be structured. In constructing this narrative, then, Bush Junior imposed a specific discourse on an international confl ict, qualifying himself exclusively as both regional and global hegemonic masculine heroic protector and rescuer. In essence, Bush Junior constructed this discourse by claiming that he alone spoke with a worldwide masculine voice—representing himself as the paradigmatic masculine model for international gender relations. Accordingly, Bush Junior’s regional/global hegemonic “Western” masculinity was constituted in a superior relation to an anachronistic and thus subordinate “Oriental” masculinity and femininity. In this way, Bush Junior’s

202

James W. Messerschmidt

discourse reflected and helped legitimate global US and Western masculine dominance. As the global Western hegemonic masculine hero, then, Bush Junior’s communicative social action targeted both regional and global audiences in an attempt to sell them on his virtue, and thereby contrived to gain support for a US military assault against Iraq. Through his speechifying, Bush Junior contributed to affirming and possibly stabilizing, both regionally and globally, the ascendant position of men over women, “Western” men over “Oriental” men and women, and Bush Junior over “all.”2

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Paradigm Publishers for permission to reproduce much of the material in this chapter from Messerschmidt (2010).

NOTES 1. As I document elsewhere (Messerschmidt 2010), Bush Junior is not unique in this regard as US presidents from at least Bush Senior (George H. W. Bush) to Barack Obama have deployed discourses legitimating gender inequality that simultaneously frame a rationale for military force against other countries. 2. We must recognize that hegemonic masculine discourse of Bush Junior constrained people worldwide by obstructing particular forms of knowledge from being publicly articulated while simultaneously enabling people worldwide by prescribing a particular conceptualization of international relations and thus support for war. Nevertheless, a full accounting of this hegemonic masculinity—clearly outside the confi nes of this chapter—would document if, and to what extent, regional and global public consent actually was consolidated in support of Bush Junior’s presidential discourse and thus military force against Iraq.

REFERENCES Altheide, D. 1996. Qualitative Media Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Berg, B. 1998. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Carroll, L. 2007. Rhetorical Drag: Gender Impersonation, Captivity, and the Writing of History. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. Castiglia, C. 1996. Bound and Determined: Captivity, Culture-Crossing, and White Womanhood from Mary Rowlandson to Patty Hearst. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Charteris-Black, J. 2005. Politicians and Rhetoric. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Connell, R. W. 1987. Gender and Power. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. . 1995. Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity. Connell, R. W., and J. W. Messerschmidt. 2005. “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept.” Gender & Society 19 (6): 829–59.

Hegemonic Masculinities and the “Selling” of War 203 Faludi, S. 2007. The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America. New York: Metropolitan Books. Fitzpatrick, T. 1991. “The Figure of Captivity: The Cultural Work of the Puritan Captivity Narrative.” American Literary History 3 (1): 1–26. Holt, D. B., and C .J. Thompson. 2004. “Man-of-Action Heroes: The Pursuit of Heroic Masculinity in Everyday Consumption.” Journal of Consumer Research :425–40. Jeffords, S. 1991a. “Protection Racket.” Women’s Review of Books 8 (10–11): 10. . 1991b. “Rape and the New World Order.” Cultural Critique (Fall): 203–15. Kolodny, A. 1985. The Land before Her. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Messerschmidt, J. W. 2006. “‘We Must Protect Our Southern Women’: On Whiteness, Masculinities, and Lynching.” In Race, Gender, and Punishment: From Colonialism to the War on Terror, edited by M. Bosworth and J. Flavin, 77–94. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. . 2010. Hegemonic Masculinities and Camoufl aged Politics: Unmasking the Bush Dynasty and Its War against Iraq. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Said, E. W. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon. Whitehead, A. 2005. “Man to Man Violence: How Masculinity May Work as a Dynamic Risk Factor.” Howard Journal 44 (4): 411–22. Young, I. M. 2003. “The Logic of Masculinist Protection: Reflections on the Current Security State.” Signs 29 (1): 1–25.

Former US President George W. Bush Speeches 2001a. “Remarks in Sarasota, Florida, on the Terrorist Attack on New York City’s World Trade Center,” 11 September. 2002a. “Address before a Joint Session of Congress on the State of the Union,” 29 January. 2002b. “Remarks on the Six-Month Anniversary of the September 11th Attacks,” 11 March. 2002c. “Remarks Announcing Bipartisan Agreement on a Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq,” 2 October. 2002d. “Address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City,” 12 September. 2002e. “Address to the Nation on Iraq from Cincinnati, Ohio,” 7 October. 2002f. “Remarks on Signing the Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq Resolution of 2002,” 16 October. 2002g. “Remarks on the Passage of a United Nations Security Council Resolution on Iraq,” 8 November. 2002h. “The President’s Radio Address,” 9 November. 2002i. “The President’s Radio Address,” 16 November . 2002j. “The President’s Radio Address,” 26 January. 2002k. “The President’s Radio Address,” 5 October. 2003a. “Remarks on the Iraqi Regime’s Noncompliance with United Nations Resolutions,” 6 February. 2003b. “The President’s Radio Address,” 8 March. 2003c. “Address to the Nation on Iraq,” 17 March. 2003d. “Address to the Nation on Iraq,” 19 March.

12 Nationalist Reactions and Masculinity Following Hrant Dink’s Assassination Reconfigurations of Nation-States and Implications for the Processes of Transnationalization Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu INTRODUCTION There does not seem to be much dispute about the fact that processes of transnationalization have profoundly affected the political, economic, and social restructuring of the world. Simply put, transnationalization refers to the interconnectedness between countries and peoples through the global reach of transnational capital as well as through the intensified mobility of people and ideas across national boundaries. Out of the processes of transnationalization, a new form of sovereignty is being constituted with new norms, legal and administrative apparatuses, and hierarchies as Breny Mendoza (2002) has stated. This new form of sovereignty has had and will have considerable impacts on the cultural, political, and economic terrains of nation-states. Although there are arguments that the processes of transnationalization have undermined the power of nation-states, as Hyun Sook Kim and Jyoti Puri (2005) have emphasized, states are also constantly reimagined, reconfigured, and even strengthened. In this chapter, I aim to show that the processes of reconfiguration of the nation-state are profoundly gender inflected; in other words, at the core of such processes are hegemonic practices and defi nitions of masculinity. I analyze hegemonic practices relating to one particular form of Turkish masculinity in the context of a specific incident that reveals certain elements of contemporary nationalist discourses in Turkey. The case study on which this chapter is based concerns the assassination by a young nationalist of a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor, Hrant Dink, in 2007.1 Following Meltem Ahıska (2010, 187), who argues that “the logic of hegemony is best understood through its crises in history,” I treat this incident as a crisis of hegemony in which the particular form of its reaffirmation in this case can be observed. To this end, I concentrate in particular on those “public” and media reactions to Dink’s murder that focused on the religion and ethnicity of the parties involved, and that, in my view, draw attention to hegemonic constructions of Turkish masculinity

Nationalist Reactions and Masculinity

205

currently under way in the nationalist context.2 However, my starting point is the role of the legal background in which those nationalist reactions nestled, with the aim of showing the more structural and institutional grounding for the popular nationalist reactions. To further highlight this point, I include an example of the symbolic affi rmation of Dink’s murder by some state officials in an informal way. Through this case study, I explore which (groups of) men are involved in hegemonic practices with an emphasis on the interplay of ethnicity, class, and gender relations of power. In this chapter, I am mainly interested in relating processes of transnationalization to the ways in which gendered power structures are constructed and operate in national contexts—in this case in Turkey—and how these structures work to produce gender, ethnicity, and class exclusions. I argue that attention to the gender reconfigurations integral to processes of nation building, and the attending nationalist discourses help provide a better understanding of transnationalization as a gendered and classed process.

HEGEMONY OF THE NATION-STATE AND MASCULINITY Nations, using Benedict Anderson’s (1983) apt phrase, are imagined communities. This form of collectivity requires constructing and constantly reproducing bonds among the members of the nation, the majority of whom have no in-person contact with one another in daily life. As feminist analyses of the modern state and nationalism have shown, gender norms are the core constitutive elements in the construction of such bonds, the major result of which is to maintain men’s privileges in general (see, for example, Pateman 1988). Obviously, not all men enjoy an equal share of those privileges, nor is it the case that all women are totally deprived of them. Intersections of gender, class, and ethnicity, among other factors, contribute to the construction and functioning of power relations within which the bonds are constructed. In understanding the complexity of power relations, the Gramscian concept of hegemony has been particularly useful, and it has been deployed extensively in gender research, especially in relation to masculinity. The concept of hegemony enables an exploration of the specificities of the workings of power relations since it “always refers to a historical situation, a set of circumstances in which power is won and held” (Carrigan, Connell, and Lee 1985, 594). Drawing on hegemony in analyses also makes it possible to grasp the dynamics of power relations because the construction of hegemony “is not a matter of pushing and pulling between readyformed groupings but is partly a matter of formation of those groupings” (ibid.), which underscores the constructive role of hegemony. As different political, economic, and/or social circumstances may necessitate different types of bonds, hegemonic defi nitions and practices serve a common ground to accommodate such differences. However, some features related to the workings of hegemony are more structural, and their role is less

206 Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu likely to change, such as gender relations—in particular, relations between men and the state. The relationship between men/masculinity and hegemony, following Jeff Hearn, “seeks to address the double complexity that men are both a social category formed by the gender system [which involves hegemony] and dominant collective and individual agents of social [and hegemonic] practices” (2004, 59). These practices of men with both discursive and material aspects lead to “forming and reforming hegemonic differentiations among men” (ibid., 61). Focusing on hegemonic differentiations among men requires research that is also able to foreground race/ethnicity and class and account, in some ways, for the complicity and consent of differently located men to hegemonic power structures operative at both national and transnational levels, as well as in relation to different global and regional processes involved in the construction of gender relations. Various actors are involved in the processes of negotiation and the upholding of hegemony, but I will limit my focus to two of them: the state and the media. The state, not as a fixed entity but rather as a mechanism operating through a series of processes, has a crucial role in hegemonic practices along with various other political actors. Since the state is also the main organizer of gender relations within its “gender regimes” (Connell 1994), several gender norms necessarily underlie the practices involving state apparatuses. The role of the media as the second major actor in my analysis relates to an important aspect of hegemony, which is that it “involves persuasion of the greater part of the population, particularly through the media, and the organization of social institutions in ways that appear ‘natural’, ‘ordinary’, ‘normal’” (Donaldson 1993, 645). The construction and reproduction of consent enables hegemony to work through dominated groups in order to establish and maintain the domination of the ruling class. As an earlier form of media, print capitalism substantially contributed to spreading nationalist ideas and the notion of national identity to a wider circle, as Anderson (1983) has suggested. Compared to its historical function in the construction of nationstates, contemporary media has a more profound and instantaneous effect on people in the dissemination of normative definitions and practices by means of heroized figures. In the following section, I look into the role of the state and the media in (re)producing the nationalist reactions to the murder of Hrant Dink by paying particular attention to the related elements of ethnicity, class, and masculinity.

HRANT DINK’S MURDER AND THE NATIONALIST REACTIONS

The Legal Aspect of the Case The case of Hrant Dink’s murder provides illuminating insight into the involvement of the state, both formally and informally, as well as the active involvement of a large number of people in the process of redrawing the ethnic boundaries of the nation. In order to unravel the role of the state in

Nationalist Reactions and Masculinity

207

the reproduction of the national identity in this instance, I will fi rst explore the role of the legal apparatus of the state in the murder. The notorious Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which penalizes so-called insults against “Turkishness” (later changed to “Turkish Nation”), lays bare the way in which the state is involved in defi ning the “ideal citizen” with ethnic references through its legal system. It is significant that the state, by means of this article, reifies the concept of “protection of the nation” and justifies any actions serving this goal by implicitly encouraging such actions. In the background to the Dink murder were lawsuits based on this particular article and the ways in which these lawsuits were presented to the public mainly by the mainstream media. The trials and the media coverage of them constituted a major driving force leading to collective reactions against writers, journalists, and intellectuals (Hrant Dink being one of them) who were being tried based on this article and therefore seen as “the enemies of the Turkish nation”.3 This atmosphere revolving around the notions of “fragile Turkishness” and “its enemies” accounts for the statement of Yasin Hayal, who is being tried on charges of instigation of the murder: “Long live the nation. I am so much at peace about what I have done” (Anonymous 2007a). Article 301 plays an important role in keeping alive the discourse of “defending the nation,” which functions as a “call to duty” for the male citizens. Especially with the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) accession to power in 2002, a tendency toward fetishization of the law, or of certain articles to be more precise, has increased, and this has been related to Turkey joining the European Union.4 Opposition to the AKP has claimed that it is necessary for Turkey to follow strictly the principles of constitutional state and has argued that similar articles (to Article 301) currently exist in the penal codes of some European countries. It can be observed that the ongoing process of joining the European Union has served as a justification for nationalist interpretations of the law. As Nergis Canefe has argued, on account of the article in question, “banal nationalism in a legal framework has permeated the daily life of society as an incontestable discourse and legislative power has induced this rather than the judiciary power, contrary to the usual course of actions. And for common people, it is no more than a detail regarding governance” (2007, 93; my translation). It is worth noting that on Internet forums many people who defi ned themselves as nationalists referred to the accusations directed against Dink during his trial as the cause of his murder (Aktan 2007). The legal aspect (i.e., Article 301) thus functioned as the justification for the murder, which came to be regarded as “inevitable” by the nationalists.

The Role of the Political Parties Most of the political party leaders assumed a leading role in expressing and spreading nationalist statements directed against the symbolic slogan denouncing Dink’s death: “We all are Hrant. We all are Armenians”,

208

Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu

which promptly became the focal point of attack of the nationalist reactions (Cetinkaya 2007). This points to the need to employ a broader scope in the analyses of state actors as this case shows a certain level of consensus between the state and other political actors in the making and publicizing of the ethnicity-based defi nition of normative citizenship. One of the fi rst politicians to raise an objection to the antinationalist attitude adopted in the funeral procession was Şevket Kazan, the vice chairman of the Happiness Party (Anonymous 2007b).5 Having formerly been a minister of justice, Kazan sets a telling example of how state and civil politics represented by political parties share similar views with regard to defi ning the boundaries of the nation. Kazan, who referred to the “We all are Armenians” slogan as “sucking up”, was among the fi rst to utter the counterslogan, “We all are Mehmet [a common Turkish male name]. We all are Muslims”, which aptly summarizes the nationalist reactions. Following the Happiness Party, four other political parties, namely, the Grand Unity Party, the Nationalist Movement Party, the Right Way Party, and the Labor Party, as well as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself raised similar objections. Although the prime minister’s tone was milder in his criticism that “it would have been better if the protesters had not said ‘We all are Armenians’” (Anonymous 2007b; my translation), his statement nevertheless shared similar concerns to the more overtly expressed nationalist protests. The counterslogan “We all are Turks. We all are Mehmet,” whose impact was enhanced by means of newspaper headlines and banners on the streets prepared by nationalist parties and soon adopted by masses, has two significant implications. First, as Doğan Çetinkaya noted, it brings to light the fact that ethnicity is the sole determining factor in defi ning “Turkishness” (Çetinkaya 2007, 103–4). The counterslogan establishes “Mehmet” and “Hrant” as mutually exclusive categories, implying that “Hrant” falls out of the national boundaries since he is not one of “us”. The second important point is the very choice of the “counter-name”. Mehmet, the Turkish equivalent of Tommy, seems to be a deliberate choice in that it alludes to the armed confl ict against the Kurds in the southeast of Turkey. The name, by means of connotation, involves Kurds, the major ethnic “other”, in the matter, as one ethnic exclusion is followed by another almost as a reflexive reaction.

Popular Nationalist Reactions Political party representatives were soon joined by the masses in outcry about the “pro-Armenian” protests against the assassination. A white woolen hat, which the assassin was wearing at the time of the incident, became a symbol of the nationalists’ approval of the murder. This tacit approval was particularly demonstrated by crowds in football stadiums. Besides the widespread appearance of the white woolen hats on football supporters’ heads, banners reading “We are Turks. We are Mustafa Kemal”

Nationalist Reactions and Masculinity

209

were unfurled. Also, it was reported that during a football game, an announcement was made, proclaiming that “supporters who do not cheer for our team are Armenians” (Anonymous 2007b). The role the stadiums played in the demonstration of the nationalist reactions is closely related to the role of sports in the construction of normative masculinities (Connell 1995). As well as military service and war, certain sports games create distinctive spaces for establishing a specific kind of male bonding. As Berrin Koyuncu and Hilal Onur (2004) argued, the collective activism producing this male bonding has a particular component, which is violence directed against other men. Violence, the culmination of the collective activism, is justified by the perceived threat that is claimed to be evoked by “other” men. Through the bonding formed among men who commit violence, hegemonic defi nitions and practices of masculinities are sanctioned and reproduced. In a similar vein, Ann McClintock (1997) points out that, in the context of nationalism, (gendered) violence is usually a constitutive element in the construction of collective identities. As can be observed in the nationalist reactions occurring in the football stadiums, “ideal” supporter behaviors pertain to normative masculine identity intertwined with the nationalist identity, and symbolic violence is directed mainly against the men of the other ethnic groups—in this case, especially Armenians. However, demonstration of violent behavior is not necessarily limited to one ethnic identity. Indeed, in the football match between Malatyaspor (the football club of the city where Hrant Dink was born) and Elazıgspor (the football club of a city in Eastern Anatolia), some Elazıg supporters shouted “Armenian Malatya” and the response to that was “PKK out!” (Anonymous 2007b). It is worth noting that both groups endeavored to ostracize each other on the grounds of ethnicity. Kurdish, PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), and Armenian identities are intermingled, and are at once placed in the category of “threatening elements against Turkey”. Sports games were not the only occasion in which nationalist sentiments were manifested. In line with what they usually do, popular figures in the music industry played an important role in conveying the related hegemonic defi nitions in this particular case. One example highlights this role quite clearly. The song entitled “Don’t Make Any Plans” by a well-known singer Ismail Turut, gained popularity by expressing a profound anxiety about the “foreign elements” in general and about the impact of the assassination on the region in particular.6 The predominant theme of the lyrics expresses concern about the “conspiracy against the motherland.” As “the identities of the conspirators” are revealed in the lyrics, it becomes evident how extensive the group of “our enemies” is. US Americans, Russians, Armenians, and more generally Christians are identified as the enemies of Turks and more specifically of the people of the Black Sea Region. The significance of this particular region is that it is where the assassin’s hometown is situated, and the city (his hometown) itself is associated with a strong nationalist identity.

210 Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu With the exception of when they direct threats against the “enemies,” the lyrics address a particular male model—one that would make any sacrifice to protect the “motherland-under-threat.” Especially in times of political confl icts, ethnocentrism is intensified, which has profound gender implications. Joanne Nagel uses the metaphor of sirens to explain the meaning of the “love of nation” for male citizens (1998, 252). The defi nition and content of the duty of protecting the motherland implicitly suggest the defi nition of the ideal male citizen. Nationalist politics that frequently invoke such duties are one of the most important arenas in which “true manhood” is realized and proved.7 A striking fact about this call to duty is that it is generated within a discourse that refers to the so-called premodern relations and obligations of kinship rather than the rhetoric of the “modern” relations between the state and the citizens, although modern masculinity defi nes itself in opposition to premodern masculinity (Connell 1994, 150).8 I suggest that in this case “modern” refers to middle- or upperclass urbanites, whereas the use of a “premodern” discourse is particularly aimed at addressing lower-class or underclass men living in rural areas or slums in big cities. It can be argued that the use of references to premodern kinship obligations functions as a way to make lower-class men identify more closely with nationalist causes. I treat this example as particularly indicative of the way in which modern nation-states configure themselves using the seemingly incompatible discourses of both modernity and premodernity/tradition. I also argue that dichotomous constructions of the modern/premodern are enormously influential when it comes to constructing hegemonic Turkish nationalist masculinities. This influence accounts for the existence of the several videos broadcasted on YouTube and on Samast’s Facebook page, which was started by his “fans” to celebrate his deed. Different versions of the video are available on the Internet; however, all have the same recurring images, including the pictures of the assassin and Mustafa Kemal, funerals of the soldiers of the Turkish army who were killed while fighting against the PKK, the Turkish flag, a map of Turkey, guns, Koranic verses, and scenic views alluding to the Black Sea Region. These images embody the religious, political, and cultural codes with which nationalists identify themselves. This example underscores the fact that the Internet has provided the masses with an easily accessible public space where disseminating and sharing information are relatively easier and more influential compared to the conventional media. This has led the nationalist reactions to be expressed in relatively more unrestrained ways.

The State’s Tacit Affirmation of the Murder and the Role of the Media The final example I will analyze provides insight into the process of heroizing the assassin and the state’s symbolic affirmation of the murder. Ogun Samast, after committing the murder, was caught in a coach terminal on his

Nationalist Reactions and Masculinity

211

way to his hometown. A few days later, some photographs and later a mobile phone recording were released by the media (Anonymous 2007b). In the photographs, the police and the gendarme officers who caught him are seen taking “souvenir photographs” with Samast before he was taken to the police station. Also in the photographs, Samast is holding a Turkish flag in front of a poster on which it reads “The soil of the motherland is sacred. It cannot be left to its fate,” a statement by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding figure of the Turkish Republic. The statement adds a dramatic tone to the photograph by giving the impression that it refers to the borders of the country, although it is actually concerned with soil in an agricultural sense. This mise-en-scéne is a telling example of how meaning is manipulated through appropriation of national symbols. In addition to this, the photographs reveal the ambiguous and conflicting involvement of the state in the case. On the one hand, security forces carry out their duty by catching the suspects responsible for Dink’s death. On the other hand, the same officers unofficially and symbolically convey a message of affirmation of the murder. This seemingly conflicting attitude, following Kim and Puri (2005), is hardly a sign of weakness on the part of the state. Such ostensible inconsistencies, along with a series of problematizations best exemplified by the discourse of motherland-under-threat, constitute an important part of governmentality. The mainstream media played an important role in legitimizing this symbolic affi rmation of the murder by the state by way of some influential journalists arguing that the police officers taking pictures with Samast should not be considered a case of misconduct. The chief editor of Hurriyet, a newspaper with a very high circulation, and under whose logo it reads “Turkey belongs to Turks,” offered a different point of view by likening the police officers to hunters (Ozkok 2007a). With this comparison, the photographs gained a completely opposite meaning which eradicated any reference to support for the murder by the state. According to Ertugrul Ozkok (2007b), the chief editor, the officers were simply proud that they had caught their “prey” and the aim of the photographs was to celebrate their success. Ozkok went on to argue that the footage (seen by him along with some other journalists but not publicly circulated), recorded on one of the officer’s mobile phones, supported his conviction. The hunting metaphors used by him and later by an anchorman, Mehmet Ali Birand, on an evening news program with a considerable ratings share, emphasize how profoundly the masculine references are inflected with the perceptions of the state and components of its apparatuses.

SOME IMPLICATIONS OF THE CASE STUDY FOR TRANSNATIONALIZATION Although it may not be very usual to focus on an incidence of upsurge in nationalist sentiments in relation to transnationalization, Dink’s murder, I suggest, has some bearing on the phenomenon especially in terms of

212 Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu the tension between the relative stability of identities or subject positions mainly associated with nation-states and the immense mobility, fluidity, and nonterritoriality as products of transnationalization. In accordance with the two poles of the tension, two major tendencies can be observed in the literature related to transnationalization. One side of the debate points out that such extensive developments in the domains of transportation and information have been witnessed that “moving groups and individuals [have come to] constitute an essential feature of the world” (Appadurai 2000, 325). Among others who understand contemporary spatiality in terms of deterritorialization, Arjun Appadurai contends that “primordia (whether of language, or skin color, or neighborhood or kinship) have become globalized” (ibid., 329). What has started to dominate instead is “a variety of complex, post-national social formations” (Appadurai 1996, 167). With the term postnational, Appadurai argues that nation-states have increasingly less monopoly over the formation of subject positions and allegiances, a fact that, for Appadurai, accounts for the obsolescence of nation-states. This view treats transnationalism as a way forward from nationalism and the nation-state, which has been defi ned as “the last refuge of ethnic totalitarianism” (ibid., 159). However, on the other side of the debate, this approach, in general, is seen as another example of the long list of binarisms (Ong 1999). In fact, the two (nationalism and transnationalism) are regarded as “mutually constructed expressions of the ‘global’” (Roudometof 2009, 313). It has also been argued that a new type of nationalism that is transnational has begun to emerge (Kastoryano 2008), indicating the intertwinement of the two processes. Although there is a certain degree of valorization of mobility, fluidity, and transgressing of boundaries, Meyda Yeğenoğlu suggests it is only possible to do so by focusing the attention “solely on diasporic communities or localities in First World spaces” and ignoring that, for the underclass of the global South, claiming rights and benefits of citizenship within the framework of nation-state is indeed part of resistance (2005, 106). Thus transnationalization is as much about global flow of capital (and accompanying restrictions mainly for the underclass) as it is about the mobility of people and ideas that may have more liberating resonances. Yeğenoğlu bases her argument mainly on the case of the Kurdish community who live in the slums and who are radically marginalized or excluded from the frameworks of the nation-state largely on the basis of their ethnicity as well as their marginalized position in the global market economy. Therefore, for this group of people, “their search for stable and long-lasting roots within the existing perimeters of the nation-state” is mostly about claiming a share in the economic resources (Yeğenoğlu 2005, 105). My case study is concerned with another group of underclass people who are in no better position economically, yet who can enjoy their privileged Turkish ethnicity. In this case it is more to do with gaining social capital and reifying ethnic and religious bondings, which are exclusively for men,9 working

Nationalist Reactions and Masculinity

213

through hegemonic practices and defi nitions of masculinity. It can be argued that economically disadvantaged groups of men within a nation-state take quicker and at times more violent action when they believe “cultural and national values” are at stake. It is the nationalist discourse that creates and maintains the illusion that lower class and underclass men have as much access to economic resources by virtue of their ethnic identity, although in fact their share in material resources is very limited. This symbolic granting of access can explain why certain men are addressed when a call to duty is in question and also why certain men are lured by the “sirens” and take part in often violent actions in the name of the “honor of the nation”. It seems to be a way to accomplishment, and even a certain amount of fame, as the case of Samast shows. As presented in this case study, a complex network of state actors, political parties, and the media take part in the formation of this symbolic bond, and the process is well integrated in the everyday life practices of men through sports, music, and so on. This could be read as an illustration of what Kim and Puri (2005) have argued; due to the current economic system, the governance of nation-states has become quite dispersed enabling the reproduction of states’ power at more micro levels and this reconfiguration of power strengthens nation-states, contrary to predictions of their demise. States not holding a major position within the global power structure can be said to adhere more to their ethnic and religious codes when reconfiguring themselves, and the affi rmation of such codes often leads to exclusionary actions, as my case study reveals. In addition to the impact of the global economy, it is important to take into consideration the historical, political, and specific economic context in which the processes of transnationalization vis-à-vis nation-states take place. In Turkey, along with general factors such as the global flow of capital and neoliberalism, more specific factors contribute to the processes of reconfiguration of the nation-state, including the concerns of the Kemalist bureaucratic elites about losing political power and Turkey’s position vis-à-vis transnational organizations, the most influential of which is the European Union. These two factors are usually dealt with by invoking a discourse of the “nation being under threat” by nationalist circles. In the nationalist discourse, the existence of threat requires redrawing of the national boundaries with an emphasis primarily on ethnicity and religion. As the example of the pop song “Don’t Make Any Plans” shows, consolidation of Turkish identity is carried out through a process of defi ning it against a series of “threatening” identities, brought together under the category of “the West”. The historical background of the somewhat tense relationship with “the West” and Turkish modernization can best be understood by considering the modernizing Kemalist elites of the early twentieth century who aimed to consolidate an official identity compatible to and competitive with, but different from, European models of the nation-state. Europe, often referred to as “the West” in modernizing discourse, was taken as the example of reaching the goal of “civilization”, but this relationship at the

214 Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu same time produced a strong fear of “superwesternization” (Mardin 1974), a term that refers to the fear of losing the “essence” of Turkishness. The metaphor illustrating “the West” as a seductive woman was not uncommon in the late nineteenth-century press, which distinctly emphasizes that the relationship with “the West” as the model of modernization has been gendered right from the beginning. Decline of power over the control of internal economy (but gaining a new form of power through establishing global alliances) leads to disorder in existing hegemonic gender relations. As Hearn has pointed out, “global and regional transformations, such as Europeanization, as through the European Union, may be part of the changing hegemony of men” (2004, 65). In the context of these changes and processes, analyses of ethnic conflict prove to be fruitful in understanding the construction of hegemonic definitions of masculinity. The reason for this is that the instability regarding the boundaries of the nation-state is perceived as being closely related to the instability of hegemonic masculinity. It is this parallelism that makes it easier to mobilize men to take part in collective actions. Such challenges shaped by global forces and local concerns often result in a reaffirmation of “local gender orthodoxies and hierarchies” (Connell 1998, 17). In the case I have analyzed, the reconstitution of hegemonic gender definitions is carried out with a strong emphasis on the existing ethnic and religious hierarchies. The “spatial” aspect of this reconstitution of gender order also provides valuable insight into the ways in which the reconfigurations of nation-states are developed vis-à-vis transnational dynamics. The nationalist reactions, as mentioned earlier, occurred in “conventional” spaces such as stadiums and streets as well as “non-places” (Mendoza 2002, 300) such as the Internet, in which transnational politics and history are built. The use of the Internet by the nationalists to spread their views is especially significant in the sense that the same means of communication is considered very effective in constructing allegiances transcending national boundaries. One important point regarding nationalists’ use of web forums is the high level of violence. In his work, Hamza Aktan (2007) shows that strong expressions glorifying dying and killing for the country in general and in particular the assassination of Dink were frequently used. It appears that the anonymity facilitated by the Internet is the key to why violence is expressed more overtly. Further analysis of the “convergence” concerning different utility of space can unravel the extent to which the dynamics of reconfigured nation-states and transnationalization are mutually constitutive. As I have noted in the preceding, one pitfall related to my case study is the risk of treating nationalist constructions of masculinity in Turkey as purely the effect of “local” or “cultural” norms. Therefore, both taking into account the material inequalities between nation-states and linking constructions of Turkish masculinity to wider frameworks of power are important.10 However, it would be equally misleading to think that

Nationalist Reactions and Masculinity

215

nationalist reactions (in general and in the case of Dink’s murder) emerge(d) solely in response to global power structures. The unexpectedly high number of people who participated in the funeral procession, the intensity of the denigration of murder by nonnationalist circles, and especially the slogan, “We all are Armenians”, deconstructing the assumed naturalness of one’s ethnicity, constituted a challenge to nationalist conceptions. Of the two competing discourses, nationalism was the one that attempted to evoke— and was successful in doing so to some extent—a process of reconstitution of ethnic boundaries of the nation-state in relation to hegemonic practices and defi nitions of masculinity.

CONCLUSION The assassination of Hrant Dink is a useful case for analyzing the involvement of various political (different state institutions, political parties, the law, and journalists) and “nonpolitical” (individual and collective practices of groups of people) actors (although not in the same potency) in the hegemonic practices of men and the role of the various means of media through which the then-seventeen-year-old assassin and his accomplices were represented as hegemonic “cultural ideals”.11 This representation was particularly constructed to appeal to young lower-class or underclass men as an attempt to compensate for their limited access to economic resources of the nation-state. The class element in my analysis reveals the ways in which hegemonic masculine identity constructions can operate in relation to a “dominated” group of men in terms of their economic class, men who can actively take part in carrying out hegemonic practices when their ethnic identity is prioritized in the making of their group identity. In the context of this particular case, the recurring elements of the hegemonic defi nition of masculinity include nationalism, Islam, military, duty to protect the “motherland-under-threat”, and violence against the ethnic other(s) in achieving this goal. It is important to point to the existence of an effectively mobilizing nationalist vocabulary pertaining to hegemonic masculinity. It seems that there is currently no equally effective set of elements to establish bonds on a transnational level. As Pheng Cheah argues, “the world is undoubtedly interconnected, and transnational mobility is clearly on the rise. However, one should not automatically take this to imply that popular forms of cosmopolitanism already exist” (1998, 36). The violent act that led to Dink’s death can mistakenly be considered as the result of an individual initiative, which would be disregarding the profound power relations entrenched in the structure and dynamics of the state as well as among states on a global level. Highlighting these power effects is important for understanding transnationalization processes, especially considering the reciprocal relations between the European Union and Turkey.

216 Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu NOTES 1. Hrant Dink was assassinated in Istanbul, in front of the building of the newspaper where he worked on 19 January 2007. Ogun Samast, then seventeen, was arrested as the murder suspect on his way to his hometown. In his initial statement, Samast admitted to committing the crime. Later, Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, the latter of whom was found to have been a police informant, were arrested on charges of plotting Dink’s assassination and instigating Samast to commit the crime. The Hrant Dink murder trial began at the Istanbul Fourteenth Heavy Penal Court on 2 July 2007. The trial of eighteen suspects, including Samast, Hayal, Tuncel, and six police and gendarmerie officials, the latter on charges of negligence of duty, is still continuing. 2. In this chapter, my focus is limited to some aspects of the nationalist backlash following the assassination. However, the incident has a broader significance, as Meltem Ahıska has suggested, for “exploding the continuum of history and making the debris of past crises in Turkey surface” (2010, 190). Ahıska argues that the incident evoked discussions related to the foreclosed Ottoman past and the violent historical confl icts with the non-Muslim populations, Armenians being one such population. I wish to thank Ömer Turan for pointing out this reference to me. 3. Can Açıksöz points out how the outside of the courtrooms during these trials became a site for (at times violent) protests by ultranationalists, including disabled veterans and martyrs’ families and how, in this process, Dink, among other dissident intellectuals, became the “surrogate victim” replacing Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK (Açıksöz 2011, especially 207–13). 4. Having been an associate member of the predecessors of the European Union since 1963, Turkey applied for formal membership into the EU—then European Community—in 1987. Turkey was recognized as a candidate for full membership in 1999 and since 2005, the negotiations have been under way. Partly because Turkey’s long record of human rights violations figure as a major obstacle to full membership, most discussions about democracy and lawfulness are at some point linked to the EU accession process. 5. An unexpectedly large crowd—more than two hundred thousand people— joined the funeral procession of Dink, carrying posters that read: “We all are Armenians”. It has been suggested that both the large number of people and this powerful slogan fueled the nationalist reactions. 6. Don’t make plans; you can’t execute them in the Black Sea / Double-crossing [also means being a whore] and lies are not welcomed in the Black Sea / Johnnies [Americans] or Russians! Don’t set up ambushes / Separatism isn’t worth a damn, not in the Black Sea / Stop tolling (church) bells or being Armenian / No one in the Black Sea buys this / They might say whatever they want [there is wordplay here; one of the words is the name of Hrant Dink’s murderer] / Fatiha and Yasin never end in the Black Sea [Yasin is a male name and the title of a Koranic verse and it also alludes to Yasin Hayal] / Justify your honor, reputation, and your life / No one betrays their nation in the Black Sea. / If one betrays his nation, he is destroyed straight off [also mean gets killed] / The sun of Turk and Islam never sets in the Black Sea / With this strength in us, no matter if you are a relative of Bush / None of you is worth a penny in the Black Sea / It is obvious that you are holding grudge against us / You are not powerful enough to cause chaos. (My translation.) 7. For example, when distinguishing male citizens from female citizens, “Enoch Powell argued that a woman should not pass on her citizenship

Nationalist Reactions and Masculinity

8. 9. 10. 11.

217

to her child because ‘nationality, in the last resort, is tested by fighting.’” (Pateman 1989, 50). For the paradoxical relationship of the nation-state to the concepts of modern and premodern in Turkey, see Kandiyoti (1997). For an example of the exclusion of immigrant women from gaining social capital in Canada, see Gardiner Barber (2006). There is also the issue that nationalism is not specific to peripheries. For examples from the Western context, see Roudometof (2009). A useful concept for making sense of the involvement of the masses is “designated agency”, which argues that masses do not act independently from existing structures. For a discussion of the designated agency of women in the process of nation-state building, which is based on Franz Fanon’s argument, see McClintock (1997).

REFERENCES Anonymous. 2007a. “Bu Ne Cüret!” Radikal, 25 January. . 2007b. “Ne Hrant Olduk Ne de Ermeni.” Radikal, 30 January. Açıksöz, S. C. 2011. “Sacrificial Limbs of Sovereignty: Disabled Veterans, Masculinity and Nationalist Politics in Turkey.” PhD thesis, University of Texas at Austin. Ahıska, M. 2010. Occidentalism in Turkey: Questions of Modernity and National Identity in Turkish Radio Broadcasting. London: Tauris. Aktan, H. 2007. “Web Otağlarından Sokağa: Türk Irkçılığının İnternetteki Tezahürleri.” Birikim 215:43–48. Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities. London: Verso. Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. . 2000. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” In The Globalization Reader, edited by F. J. Lechner and J. Boli, 322–30. Malden: Blackwell. Canefe, N. 2007. “Türkiyelilik, Türklüğün Aşağılanması ve Dink Cinayeti: Banal Milliyetçilik Çerçevesinde Bir Özeleştiri.” Birikim 214:88–94. Carrigan, T., R. Connell, and J. Lee. 1985. “Towards a New Sociology of Masculinity.” Theory and Society 14 (5): 551–604. Çetinkaya, Y. D. 2007. “Türkoğlu Türklerin Telaşı: Ermeni mi, Allah Korusun.” Birikim 214:98–105. Cheah, P. 1998. “Introduction Part II: The Cosmopolitical—Today.” In Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling beyond the Nation, edited by P. Cheah and B. Robbins, 20–41. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Connell, R. W. 1994. “The State, Gender, and Sexual Politics: Theory and Appraisal.” In Power/Gender: Social Relations in Theory and Practice, edited by L. Radtke and H. J. Stam, 136–73. London: Sage. . 1995. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press. .1998. “Masculinities and Globalization.” Men and Masculinities 1 (1): 3–23. Donaldson, M. 1993. “What Is Hegemonic Masculinity?” Theory and Society 22 (5): 643– 57. Gardiner Barber, P. 2006. “Locating Gendered Subjects in Vocabularies of Citizenship.” In Women, Migration, Citizenship: Making Local, National and Transnational Connections, edited by E. Tastsoglou and A. Dobrowolsky, 61–84. Hampshire: Ashgate.

218 Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu Hearn, J. 2004. “From Hegemonic Masculinity to the Hegemony of Men.” Feminist Theory 5:49–72. Kandiyoti, D. 1997. “Gendering the Modern: On Missing Dimensions in the Study of Turkish Modernity.” In Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey, edited by S. Bozdogan and R. Kasaba, 113–32. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Kastoryano, R. 2008. “Transnational Nationalism: Redefi ning Nation and Territory.” In Identities, Affiliations, and Allegiances, edited by S. Benhabib, I. Shapiro, and D. Petranovic, 159–79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kim, Hyun Sook, and Jyoti Puri. 2005. “Conceptualizing Gender-Sexuality-StateNation: An Introduction.” Gender & Society 19:137–59. Koyuncu, B., and H. Onur. 2004. “‘Hegemonik’ Erkekliğin Görünmeyen Yüzü: Sosyalizasyon Sürecinde Erkeklik Oluşumları ve Krizleri Üzerine Düşünceler.” Toplum ve Bilim 101:31–49. Mardin, Ş. 1974. “Superwesternization in Urban Life in the Ottoman Empire in the Last Quarter of the Nineteenth Century.” In Turkey: Geographical and Social Perspectives, edited by P. Benedict, H. Tümertekin, and F. Mansur, 403–39. Leiden: Brill. Mendoza, B. 2002. “Transnational Feminisms in Question.” Feminist Theory 3:295–314. McClintock, A. 1997. “No Longer in a Future Heaven: Gender, Race and Nationalism.” In Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Colonial Perspectives, edited by A. McClintock, 89–112. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Nagel, J. 1998. “Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the Making of Nations.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21 (2): 242–69. Ong, A. 1999 Flexible Citizenship. The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ozkok, E. 2007a. “Yazı İslerimizin Hali Memleketin Aynası.” Hurriyet, 3 February. . 2007b. “O Kasette Neler Seyrettim.” Hurriyet, 9 February. Pateman, C. 1988. The Sexual Contract. Cambridge: Polity. . 1989. The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism, and Political Theory. Cambridge: Polity. Roudometof, V. 2009. “Nationalism and Transnationalism.” In The Sage Handbook of European Studies, edited by C. Rumford, 312–27. London: Sage. Yeğenoğlu, M. 2005. “Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism in a Globalized World.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28 (1): 103–31.

13 Zooming In and Out Historical Icons of Masculinity within and across Nations Tetyana Bureychak

History and culture often serve as dynamic and contested resources for legitimizing power by different political actors. Their significance is particularly strong in situations of social instability and renegotiations of national identities. A romanticized and mythologized past, and its heroes, can be easily instrumentalized as a mobilizing strategy for maintaining national boundaries, purity, uniqueness, homogeneity, and traditional gender order. A purpose of this chapter is to reflect on the ways in which addressing cultural and historical models of masculinity nowadays might illuminate contextual and transnational processes of symbolic construction of national belonging intersected with gender and other ideologies. Discussions of interrelations of nation-building processes and gender are often situated in national contexts. Contextual analysis is an important methodological approach that helps to grasp locally specific particularities of gender and power relations. However, when limited to conceptualizing a social phenomenon only within nation-state frameworks, it risks falling into the “methodological nationalism” trap (Hearn 2011; Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002). In an attempt to avoid this, the chapter suggests integrating a transnational analysis perspective, which can open up new theoretical insights in the discussion of men, masculinities, power, and symbolic mechanisms of its legitimation. Zooming in and out of the perspective of considering cultural constructs of masculinity, that is, analyzing the operation of particular cultural ideas and representations of masculinity transnationally, provides important epistemic benefits. It allows for tracing of the dynamics of symbolic exchange on local and transnational levels, and identification of some common, interrelated and mutually reinforcing discursive systems of legitimizing gendered power relations that function across nation-states. The integration of a transnational perspective is important in order to grasp the complex processes of globalization, virtualization, and transnationalization, which influence both modes of reinforcement of hegemonic masculinity, and its local and culturally specific models. In this regard, it is common to discuss regeneration and strengthening of conservative, traditional, and culturally specific models of hegemonic masculinity as a part of the resistance to globalization and the reframing of political,

220

Tetyana Bureychak

economic and social relations that it triggers (Connell 1998; Kimmel 2003). Meanwhile, integration of a transnational perspective approach should not devalue the contextual analysis, since acknowledging local structural, systemic, and cultural dimensions is crucial for understanding the relevance, political engagements, and implications of particular representations of masculinity for the national imagination and dominant gender ideology. To illustrate this approach, this chapter suggests examining militaristic and historically specific ideals of masculinity contextually and transnationally. In particular, it focuses on the model of Ukrainian Cossacks and compares it with Viking imagery in contemporary Sweden and Scandinavia. Cossackhood is constantly reproduced within current public and academic discussions as a unique Ukrainian political, cultural, historical and typically genderless phenomenon central to the contemporary national imagination and identity. To deconstruct this dominant discourse, the chapter presents a close-up analysis of multiple mechanisms of mythologization and naturalizing of Cossackhood as an integral part of national identity and hegemonic masculinity in the post-Soviet Ukraine. This is followed by consideration of the flows of ideals and imagery of militaristic masculinity across nations. In particular, the chapter identifies parallels and distinctions between Cossack and Viking imagery. Based on these two cases, the fi nal section of the chapter offers a discussion of the symbolic mechanisms that are crucial for assuring discursive centrality and broad political engagement of historical models of masculinity. Before proceeding to the discussion of these issues, it is worth outlining and clarifying some of the key concepts for this study, that is, “the transnational” representations and cultural imageries of hegemonic masculinity.

THE (TRANS)NATIONAL IMAGINING OF MASCULINITIES An extensive body of scholarly works on the nature of the transnational and its multiple forms manifests a plurality of analytical approaches to its conceptualizing. Within this plurality, two major characteristics of the transnational remain relatively undisputed: the importance of a concept of nation and relations across nations (Hearn 2004). Transnational analysis thus is focused on the material and discursive transformations of nation(s) related to their involvement in transnational interactions. The transnational is often discussed in relation to economic transactions, migration, transnational corporations, diasporas, transnational communities, networks, and organized crime. It is common to analyze the transnational referring to communications, translocalities, new subjectivities, and flows of capital and people across nations. Discursive and visual aspects of the transnational, and in particular flows and interrelations of culturally specific gender discourses and imagery, remain much less explored. The arrival of new media, globalized technologies, and consumer culture considerably

Zooming In and Out

221

contributes to new forms of cultural production of transnational gender imagery and reshaping dominant gender ideologies, which make these important issues to address. Meanwhile, culturally dominant representations of masculinity are mainly discussed as symbolic mechanisms of framing, reinforcement, and legitimizing of hegemonic or dominant type of masculinity within a particular context (Cornwall and Lindisfarne 1994; Gilmore 1990; Connell 1990). A problematic and debatable issue here is the extent to which a particular image can comprise the complexity of hegemonic masculinity and serve as its exemplar (Whitehead 2002). The complex and multidimensional character of power relations legitimized through hegemonic masculinity make it difficult—if not impossible—to identify a single dominant and culturally central exemplar. Representations of hegemonic masculinity are normally dispersed across a plurality of different images, which in various ways reconstruct the normativity of hierarchy within masculinities and between genders. They can be more or less appealing to different groups of men. However, the symbolic and power potential of this imagery significantly increases if it invokes, constructs, or intensifies subjectivities relevant to a broad number of individuals, such as shared cultural, historical, and national identities. Despite growing recognition, cross-cultural analysis and transnational studies of representations of hegemonic masculinity (i.e., examination of the similarities/differences/parallels in patterns of gender power and relations that are supported via reproduction of hegemonic understandings of masculinity) are still not very common (Gilmore 1990; Cornwall and Lindisfarne 1994; Hearn and Pringle 2006). The accomplishment of this type of research is often challenging due to a range of methodological problems. Comparability of contexts, various cultural connotations, and plurality of meanings attached to seemingly common concepts, theoretical perspectives, research methods, and frames of interpretations of results are some of the most common (Hearn et al. 2007, 2013). This complicates transnational studies of cultural imagery of masculinity, but at the same time it contributes to a reevaluation of the concept of hegemonic masculinity and its multiple frames and levels of operation. Let us consider one of the ways to approach this issue.

ZOOMING IN: COSSACKHOOD IN CONTEMPORARY UKRAINE

Ukraine: National Renaissance, Democracy and Gender Neo-Traditionalism Ukraine is an Eastern European state, and it is the largest by area country in Europe and seventh largest in terms of population—45.7 million people. It is a new state, which emerged in its present form as a result of the collapse of the USSR in 1991. For the most part of its history, Ukraine was under

222

Tetyana Bureychak

the rule of foreign powers, mostly Poland and the Russian Empire. After a seventy-year Soviet era of communist ideology, totalitarian system, and planned economy, Ukraine has struggled to reorient itself toward democracy and a market economy since the beginning of the 1990s. Economically Ukraine is one of the poorest countries in Europe. The country struggles with high corruption and limitations in democratic freedoms. Despite an officially proclaimed aspiration to gender equality supported by a number of legislative acts and declarations, a substantial increase in popularity of gender (neo-)traditionalism in public and political discourses has been witnessed over the past two decades. Resistance to the communist past has become vital for framing understandings of democracy and nationalism in the post-Soviet Ukraine. Mutual reinforcement of democracy and nationalism resulted in a celebration of gender neo-traditionalism both as a part of Ukrainian national identity and as a marker of its freedom from the Soviet past. In the light of national building processes, restoration of traditional gender relations is often presented as a way to revitalize the Ukrainian nation, to preserve the family, and to renew moral traditions that the Soviet system had destroyed. This results in the growing legitimization of men’s dominant position in the public sphere and encouragement for women to move into the private sphere. This tendency, which is also typical to other postcommunist and postsocialist countries, is sometimes discussed as “patriarchal renaissance” (Attwood 1996; Watson 1993; Zdravomyslova and Temkina 2007). In this situation the pre-Soviet past provides important resources for (re)construction of “true” femininity and masculinity and a new gender regime. In the case of Ukraine, a male ideal is often embodied in the culturally and historically specific model of the Cossack. The revival/reinvention of political, cultural, and gender traditions claimed to have been destroyed during the Soviet period, and selective glorification of the past, has become a core of national renaissance. Pre-Soviet history has gained substantial weight, and Cossackhood has become a key part of the new Ukrainian national history. The Cossacks were a military community that played an important role in European geopolitics and Ukrainian history from the fi fteenth to the seventeenth centuries (Wilson 1997). The Cossacks of Zaporizhzhya formed the autonomous administrative structure Cossack Hetmanate (from the middle of the seventeenth century until the end of the eighteenth century), which is often considered nowadays as a historical precedent of Ukrainian statehood. Some elements of democracy that were peculiar to Cossack government fuel current populist claims for reestablishing long-standing democratic traditions of Ukraine and also for proving the proximity of Ukraine to “Western”/European democracy. Establishing continuity with the Cossackhood period is officially presented as a foundation of new Ukrainian “shared identity”. Association with the spiritual qualities of Cossacks is encouraged as a way

Zooming In and Out

223

for people to prove their patriotism and devotion to national values and Ukrainian sovereignty. Despite the obvious masculine character of Cossacks, as a military male community, this aspect often remains invisible, which contributes to reproducing and normalizing an andro- and ethnocentric construction of the Ukrainian nation-state. Glorification of Cossacks as Ukrainian heroes dates back to the beginning of Ukrainian national revival in the fi rst half of the nineteenth century (Saltovskiy 2002). The admiration of Cossacks was initially expressed among an insignificant number of educated Ukrainian nobility. It further developed with the appearance of Ukrainian literature in the nineteenth century. Some of the most significant literary works that refer to Cossacks and are considered classics of Ukrainian literature includes poems and novels by Ivan Kotlyarevskyi, Mykola Gogol, and Taras Shevchenko. Most of these texts depict Cossacks as brave, strong, independent, and patriotic warriors that fought against the Russian tsarist rule for the country’s autonomy. The Cossackhood epoch of Ukraine was played down in Soviet historiography due to apprehensions of inciting nationalistic and separatist feelings among Ukrainians. However, the post-Soviet period of Ukraine evidences a new wave of interest in Cossacks, their celebration as national heroes, and promotion of this idea in a variety of ways. A discourse of Cossackhood has been integrated into socialization and sport, popular and consumer culture, grassroots Cossack communities, and official state discourses and initiatives.

Contemporary Ukrainian Cossacks: Socializing, Consuming, and Reenacting An intensification of gender-differentiated socialization in the post-Soviet period has resulted in providing opposite gender models for boys and girls. Cossacks in this case represent one of the positive masculine ideals. An encyclopedia for boys, How to Become a Cossack in Seven Days (Figure 13.1), is an example. The book is oriented toward boys aged five to ten years old. It offers a brief overview of Cossackhood and provides step-by-step instructions for boys on how to identify themselves with this warrior community, for example, choosing a Cossack name, hairstyle, tattoo, emblem, learning a secret alphabet, the specifics of reconnaissance, and a ceremony of initiation into Cossackhood. Through the games and entertainment as part of boys’ socialization, Cossackhood is being represented as a signifier of national belonging and a part of masculinity, which rests on militarism, adventure, independence, and opposition to femininity. One can also trace other forms of institutionalized socialization that integrate Cossackhood discourse. In Western and Central Ukraine boys are often dressed like Cossacks during various celebrations in kindergartens and sometimes at home. They are taught about the virtues that are

224

Tetyana Bureychak

Figure 13.1

How to Become a Cossack in Seven Days (book cover).

embodied by Cossacks to which they should aspire. Some kindergartens initiate hobby groups for children called Kozachata (“Little Cossacks”). In order to teach little boys to restrain their tears, an expression “Cossacks do not cry” is commonly used. Boys’ socialization in Cossack ways can be continued through attending sport groups of combat hopak (boyovyi hopak). Combat hopak is a mixture of the dance and martial arts of the Cossacks that was invented and has been promoted in Ukraine since the late 1980s. It was recognized as a

Zooming In and Out

225

Ukrainian national sport in 1997. The founder of combat hopak, Volodymyr Pylat, admits that he was inspired by karate and capoeira while trying to discover the roots of the martial arts of Ukrainian Cossack warriors. According to him, due to the colonial status of Ukrainian people, the only legitimate way for men to transfer their martial arts traditions was to disguise them in the Cossack dance—hopak. In this regard, deciphering and distinguishing fighting movements from the dance is presented as a way to restore the authentic tradition of Ukrainian warriors.

Figure 13.2

Cossacks’ condoms.

226

Tetyana Bureychak

Figure 13.3

Bookstore Book world (Odesa, 2006).

Since the late 1990s, the Cossack theme has become an integral part of Ukrainian popular culture, resulting in a range of films, computer games, souvenirs, and so on, featuring Cossacks. The Cossack also often serves as a brand for Ukrainian products and services. Images of Cossacks are used as part of the design of public (for example, cafes, bars, restaurants, shops, markets, and so on) and private spaces (statues and pictures of Cossacks, fridge

Zooming In and Out

Figure 13.4

227

Vodka “Mazepa” and “Doroshenko”.

magnets, garden “gnomes”, and so on). Images of Cossacks are popular in relation to promotion of commodities (for example, in advertising, products’ shape and packaging). Interestingly, these products target both Ukrainian consumers and foreign tourists, thus linking the Cossack image both to internal (how “we” see “ourselves”) and external (how we want “them” to see “us”) Ukrainian identity. Application of Cossack visual imagery in consumer culture testifies to its high symbolic flexibility and ability for attachment to an almost unlimited number of products and services (for some examples, see Figures 13.2–13.4; see also Bureychak 2006, 2009). Development of Cossack organizations and institutionalization of the Cossack movement is another particular trend in post-Soviet Ukraine.

228

Tetyana Bureychak

Contemporary Cossack organizations are a system of NGOs, which aim to revive traditional Cossack values as a foundation for the development of contemporary Ukrainian statehood. The intensive revival of Cossackhood started from the end of 1980s. At the present moment there are around seven hundred Cossack NGOs, with forty of them having all-Ukrainian and international status. The total number of members of Cossack organizations is close to three hundred thousand. However, the functioning of Cossack organizations in Ukraine is far from harmonious. There is contention as to the procedures of membership, Cossack uniforms, ranks, awards, and so on. The disagreement also lies in the differences in conceptual understanding of Cossackhood in regard to its loyalty to national interests, independence of Ukraine, language, religion, and relations with other Cossack organizations in Russia and elsewhere. These discrepancies eventually led to a split in Ukrainian Cossack organizations into those that prioritize Ukrainian language, Ukrainian statehood and independence, and Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and those, which are mostly Russian speaking, who stress Slavic brotherhood, collaboration with Cossack organizations from Russia, and who recognize the Russian Orthodox Church. This split has resulted in the establishment of relations of mutual support between these organizations and political leaders who prioritize similar issues in their political agenda. This is especially conspicuous in the case of the former and current presidents of Ukraine—a pro-national-oriented V. Yushchenko and a less pro-national-oriented V. Yanukovych. Although most Cossack organizations are NGOs, it is not uncommon that their members enter political parties and state administration. Apart from grassroots initiatives, the Cossack idea is being greatly promoted by the Ukrainian state.

Cossackhood in Ukrainian State Agenda Although a number of agents contribute to the construction and promotion of national ideology, state elites and institutional representatives of state power play one of the key roles in voicing and legitimizing this. Cossackhood has become a central element of the state version of national ideology since 1991. It has become one of the official symbols and image of Ukraine, promoted and represented among others in the anthem of Ukraine, symbols of presidential power, and banknote iconography. “Ukraine Has Not Perished Yet” (based on lyrics by P. Chubynskiy and music by M. Verbytskiy) has been an official anthem of Ukraine since 1992. The text refers to the Cossack epoch and the long struggle of the Ukrainian people for independence and their hopes for defeating their enemies and ruling the country. The spiritual and physical devotion to this aim proves Cossack (patri)lineage. The anthem addresses the people of Ukraine not only as Cossacks, but also as brothers. It articulates and normalizes the importance of Ukrainian men in making history, nation building, fighting with enemies, ruling the country, and being heroes.

Zooming In and Out

229

References to Cossacks are also present in the official symbols of the president of Ukraine, which include four objects—president’s color (flag), collar, official stamp, and a mace (bulava). The official website of the president of Ukraine explains that the symbols of the highest power are usually unique historical relics. Two of them—a collar and a mace—refer to the period of Cossackhood. The collar of the president, apart from the elements decorated by modern artists, contains an amulet, which allegedly belonged to hetman Ivan Mazepa. Another symbol of the president—the mace—was used originally as a cold weapon (i.e. a weapon that does not use fi re or explosives) and has historically served as an attribute of power of Cossack hetmans. Although the symbols of the president are not integrated into the routine of daily life, they are nevertheless important signifiers of values, with which the state identifies and establishes strong relations. The promotion of Cossackhood as part of the Ukrainian national image and as a state ideology has been accomplished by weaving this idea into the fabric of ordinary life. Since the introduction of hryvnya in 1996, Cossacks have become a part of the visual layout of Ukrainian national currency in two out of eight banknotes. They feature Cossack hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the site of his burial—Illinska church in Subotiv village—on the five hryvnya note, and hetman Ivan Mazepa on the ten hryvnya note (see Figure 13.5 and Figure 13.6). Banknote iconography is one of the ways for the state to construct an image of the nation to be seen by its citizens and internationally (Hymans 2005, 317). Due to the diversity of national symbolism, while deciding on banknote iconography a state faces a tough choice to select only those symbols that deserve the highest priority. A Cossack image is one of them. The state in this case plays a role of “national pedagogue” (Gilbert and Helleiner 1999; Hymans 2004), while using money as a site for spreading national values and images of national heroes among the people.

Figure 13.5

Five hryvnya banknote, face—Cossack hetman Bogdan Khmelnytsky.

230 Tetyana Bureychak

Figure 13.6

Ten hryvnya banknote, face—Cossack hetman Ivan Mazepa.

Apart from the integration of Cossackhood into official state imagery, the Ukrainian government has undertaken a number of initiatives to support the development of the contemporary Cossack movement and to promote commemoration politics that address and glorify Cossackhood. Sixty legislative acts on Cossackhood were passed by the highest representatives of state power in Ukraine—the president, the cabinet of ministers, and the parliament (Verkhovna Rada) during the period 1991–2011. Distribution of decrees on the key issues raised during the terms of four presidents of Ukraine is presented in a bar chart in Figure 13.7. The main issues raised within the legislation on Cossackhood are: • Cossack commemoration politics, which suggests honoring of concrete historical Cossack figures (mostly hetmans), events (for example, battles and treaties), sites (for example, Cossacks’ capitals, settlements, battlefields, and so on). It also includes promotion of tourism to places of Cossack glory. • Promotion of revival of contemporary Cossackhood, Cossacks’ traditions, introduction of the Day of Cossackhood as a state holiday, as well as support of Cossack organizations. • Awards for people who promote development of Cossackhood in Ukraine. • Promotion of cooperation of Cossack organizations with state authorities. The former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, demonstrated his particularly heavy involvement in the promotion and regulation of Cossackhood and intensification of the state’s national rhetoric. Apart from passing the largest number of decrees on this issue, he demonstrated very personal involvement in Cossackhood by stressing his Cossack descent and

Zooming In and Out

231

Awards

Cooper.ltion of Cossacks with Itle

stato

- l.Kuchma 2 _l.Kuchma 1

Promotion of roviv!!l of contemporary CossacIlhood

I.:ll. Kravchuk

,

"

"

Figure 13.7 Distribution of decrees on Cossackhood passed during 1991–2011 by their content during the presidency of four Ukrainian presidents—Leonid Kuchma, Leonid Kravchuk (two terms), Viktor Yushchenko, and Viktor Yanukovych.

thereby assuring strong support from numerous Cossack organizations. Coming from the opposition party to the Yushchenko political camp and representing a less pro-national position, the current president Yanukovych dismissed a number of initiatives that were aimed to support Cossackhood before 2010. At the same time, Yanukovych does not completely dismiss the Cossack issue from his political agenda. He stresses other aspects of the concept of Cossackhood and mainly supports pro-Russian/pro-Slavic Ukrainian Cossack organizations. Cossackhood thus is politically mobilized and integrated into symbolic battles for its hegemonic definition.

ZOOMING OUT: IDEALS OF MILITARISTIC MASCULINITY IN TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES Although militaristic and historically specific imageries of masculinity are commonly discussed within local and contextual dimensions, a comparative perspective assists in revealing variations in significance, connotations, and forms of weaving these identities into national and gender ideologies and practices across nations. To illustrate this idea, the exemplar of Vikings in Sweden is addressed. Imageries of Cossacks and Vikings reveal a range of similarities in terms of encoded messages and forms of representation. Both of these images refer to the past and to real (nonfictional) historical characters—a military community. They are mostly imagined as impersonal collective entities. Cossacks and Vikings represent common history and an understanding of common origin. They provide an identity that can be extrapolated to a large ethnic group. Cossacks and Vikings are sometimes referred to in order to emphasize

232 Tetyana Bureychak a distinct national character of contemporary Swedish and Ukrainian people, who are considered the descendants of Vikings/Cossacks. Although Vikings and Cossacks are typically discussed as being genderless, they are explicitly gendered models and convey particular ideas of masculinity. Both of them associate men with physical strength, courage, endurance, militarism, devotion to community, persistence, strong will, independence, rebelliousness, belligerence, male bonding, and heterosexuality. In the case of Cossacks, religious affiliation and Christian identity are also important. Vikings and Cossacks seem to represent similar ideals of masculinity that reproduce gender and sexual binaries and underpin men’s privilege. Both these characters are often idealized and mythologized in their interpretations. The glorification of Vikings and Cossacks as national heroes and models for emulation is connected with periods of political instability, revival of nationalism, and increase in moral concerns about the feminization of men (Mosse 1996; Tjeder 2003). An appeal to historically rooted and thus allegedly authentic hypermasculine ideals is presented as a solution to restore national and masculine pride and power. One of the fi rst appearances of the romanticized pictures of Vikings goes back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—a time of the birth of nationalism and modern masculinity (Mosse 1996). Since then their historical roles and significances have experienced a series of reassessments. Promotion of the Vikings as Swedish forefathers who embody strong and uncontested masculinity is associated with a literary tradition of götisism from the end of eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century. Johan Fischerström, Erik Gustaf Geijer, and Esaias Tegnér are among the writers and publicists of this period associated with the revival of the spirit of the Viking era and revitalization of the Swedish nation (Langer 2002). In the time of political turbulence and military humiliation after the loss of Finland in 1809, the Viking era was looked back on as a time of national glory and true masculinity (Tjeder 2003, 143–48). Popularization and heroization of Vikings was also related to the Scandinavism of the nineteenth century—a literary and political movement that propagated closer collaboration between Scandinavian countries and promotion of the shared Nordic culture and past. This included a celebration of the Viking Age commonly shared by Scandinavians. Several waves of emigration from Sweden to the North America during the middle of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century assisted in exporting, preserving, and further romanticizing positive associations of Vikings with Sweden and Scandinavia. References to Vikings are still popular in the USA, particularly in the states with large populations of Swedish descent. They are encountered in relation to business, sport, consumer, and popular culture. Meanwhile general fascination with Vikings has largely declined throughout the twentieth century in Scandinavia. This image receives a more critical evaluation in Sweden nowadays. Despite parallels in political, cultural, and social significance of Viking and Cossack periods in the Swedish and Ukrainian history, the

Zooming In and Out

233

commemoration of these periods receives considerably different attention on the state level nowadays. In contrast to Ukraine, where Cossacks are admired and integrated into the official image of state, Vikinghood receives a much more reserved evaluation by the Swedish government and is not a part of the dominant national ideology in contemporary Sweden. Commemoration of Vikinghood that emanates from individual and collective agents also takes place on a much smaller scale, compared to that of Cossackhood. References to Vikings and Cossacks in relation to socialization, especially of boys, is another case of distinctive differences in contemporary engagement with this imagery. While the exemplar of the Cossack provides a positive role model for boys in Ukraine, the Viking is a relatively unpopular, neutral, and marginally heroic image for children in Sweden. The most conspicuous difference between contemporary references to Vikings and Cossacks is their distinct moral connotations. In contrast to the current glorification of Cossacks, which presents them as an embodiment of nobility and moral virtues, the image of Vikings is rather stigmatized. These negative connotations are related to the Vikings’ association with piracy, rape, plunder, and pillage and their alleged personal qualities such as brutality, barbarity, violence, and uncleanliness. Although this depiction of Vikings is highly stereotyped, it still influences contemporary imagining of these characters. During the twentieth century, the Viking image has also acquired a negative association with Nazi and far-right groups. Vikings were portrayed in Nazi Germany as a pure Germanic type. The name “Wiking” was given to an elite SS panzer division during World War II to symbolically reappropriate the glory of Viking expansion. More recently, the image of the Viking has been used in a political campaign by the nationalistic party Sweden’s Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) during 2003–2004. Although this might affect the attractiveness of Vikings for contemporary Swedes, the ability of this image to connote Swedishness outweighs its negative moral associations when it comes to consumer culture and promotion of Swedish products for foreigners or outside Sweden/Scandinavia. In this case, references to Vikings serve to construct a positive symbolic association of a product with Swedishness or Scandinavian-ness, often linking it with its current associations of quality, prosperity, success, whiteness, middle class, and so on. Examples of this include connecting and promoting Scandinavian success in business as a result of Viking ancestry or a marketing strategy by a branch of a Danish sperm bank in the USA that presents Nordic male donors as those with Viking genes (Kroløkke 2009).

MECHANICS OF HEGEMONY Exploring culturally and historically specific imageries of masculinity contextually and transnationally allows discovery of multiple subtleties, parallels, and diversities in the operation of these representations. The

234

Tetyana Bureychak

comparative study of Cossack and Viking images reveals that despite similar symbolic potential for representation of hegemonic masculinity and national belonging, these models are integrated into different discursive frames and with varying significance at individual and institutional levels in Ukraine and Sweden. Imagery of Cossacks and Vikings suggests complex, contested, and dynamic configurations of ideas about masculinity and national identity. Under cover of this imagery, different understandings of Cossackhood and Vikinghood may be concealed. This depends on a range of factors, such as an audience to which the imagery appeals, the specifics of its instrumentalization, contexts of operation, its appropriation by specific groups, and so on. This, on the one hand, represents one of the largest challenges for generalizations as to functioning, significance, and comparison of the imagery. On the other hand, it signifies a powerful symbolic potential of this imagery, its situationality, cultural hybridity, and opportunity to connote a plurality of meanings. Integration of Cossack and Viking images into contemporary contexts goes along with renegotiations of their meanings and their readjustment to current global and local contexts and political, national, and gender ideologies. The continuity in reiteration of the images, their potential to serve as cultural templates for socialization, and promotion on a state level, by the media and other social institutes, are vital for their integration into hegemonic discourses of nation and masculinity. Images of Vikings and Cossacks are powerful tools that are/can be politically mobilized for promotion of traditional, conservative gender ideology, and strengthening national identity. At the same time, the significance of these images is determined through the interaction of a range of competing and regionally relevant political agendas. The overlapping and mutually reinforcing mechanisms of mythologization, legitimation, reiteration, and empowerment/exclusions reveal considerable differences in assuring the significance and discursive centrality of these historical models of masculinity. Cossacks have become an integral part of new national mythology that has been considerably reinforced, normalized, and promoted by the state in the post-Soviet Ukraine. Although Cossacks were real historical figures, their image is considerably idealized nowadays. Mythologization of Cossacks results in reproduction of only their glorified image as legendary Ukrainian male heroes. This reveals itself in the tendency of selective commemoration and avoidance of the facts that contradict or threaten this understanding. Glorification of Cossackhood contributes to a romantic construction of current Ukrainian ethnic identity. This image is highly charged with hope, pride, and dignity. It aims to rehabilitate the formerly oppressed Ukrainian nation and contributes to its self-idealization, through embodying national fantasies of freedom and glory. Cossacks are addressed as figures that bring fame to their people. They are compared to the chivalrous knights of Ukraine, who are famous for their noble acts, righting wrongs, and devotion to their leader and the people. Although the idea of

Zooming In and Out

235

Vikinghood similarly shapes historical memories, a myth of common origin, glorious mythical past, uniqueness, and purity of Scandinavian people, its current perception is more reserved and critical. Discourses of gender equality and multiculturalism that have been promoted in Sweden for the past several decades suggest downgrading men’s (physical and other) superiority, whiteness, ethnic purity, and militaristic ideal as rather irrelevant and outdated virtues. This, along with some negative moral connotations in relation to Viking imagery, contributes to its marginalizing and limited attractiveness on a broad scale. The processes of legitimation of discourses of Vikinghood and Cossackhood acquire considerably different patterns in Sweden and Ukraine. In contrast to Ukraine, where Cossackhood is promoted on the official state level, the image of the Viking is rather marginalized in current national ideology of Sweden. Culturally specific and conservative models of masculinity often increase their popularity in situations of perceived threat or need to revive/reconstruct national identity. In the case of Ukraine, the current revival of interest in Cossackhood is closely connected with the postcolonial condition and national building processes. The need for a new national ideology and the backlash to the Soviet period intensifies the attractiveness of pre-Soviet history, and contributes to the political significance of Cossack imagery. Construction of national identity in Sweden, which is a longestablished nation-state, displays different patterns. Viking imagery has a rather marginal political significance and is not a part of the dominant and official images of the Swedish nation. An address to Vikinghood discourse, which connotes national purity and conservative masculinity, is common for far-right organizations in relation to their understandings of threatening effects of globalization and migration. Continual reiteration of the ideal of historically specific militaristic masculinity—in political discourses, state symbols, mass media, consumer and popular culture, or by specific groups and organizations—as well as its reproduction on institutional, practical, and individual levels contributes to its naturalization and integration into hegemonic cultural imagery. The pervasive ideological presence of Cossackhood, plus its promotion in mainstream politics and presence in everyday life, is another mechanism that considerably contributes to its higher cultural and national significance. By contrast, the imagery of Vikings is rather marginally integrated into only those institutionalized discourses and practices in Scandinavia that aim to signify national belonging. Symbolic empowerment is another important mechanism that contributes to assuring the cultural centrality and attractiveness of historical images of masculinity. It is particularly important in situations of threat and as a part of overcoming a traumatic experience. Discourses on the dangers of globalization might fuel the idea of empowering Swedish men via addresses to their glorious forefathers embodied by the Vikings. At the same time, such discourses seem irrelevant to the majority of Swedish men nowadays.

236

Tetyana Bureychak

In contrast to the ideal of Viking, the Cossack represents greater empowering potential for large groups of men. The ideal of the Cossack often serves to virilize Ukrainian masculinity in its postcolonial condition. It embodies a model that is reactionary toward processes of weakening/”feminization” of men (the so-called late Soviet crisis of masculinity; for more, see Zdravomyslova and Temkina 2002) and colonization of the Ukrainian nation during the USSR. In this case, the model of the Cossack suggests empowerment, which Ukrainian men and the nation were lacking before. Whether seen as an instrument of state ideology or written into Ukrainian men’s subjectivity, the discourse of Cossackhood revolves around a new powerful notion of masculinity. This ideal becomes particularly appealing to a large number of lower- and middle-class men. Reenactment or symbolic attachment to Cossackhood allows the integration of ‘masculine fantasy’ into the reality of men’s everyday life. Interestingly, this model of masculinity is not directly relevant to the lives of the majority of contemporary Ukrainian men. There is no need to fight, to demonstrate aggressiveness and courage, to protect the family and motherland from enemies, and so on. However, the ability and readiness to express this kind of militaristic behavior remains an integral element of neo-traditional understandings of Ukrainian masculinity. This ideal suggests a heroic warrior-type masculinity, which stresses duty, obligation, and strength to combat any obstacle. Although hard to achieve, it can still be very attractive in a situation of economic hardship and political instability such as Ukraine has been experiencing. Identification with this image and its aura of heroism provides a basis for national pride, reduces potential dissatisfaction with the current situation, and suggests guidelines for combating life challenges. The empowerment of one gender, one nation, or one sexuality virtually always occurs at the expense and disempowerment of another. Cossackhood intensifies the concept of universal male citizenship, but also constructs and normalizes relations of ethnic, gender, and sexual exclusion. Marginalization of women and men that do not relate themselves to the Cossack ideal (for example, men of other ethnic origins, homosexual men, disabled men) and construction of sexual diff erence is vital in this process. By relating citizenship to the cultural ideal of Cossackhood, the state symbolically reproduces a discourse that legitimizes superiority of particular group of men in the nation/state building processes and power relations. The contemporary address to historical male heroes that is witnessed across nations is evidence of the great symbolic potential of this imagery and its ability to articulate a number of messages about masculinity and national belonging that evoke global tendencies and local peculiarities. Meanwhile, an integration of this imagery into mainstream political, national, and gender ideologies is a complex process that is significantly determined by contextual circumstances and a number of symbolic mechanisms that reinforce these ideals on institutional and individual levels.

Zooming In and Out

237

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I gratefully acknowledge the permission granted by Vadym Alexandrov on behalf of the “Kraina mriy” publishing house to reproduce an image of the title page of the book by Lesya Borsuk-Yankivs’ka (2008). REFERENCES Attwood, Lynn. 1996. “The Post-Soviet Women in the Move to the Market: A Return to Domesticity and Dependence?” In Women in Russian and Ukraine, edited by Rosalind Marsh, 255–68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Borsuk-Yankivs’ka, Lesya. 2008. Yak staty kozakom za sim dniv (How to Become a Cossack in Seven Days). Kyiv: Kraina mriy. Bureychak, Tetyana. 2006. “Kozak yak genderno-natsional’nyi marker ukrainskoi consumerysts’koi kultury” (“Cossack as Gender and National Marker of Ukrainian Consumer Culture”). In Methodologiya, theoria i praktyka sociologichnogo doslidzhennya suchasnogo suspilstva: zbirnyk naukovyh prats (Methodology, Theory and Practice of Sociological Research of Contemporary Society: Collection of Research Papers), edited by Vil Bakirov, 241–47. Kharkiv: Publishing House of Kharkiv National University of V. Karazin, Vol. 2. . 2009. “Cossacks in Ukrainian Consumer Culture: New Old Masculinity Model.” In GEXcel Work in Progress Report VI: Proceedings from GEXcel Theme 2: Deconstructing the Hegemony of Men and Masculinities Conference 27–29 April 2009, edited by Jeff Hearn, 215–26. Linköping and Örebro: Institute of Thematic Gender Studies, Linköping and Örebro Universities. http:// www.genderexcel.org/?q=webfm_send/55. Connell, R. W. 1990. “An Iron Man: The Body and Some Contradictions of Hegemonic Masculinity.” In Sport, Men and the Gender Order: Critical Feminist Perspectives, edited by Michael A. Messner and Donald F. Sabo, 83–96. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. . 1998. “Masculinities and Globalization.” Men and Masculinities 1 (1): 3–23. Cornwall, Andrea, and Nancy Lindisfarne. 1994. Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies. New York: Routledge. Gilbert, Emily, and Eric Helleiner, eds. 1999. Nation-States and Money: The Past, Present, and Future of National Currencies. London: Routledge. Gilmore, David D. 1990. Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity. New York: Yale University Press. Hearn, Jeff. 2004. “Tracking ‘the Transnational’: Studying Transnational Organizations and Managements, and the Management of Cohesion.” Culture and Organization 10 (4): 273–90. . 2011. “Men/Nation: The Nation and Citizenship from Methodological Nationalism to Transpatriarchies.” Paper presented at the conference “Why Is There No Happiness in the East? The Making of European Gender Studies” at the Gender Department and the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University, Huddinge/Stockholm, 8–10 September. Hearn, Jeff, and Keith Pringle, with members of CROME. 2006. European Perspectives on Men and Masculinities: National and Transnational Approaches. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hearn, Jeff, Irina Novikova, Keith Pringle, Iva Šmídová, Gunilla Bjerén, Marjut Jyrkinen, LeeAnn Iovanni, Fátima Arranz, Harry Ferguson, Voldemar Kolga, Ursula Müller, Elżbieta H. Oleksy, Dag Balkmar, Cornelia Helfferich, Ilse Lenz,

238

Tetyana Bureychak

Marek M. Wojtaszek, Elizabete Pičukāne, and Victoria Rosa. 2007. Methodological Framework Report SN 2, Co-Ordination Action on Human Rights Violation (CAHRV) Sub Network 2, Final Network Report to the European Commission. Helsinki: Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration. http://www.cahrv.uni-osnabrueck.de/reddot/Methodological_Framework_web.pdf Hearn, Jeff, Irina Novikova, Keith Pringle, Iva Šmídová, Marjut Jyrkinen, LeeAnn Iovanni, Fátima Arranz, Harry Ferguson, Voldemar Kolga, Dag Balkmar, and Marek M. Wojtaszek. 2013. “Studying men’s violences: Some key methodological principles in developing a European research framework.” Masculinidades y Cambio Social- MCS 2(1): 85–118. Hymans, Jackues E. C. 2004. “The Changing Color of Money: European Currency Iconography and Collective Identity.” European Journal of International Relations 10 (1): 5–31. . 2005. “International Patterns in National Identity Content: The Case of Japanese Banknote Iconography.” Journal of East Asian Studies 5:315–46. Kimmel, Michael. 2003. “Globalization and Its Mal(e)contents: The Gendered Moral and Political Economy of Terrorism.” International Sociology 18 (3): 603–20. Kroløkke, Charlotte. 2009. “Click a Donor: Viking Masculinity on the Line.” Journal of Consumer Culture 9 (1): 7–30. Langer, Johnni. 2002. “The Origins of the Imaginary Viking.” Viking Heritage Magazine 4:6–9. Mosse, George L. 1996. The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity. New York: Oxford University Press. Saltovskiy, Olexandr. 2002. Kontseptsii ukrainskoi derzhavnosti v istorii vitchyznyanoi polititychnoi dumky (Concepts of Ukrainian Statehood in the History of National Political Thought). Kiyv: Parapan. Tjeder, David. 2003. The Power of Character: Middle-Class Masculinities 1800– 1900. Stockholm: Författares Bokmaskin. Watson, Peggy. 1993. “Eastern Europe Silent Revolution: Gender.” Sociology 27 (3): 471–87. Whitehead, Stephen M. 2002. Men and Masculinities: Key Themes and New Directions. Cambridge: Polity. Wilson, Andrew. 1997. Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s: A Minority Faith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wimmer, Andreas, and Nina Glick Schiller. 2002. “Methodological Nationalism and Beyond: Nation-State Building, Migration and the Social Sciences.” Global Networks 2 (4): 301–34. Zdravomyslova, Elena, and Anna Temkina. 2002. “Krizis maskulinnosti v poznesovetskom diskurse” (“Crisis of Masculinity in Late-Soviet Discourse”). In O muzhe(N)stvennosti (About Wo(man)hood), edited by Sergei Oushakine, 432– 51. Moscow: Novoe literatunoe obozrenie. . 2007. “Sovetskiy etakraticheskiy gendernyi poryadok” (“Soviet Etacratic Gender Order”). In Rossiyskiy gendernyi poryadok: sociologicheskiy podhod (Russian Gender Order: Sociological Approach), edited by Elena Zdravomyslova and Anna Temkina, 96–137. Saint Petersburg: Publishing House of European University.

Contributors

Chris Beasley is professor in politics and codirector of the Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. Dr. Beasley primarily teaches in three areas of political studies—social and political theory, gender and sexuality studies, and cultural politics. Her most recent books include Heterosexuality in Theory and Practice (with Heather Brook and Mary Holmes, Routledge, 2012), Engaging with Carol Bacchi: Strategic Interventions and Exchanges (University of Adelaide Press, 2012), Gender and Sexuality: Critical Theories, Critical Thinkers (Sage, 2005), and What Is Feminism? (Sage, 1999). She is currently in the process of preparing two further books. The fi rst is sole authored and titled The Cultural Politics of Popular Film: Power, Culture and Society (Manchester University Press) and the second is a coauthored book concerned with Internet dating. She is also engaged in a range of research projects such as innovations in heterosexuality and hetero-masculinity, gender and mining, masculinity and ethics in sport, intimate citizenship, embodied global ethics, migration and masculinities, and the reproductive choices of older women. David Bell is Head of the School of Geography and a member of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Leeds, UK. His current research projects and interests range from cosmetic surgery tourism to the geographies of hospitality. His books include Cybercultures; Cyberculture Theorists (both Routledge, 2006); Historicizing Lifestyle (Ashgate, 2006); Science, Technology and Culture; and Ordinary Lifestyles (both Open University Press, 2005). His most recent book was a cultural study of the space age, Space Travel and Culture: From Apollo to Space Tourism (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), and his next will be on cultural policy. Alp Biricik is a PhD candidate at the Unit of Gender Studies, Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University, Sweden. His recent publications include “The ‘Rotten Report’ and the Reproduction of Masculinity, Nation and Security in Turkey,” in Making Gender, Making War:

240

Contributors

Violence, Military and Peacekeeping Practices, ed. Annica Kronsell and Erika Svedberg (Routledge, 2012), and “This Is Not an (Academic) Paper (on Ethnography),” in Gender Delight: Science, Knowledge, Culture and Writing, ed. C. Åsberg et al. (Linköping University Press, 2009). His current research focuses on genealogies and geographies of LGBT subjectivities in Istanbul since the 1970s. Marina Blagojević, PhD, is a sociologist, gender scholar, and gender expert. Currently she holds a position of Scientific Counselor/Senior Researcher at the Institute for Criminological and Sociological Research, Belgrade, Serbia. Blagojević has been university professor at the University of Belgrade, and visiting professor in the USA, Germany, Hungary, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Blagojević taught gender studies at CEU Gender Department, Budapest, Hungary (1998–2001), has lectured in many different countries and published extensively, with over one hundred publications in various languages. Her major interests over the past twenty years have been connected to research on gender (professional women, parenthood, women’s movement, misogyny, women in science, everyday life), and her current interests include knowledge production, semi-periphery, and masculinities. In 2003 Blagojević delivered the study on the Social Status of Women in the Balkans to the European Parliament. She has also been active at the civic level in Serbia (women’s and peace movements) and was a founder of the Women Study Centre in Belgrade (1992). Blagojević has been engaged, as an expert, by UNDP, IFAD, USAID, UNIFEM, UNWOMEN, and governments in the Balkan region and in Eastern Europe. Her most recent books are Knowledge Production at the Semiperiphery: A Gender Perspective (Institut za kriminološka i sociološka istraživanja, 2009), and Gender Barometer in Serbia: Development and Everyday Life (UN Women, 2013). Currently, Blagojević is also preparing a book, Balkan Masculinities: Deconstructing Global/Regional/Local Hegemonic Masculinities, as part of her involvement with the research theme of GEXcel (Linköping and Örebro Universities Centre of Gender Excellence, Sweden), “Deconstructing the Hegemony of Men and Masculinities: Contradictions of Absence” (team leader Professor Jeff Hearn, http://www.genderexcel.org/?q=node/101). Tetyana Bureychak holds a PhD degree in sociology, has been associate professor at the Department of History and Theory of Sociology, National University of Lviv, Ukraine, and was a GEXcel open position scholar based in the Unit of Gender Studies, Linköping University. Her research interests include studies of men and masculinities in the Soviet and postSoviet periods, hegemonic masculinity, gender and nationalism, consumer culture, post-socialist transformations, and public sociology. She is the author of some thirty academic papers on gender and masculinities and a member of editorial board of Culture, Society & Masculinities.

Contributors

241

Raewyn Connell is university professor at the University of Sydney, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and one of Australia’s leading social scientists. Her most recent books are Confronting Equality (Polity, 2011), about social science and politics; Gender: In World Perspective (Polity, 2009); and Southern Theory (Polity, 2007), about social thought beyond the global metropole. Her other books include Masculinities (University of California Press, 1995); Schools & Social Justice (Temple University Press, 1993); Ruling Class Ruling Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1977); Gender & Power (Stanford University Press, 1987); and Making the Difference (Unwin Hyman, 1982). Her work has been translated into fi fteen languages. She has taught at universities in Australia, Canada, and the USA, in departments of sociology, political science, and education. A long-term participant in the labor movement and peace movement, Raewyn has tried to make social science relevant to social justice. Details at the website: www.raewynconnell.net. Fataneh Farahani is an ethnologist and currently has a research position at the Department of Ethnology, History of Religions and Gender Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden. Her research interest includes sexuality and masculinities studies, diaspora, feminist postcolonial theories, and Islam. Some of most recent publications are: “Diasporic Masculinities: Reflections on Gendered, Raced and Classed Displacements” (Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 2012), “On Being an Insider and/ or Outsider: A Diasporic Researcher’s Catch-22” (in Education Without Borders: Diversity in a Cosmopolitan Society, ed. Loshini Naidoo, NOVA, 2010), and “Sexing Diaspora: Negotiating Sexuality in Shifting Cultural Landscape” (in Muslim Diaspora in the West: Negotiating Gender, Home and Belonging, ed. Haideh Moghissi and Halleh Ghorashi, Ashgate, 2010). A forthcoming book is Sexuality and Diaspora (Routledge, 2013). Katherine Harrison is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark, and was formerly a postdoctoral researcher at the Unit of Gender Studies, Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University, Sweden. Her recent publications include Discursive Skin: Entanglements of Gender, Discourse and Technology (Linköping University Press, 2010), and “Detecting bodily and discursive noise in the naming of biotech products” (European Journal of Women’s Studies, 2010). Katherine’s research interests include gender and sexuality; feminist theory; material-discursive bodies (human/ animal/machine); writing practices and tools; transgender/discipline/format; ICTs and biotechnologies; and entanglements of medical technologies, discourses, and sexualities. Her current research project is entitled “Information Management, Gender and Organisation” and explores

242

Contributors

gender perspectives on the information and communication technologies used by the Swedish rescue services. This is part of a wider research project for the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap [MSB]), called “Gender, Rescue Services and Organisation” (GRO). Jeff Hearn is an Academician in the UK Academy of Social Sciences; research professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (gender studies), Örebro University, Sweden; professor in management and organization, Hanken School of Economics, Finland; and professor of sociology, University of Huddersfield, UK. He was formerly research professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences, Manchester University, UK, and professor of gender studies (critical studies on men), Linköping University, Sweden. He has worked for many years in gender studies, organization studies, social policy, and sociology, with particular reference to questions of social and political change. His books include “Sex” at “Work”; The Gender of Oppression (both Wheatsheaf, St Martin’s Press, 1987); Men in the Public Eye (Routledge, 1992); Men as Managers, Managers as Men (Sage, 1996); The Violences of Men (Sage, 1998); Information Society and the Workplace (Routledge, 2004); Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities (Sage, 2005); European Perspectives on Men and Masculinities (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Sex, Violence and the Body (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Managers Talk about Gender (Edita, 2009); The Limits of Gendered Citizenship (Routledge, 2011); Men and Masculinities around the World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). He is co-managing editor of the Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality book series and co-director of GEXcel (Linköping and Örebro Universities Centre of Gender Excellence), and has taken lead positions in national, Nordic, and European projects, including EU FP5 The European Thematic Network on Research on Men in Europe, EU FP6 Coordination Action on Human Rights Violations (CAHRV); EU FP7 genSET Dialogue and Action for Gender Equality and Research Excellence in European Science project. His current work focuses on transnationalization, men and masculinities, sexuality, violence, work, and organizations. Richard Howson teaches sociology at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He is currently co-director of the Centre for Research on Men and Masculinities and Head of the School of Social Sciences, Media and Communications. His research interests are in the broad fields of contemporary social and political theories, masculinities theory, migration, and new social movements. His recent publications include the edited volumes Migrant Men (Routledge, 2009) and Hegemony (Routledge, 2008) and the monographs Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity (Routledge, 2006). He is also the author of a number of book chapters and journal articles, including “Deconstructing Hegemonic Masculinity:

Contributors

243

Contradiction, Hegemony and Dislocation” (Nordic Journal for Masculinity Studies, 2009) and “Policy, Men and Transnationalism” (in Migrant Men: Critical Studies of Masculinities and the Migration Experience, ed. M. Donaldson, R. Hibbins, R. Howson and B. Pease, Routledge. 2009). He is currently working on various projects, including a quantitative study that will map men’s engagement with gender equity in the Australian hegemony, as well as the contracted monograph Sociology of Post-Marxism (forthcoming Routledge, 2013) that presents research into the social aspects of Ernesto Laclau’s post-Marxist theory. Sheila Jeff reys is a professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of eight books, including Beauty and Misogyny : Harmful Cultural Practices in the West (Routledge, 2005); Unpacking Queer Politics (Polity, 2002); The Idea of Prostitution (Spinifex, 1997); and more recently, The Industrial Vagina (2009), a study of the global sex industry, and Man’s Dominion: The Rise of Religion and the Eclipse of Women’s Human Rights (2012), both from Routledge. She is a founding member of the Australian branch of the Coalition against Trafficking in Women, and a board member of Coalition against Trafficking in Women Asia Pacific. James W. Messerschmidt is professor of sociology and women’s and gender studies, and chair of the Criminology Department, at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine, USA. He is the author of many academic articles and book chapters as well as ten books, most recently Gender, Heterosexuality, and Youth Violence: The Struggle for Recognition (Rowman and Littlefield, 2012). Professor Messerschmidt is the recipient of the 2011 Outstanding Feminist Faculty Award from the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of Southern Maine as well as 2012 Outstanding Alumni Award from San Diego State University for his distinguished scholarly contributions to sociology, criminology, and gender studies. Currently Professor Messerschmidt is completing the twentieth anniversary revised edition of his 1993 book, Masculinities and Crime (which will be published in 2013), as well as a project—Becoming Genderqueer: Agency, Context, and the Sex-Gender-Sexuality Nexus—which is a life-history study of people who selfidentify as “genderqueer.” Winifred Poster is a sociologist with training from the University of California at Berkeley (BA), and Stanford University (PhD), USA. She teaches at Washington University, Saint Louis, USA, and has recently held visiting international positions at the University of Hyderabad in India, Linköping University in Sweden, and the University of Paderborn in Germany. Her interests revolve around the rise of the global information and communication technology workforce and its social implications.

244 Contributors Focusing on the US and India in particular, she has been studying transnational outsourcing by high-tech fi rms for the last two decades. One project explores the global circuits of gender, race, and nationality among computer software engineers and factory workers. A follow-up project examines transnational call centers and their unique practices of national identity management, reversals of work time, and multi-surveillances. Her latest research is on the gendering of cybersecurity and its online warriors and spies. Papers have been published in many books and journals, including Industrial Relations; Research in the Sociology of Work; and American Behavioral Scientist. Helga Sadowski is a doctoral candidate at the Unit of Gender Studies, Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University, Sweden. Her doctoral research deals with cyberfeminisms in the Web 2.0. Her research interests include online and off-line digital hegemonies, virtual embodiment, cybercultures of social media, and critical studies of men and masculinities. Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu graduated with an MA in gender studies from Central European University, Hungary, in 2008. In her MA thesis, entitled “Crises of Male Citizen in Aganta, Burina, Burinata (1945),” she analyzed the construction and reproduction of male identities in Turkey in the period of 1940–1950 through a literary analysis. Since October 2009, she has been studying in the DPhil Programme in Gender Studies at the University of Sussex (UK) and carrying out her research project provisionally entitled The Role of Hegemonic Masculinity and Corporeality in the Relationships between Militarism and the War Invalids in Turkey. Her research aims to explore the dynamics between body, self, and society in the context of Turkish militarism with an emphasis on disability due to war and hegemonic masculinity. She has presented conference papers on literary and media representations of disabled veterans in Turkey. She is also editing a forthcoming book provisionally entitled Militarism, Nationalism, and Masculinities in Turkey.

Index

A Abolitionists, 60 Absence/presence, 92 Affi rmation of the murder (of Hrant Dink), 210–1 Africa, 15, 67, 116, 120, 129, 141, 195 African, 114, 136, 141–4 Agency, 19, 27, 54, 55, 59–60, 68, 70–1, 73, 95, 104, 113, 121, 122, 199, 201, 217, 242, 243, also see Women, agency of, Agents, 6, 12, 15, 92, 114, 116, 137, 168, 206, 228, 233 Antagonism, 135, 136–40, 144 Antifeminism, 13, 171, 179 Appadurai, Arjun, 10, 87, 94, 212 Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, 207 Assassination, 20, 187, 204, 208, 209, 214–6 Australia, 2, 19, 33, 37, 39–40, 42, 46–51, 53–4, 56, 61, 64, 67–70, 72, 112, 141–4, 154–6, 158–9, 161, 239, 241, 243 AV Webcam Morpher, 105

B Balkans, 112, 163, 165, 166, 175, 177, 179–81, 240 Beasley, Chris, 19, 27, 29–44, 239 Beasley, Chris and Bacchi, Carol, 31 Bell, David, 19, 28, 76–90, 239 Benwell, Bethan, 33 Big Bang Theory, The, 78, 82, 85–6 Biricik, Alp, 19, 28, 91–108, 239 Blagojević, Marina, 1–24, 111–2, 163–84, 240 Boundaries, 7–10, 17, 18, 30, 79, 87, 94, 96, 118, 151, 204, 206, 208, 212, 213–5, 219 Bourdieu, Pierre, 148, 158, 167

Bureychak, Tetyana, 20, 187–8, 219–38, 240 Bush, George W., 20, 187, 189–203, 216 as hegemonic masculine heroic protector, 193, 198–201 as hegemonic masculine heroic rescuer, 194, 200 speeches of, 20, 187, 190, 196 Business, 13, 14, 19, 34, 46, 47, 49, 50, 53, 55, 63, 65, 67, 71, 72, 73, 83, 86, 94, 114, 115, 122, 123, 150, 190, 233 Business masculinities, see Transnational business masculinities Business prostitution, 71–3

C Capitalism, 8, 11, 35, 51, 56, 57, 94, 99, 100, 105, 115, 181, 206 Carrigan, Tim, Connell, R.W. and Lee, John, 5, 205 Choice, 37, 55, 60, 61, 62, 66, 72, 73, 94, 164, 192, 208, 229, 239 Class/es, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 17, 33, 35, 37, 39, 42, 55–57, 60, 63, 67, 68, 70, 73, 78, 83, 85, 86, 88, 92, 96, 104, 113, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124, 125, 128, 130, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 155, 157, 160, 170, 187, 205, 206, 210, 212, 213, 215, 233, 236 Colonialism, 13, 15, 18, 45, 67, 73, 118 Coming out, 98, 100, 101 Communities, 9, 10, 17, 68, 92, 95, 96, 97, 99, 101, 102, 111, 113, 117, 125, 127, 128, 149, 153, 154, 169, 177, 179, 189, 205, 212, 220, 223 Connell, Raewyn, 3, 5, 6, 12, 14, 19, 27, 29–41, 45–58, 115, 116, 117, 118,

246 Index 134, 135, 139, 140, 141, 143, 151, 153, 164, 189, 205, 206, 209, 210, 214, 220, 221, 241 Connolly, William, 30 Control, 6, 13, 17, 53, 57, 62, 66, 70, 72, 86, 91, 93, 104, 142, 143, 193, 194, 200, 201, 214, also see Power Corporations, 10, 14, 34, 45, 73, 94, 120, 122, 124, 170, 220 Cossacks/Cossackhood, 20, 220, 222–36 Creative city, 76, 83, 84, 88 Creative class, 83, 85, 86 Criminals/criminality, 16, 126, 161, 200 Critical studies on men, 2–4, 11, 12, 19, 104, 112, 164 Critical studies on men and masculinities, 2–4, 11, 12, 104, 164 Cruising, 100, 101 Cultural ideal, 32, 33, 37, 215, 236 Culture/s, 1, 7, 13, 19, 28, 37, 40, 42, 50, 53, 54, 56, 57, 76–8, 80–3, 86–8, 93, 99, 101, 112, 118, 142, 143, 148, 161, 169, 187, 189, 195, 197, 219, 220, 223, 226, 227, 232, 233, 235, 239, 240, 241, 244 Cybersex, 98, 99, 101, 106 Cybersurveillance, 91

D Debt bondage, 69–70 Decriminalization, 60 Determinist, 31 Deterritorialization, 9–10, 212 Diaspora/diasporic, 119, 125, 130, 141, 151–3, 159–60, 220, 241 Diasporic masculinity/ies, 19, 112, 147, 148, 151, 159, 241 Dink, Hrant, 20, 187, 204–9, 211, 214, 215, 216 Displacement, 19, 112, 151, 152, 158, 159, 241 Djukanovic, Milo, 16, Dominant masculinity/masculinities, 32, 33, 34, 36, 38, 118, 124, 125 Donaldson, Mike, 4, 6, 36, 45, 136, 141, 206, 243

E Economy, 19, 27, 34, 45, 48, 71, 76, 78, 80, 81, 83, 84, 87, 94, 111,

113, 115, 116, 117, 119–23, 125, 127, 128, 155, 168–70, 172–5, 181, 194, 212–4, 222 Embodiment, 17, 19, 28, 51, 53–55, 167, 233, 244 Emotions, 11, 13, 34, 102 Emphasized femininity, 189, 198, 201 Equal employment opportunity, 52, 54, 57 Ethnic identity, 209, 213, 215, 234 Ethnocentrism, 117, 141, 223 “Ethnographic moment”, see Ethnography Ethnography, 3, 4, 79, 86, 148, 150, 151, 159, 240 EU/European Union, 15, 16, 105, 168, 180, 181, 207, 213, 214, 215, 216, 242 Exploitation/s, 17, 60, 66, 68, 69, 99, 103, 123, 166, 169, 171, 175

F Farahani, Fataneh, 19, 112, 147–62, 241 Feminism, 1, 7, 8, 57, 66, 163, 178, 239, 244 Feminist studies, 2, 242 Flood, Michael, 3, 31, 32 Florida, Richard, 83–6 Flows of capital, 9, 120, 166, 172, 180, 212, 213, 220 Football, 53, 208, 209 Force, 4, 10, 13, 16, 35, 47, 48, 49, 57, 67, 68, 86, 91, 92, 93, 105, 153, 160, 163, 196 Funeral procession (of Hrank Dink), 208, 215, 216

G Gaydar, 101 Geek/s, 19, 28, 76–88, 113, 130 Geek ascension, 76 Geek chic, 76, 84 Geek, computer, 76, 78, 85 Geeks, leading, 81–3 Gender, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11–20, 27–41, 45–6, 48, 52–7, 77, 79, 80, 86–8, 91–2, 94–7, 99–101, 104, 105, 111, 113, 114, 116, 117, 121, 123, 127, 129, 130, 135, 137, 138–44, 151–57, 159,164–82, 187–9, 198–202, 204–6, 209, 210, 214, 219–223, 231–37

Index

247

Gender division of labour, 79 Gender equality/gender equality policy, 36, 38, 154, 155, 165, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179, 222, 235 Gender hegemony, 2, 4, 5, 7, 11 Gender order/s, 10, 14, 19, 27, 28, 29, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 54, 57, 129, 135, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 144, 214, 219 Gender policy/ies, 15 Gender regimes, 8, 139, 141, 142, 144, 168, 169, 170, 171, 178, 206 Gender relations, 1, 5, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 37, 39, 40, 46, 54, 91, 94, 111, 113, 129, 156, 175, 189, 200, 201, 205, 206, 214, 222 Geopolitics, 128, 222 Glen, Paul, 81–83, 86 Global, 1, 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13–20, 27–30, 34–6, 38–40, 45, 49–51, 56, 57, 59–60, 66, 67, 69, 71, 73, 76, 78, 80 ,84–7, 94, 95, 98, 99, 101, 111–24, 126, 128–30, 135, 153, 163, 165, 166, 168, 169, 170, 171, 174, 179, 180, 187, 190, 191, 193, 194, 196, 197, 199, 200–2, 204, 206, 212–5, 234, 236, 239–41, 243–4 Global sex industry, 19, 27, 59, 60, 66, 67, 69, 71, 73, 243 Globalization, 2, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 19, 27, 29, 30, 33–41, 45, 49, 50, 51, 67, 76, 85–8, 98, 112, 114, 117, 118, 129, 140, 163, 166, 168, 169, 170–2, 180, 219, 235, 236 Globalizing masculinities, 12 Glocalization, 8, 12 Gould, Carol, 38

34, 35–41, 77, 79, 87, 92, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 123, 128, 129, 134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 171, 172, 173, 187, 189, 190, 196, 197, 198, 199, 201, 202, 214, 215, 219, 220, 221, 234, 240, 242, 244 Hegemony, 2, 4, 5–7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 28, 31, 34, 35, 38, 55, 91, 92, 94, 98, 99, 101, 104, 105, 112, 113, 122, 123, 134, 135, 136–45, 181, 189, 204, 205, 206, 214, 234, 240, 243–4 Hegemony of men, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 12–15, 17, 19, 28, 91, 92, 93, 94, 101, 104, 105, 112, 134, 135, 136–45, 181, 214, 240 Heroes, 151, 177, 197, 219, 223, 228, 230, 232, 234, 236 Heroization, 232 Heteronormativity, 101 Heterosexual, 64, 72, 78, 92, 96, 100, 101, 149, 152, 155, 232, 239, 243 History, 7, 13, 16, 35, 40, 46, 66, 67, 69, 117, 127, 136, 153, 156, 188, 193, 194, 204, 214, 216, 219, 221, 222, 228, 232, 233, 235, 240, 241 Hobbyists, 65 Homophobia, 3, 152, 157 Hopak, 224, 225 Howson, Richard, 19, 112, 134–46, 242–3 Hussein, Saddam, 187, 190, 191–4, 196, 198–201

H

Icons, 197, 219 ICTs, 10, 14, 16, 17, 19, 77, 78, 81, 87, 91–9, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 111, 113, 114, 116, 117, 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 166, 241, 242 Ideal male citizen, 210 Imagery, 20, 114, 115, 128, 130, 197, 220, 221, 227, 230, 233, 234, 235, 236 Imagination, 53, 77, 94, 95, 220 India, 2, 19, 85, 87, 111, 113, 116–30, 195, 243, 244 Individualism, 8, 57

Harding, Sandra, 116, 168 Harmful cultural practice, 60, 243 Harrison, Katherine, 19, 28, 91–108, 187–8, 241–2 Hearn, Jeff, 1–24, 27–8, 30, 31, 33, 41, 88, 91–108, 116, 117, 118, 126, 129, 134, 138, 145, 151, 163, 164, 171, 181, 206, 214, 219, 220, 221, 240, 242 Hegemonic masculine discourse, 190, 197, 202 Hegemonic masculinity/ies, 2, 4, 5, 6, 19, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33,

I

248

Index

Information and communication technologies, see ICTs Insecurity, 147, 169, 174 Institutions, 5, 9, 13, 29, 34, 35, 36, 57, 99, 115, 118, 121, 127, 166, 169, 174, 176, 181, 194, 206, 215 International politics, 4 Internet, 77, 86, 91, 94, 95–101, 103, 105, 115, 116, 120, 123, 124, 126, 128, 207, 210, 214, 239 Intersectionality/ies, 2, 6, 7, 11, 18, 56 Iran, 2, 148–57, 160 Iranian men, 19, 112, 148, 149, 152, 155, 157, 159 Iranian revolution, 150, 154 Iraq, 20, 51, 187, 190–96, 198, 200, 201, 202, 203 IT Crowd, The, 78 IT, see ICTs

J Jeff reys, Sheila, 19, 27–8, 59–75, 243 Jobs, Steve, 76, 78 Jónasdóttir, Anna, 2, 20 Justice and Development Party, 207

K Katz, Jon, 76, 78, 81 Kimmel, Michael, 3, 7, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 117, 140, 220 Kurdish community, 212

L Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark, 30 Legal apparatus, 207 Legitimization of gender inequality, 201 Life-history, 45, 46, 243 Local, 1, 3, 4, 8, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 39, 49, 50, 51, 55, 56, 57, 61, 68, 71, 76, 91, 94, 98, 99, 112, 113, 117, 118, 122, 123, 127, 138, 141, 143, 144, 150, 153, 160, 165, 167, 169, 172, 173, 179, 180, 181, 189, 214, 219, 220, 231, 234, 236, 240 Lovers’ cup, 103

M Maheu, Marlene M., 103 Male bonding, 209, 232 Male buyers, 19, 27, 59–67, 69–73

Male order bride industry, 67, 71, 72, 73 Male sex right, 65, 66 Management, 10, 14, 45, 48, 49, 81, 86, 123, 124, 125, 241, 242, 244, also see Managers Managers, 14, 15, 27, 34, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 81, 82, 113, 122, 123, 124, 127, 242 Mann, Michael, 34 Mard-e irani, Iranian man, 157 Marginalization, 5, 144, 150, 152, 165, 236 Masculine subject/s, 149, 150, 154, 155, 157, 159, 189 Masculinity as invisible, 140 Masculinity/ties, 2–6, 12, 14, 15, 19, 20, 27, 28–41, 45, 47, 53–7, 76, 77, 79–81, 87–8, 92, 105, 111, 112, 114–8, 122, 124, 125, 128, 129, 130, 134–8, 140–5, 148–51, 154–60, 173, 180, 188, 189, 197–9, 201, 204–6, 210, 213, 214–5, 219–23, 231–2, 234–6, 239–43, also see Hegemonic masculinity/ties, Representations of masculinity Materiality, material, 4, 9, 10, 11, 16–18, 32, 37–38, 79, 91–2, 95–96, 98–9, 100–1, 105, 118, 125, 130, 139–41, 164, 167–8, 170, 172, 175, 180, 206, 213–4, 220, 241 Mateship, 33, 144, 156 Media, mainstream, 3–5, 10, 14, 45, 76, 84, 86, 94, 97–99, 103, 116–8, 120, 125, 130, 150, 151, 160, 173, 180, 187, 190, 197, 204, 206, 207, 210, 211, 213, 215, 220, 234, 235, 242, 244 Mediascapes, 93–95 Men’s bonding(s), 156 Messerschmidt, James W., 6, 20, 187, 189–203, 233 Microserfs/Coupland, Douglas, 79, 81–85 Middle East/Middle Eastern, 51, 112, 149, 151, 153, 159, 160, 194 Migration/s, 1, 9–11, 13, 14–6, 19, 50, 87, 111–2, 135–6, 141–4, 148, 150–2, 154, 158, 166, 220, 235, 239, 241–3 Milić, Andjelka, 166, 170, 172, 175

Index Militaristic, 220, 231, 235, 236 Military, 18, 34–5, 45–51, 54–7, 114, 150, 153, 190, 196, 201–3, 209, 215, 222–3, 231–2, 240 Mobility, 7, 57, 84, 149, 178, 204, 212, 215 Modern/pre-modern, see Pre-modern/ modern Motherland-under-threat, 210–1, 215 Movements, 1, 9–13, 18, 20, 30, 93, 96, 102, 112, 117, 151, 166, 167, 175, 225, 240, 242 Multinational corporations, see Multinational enterprises Multinational enterprises, 10, 120, 122 Mythologization, 220, 234

N Narrative, 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 125, 129, 130, 148, 150, 154, 159, 160, 188, 191, 196, 197, 198, 200, 201 Nation-building processes, 219 National identity, 9, 33, 124, 125, 153, 206, 207, 220, 222, 234, 235, 244 National ideology, 156, 228, 233, 235 National/nationality, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11–3, 16–18, 20, 27, 30, 33, 34, 38, 40, 46, 49, 67, 85, 86, 87, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 101, 111, 112, 114, 116, 118, 121, 122, 124–8, 130, 135, 151, 155, 156, 165, 167, 168, 172, 176, 187, 188, 196, 204, 205–8, 211, 212–4, 217, 219–23, 225, 228–37, 244 Nationalism, 1, 3, 8, 12, 20, 165, 179, 187, 205, 207, 209, 212, 215, 217, 219, 222, 232, 240, 244 Nationalist reactions, 204–6, 208–10, 214–6 Nation-state, 8, 12, 20, 40, 92, 94, 95, 118, 190, 199, 204, 205, 210, 212–15, 217, 219, 223, 235, 236 NATO/North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 16, 182 Neo-traditionalism, 221, 222 Neoliberalism, 8, 19, 27, 45, 114, 115, 117, 123, 213 Nerds, 80, 84, 85, 86 Networks, 9, 11, 16, 95, 100, 101, 115, 116, 121, 122, 127, 149, 172, 173, 176, 191, 193, 220

249

Nikolić-Ristanović, Vesna, 166 Nonresponsibility, 13, 93 Normative masculinities, 159, 209 North, 8, 45, 87, 113–24, 126, 128, 129, 232

O Obama, Barack, 16, 122, 202 Organizations, 1, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 18, 46, 47, 54, 56, 70, 114, 123, 127, 189, 213, 227, 228, 230, 231, 235, 242 Orientalism/Orientalist, 15, 149, 151, 201 Other, the, 13, 15, 17, 31, 32, 54, 97, 148, 152, 156, 165, 200, 201, 208, 209, 215

P Patriarchal power, 13, 93, 175 Patriarchal privilege, 174 Patriarchy, 5–8, 12, 13, 14, 32, 91, 92, 93, 100, 166 Police, 3, 16, 45–50, 53–7, 64, 93, 211, 216 Policy/policies, 1, 9, 19, 36, 68, 83, 112, 145, 154, 164, 187, 239, 242, 243 Political actors, 15, 206, 208, 219 Political ideal, 36, 37 Poster, Winifred, 19, 111, 113–33, 243–4 Post-Marxism, 19, 112, 136, 137, 145, 243 Post-Marxist theory, 136, 137, 139, 243 Post-Soviet, 220, 222, 223, 227, 234, 240 Postcolonial/ism, 1, 3, 12, 114, 115, 116, 128, 164, 235, 236 Postcolonial theory, 6, 156, 167, 241 Power, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 45, 47, 51, 55, 56, 57, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 72, 80, 81, 87, 91, 92–98, 100, 101, 104, 105, 111, 113, 114, 115–9, 121, 122, 123, 125, 128, 129, 138, 151, 152, 153, 155, 164, 166, 170, 171, 175, 176, 181, 187, 189, 190, 195, 198, 199, 200, 204, 205, 206, 207, 213, 214, 215, 219, 221, 228, 229, 230, 232, 236, 239, 241

250 Index Pre-modern/modern, 8, 12, 14, 57, 69, 85, 93, 101, 137, 171, 173, 205, 210, 217, 229, 232 Produsers, 95 Professionals, 19, 111, 113, 117, 118, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 154, 179 Prostitution tourism, 67, 71–3 Prostitution, 59–69, 71–3, 99, 243 Prosumers, 95, 97

R Race, 1, 7, 8, 50, 67, 69, 73, 88, 96, 101, 116, 123, 147, 149, 151, 153, 157, 160, 206, 244 Racialization, 6, 8, 92, 116 Racialized misogyny, 67–70, 73 Racism, 59, 66–71, 73, 97, 148, 150, 152, 153, 159, 160 Racist sexual stereotyping, 67 Reconfiguration of nation-states, 214 Refugee policy, 154 Relation of oppression, 138 Relation of subordination, 137, 142 Representations of masculinity, 219–21, 234

S Sadowski, Helga, 19, 28, 91–108, 244 Said, Edward, 201 Security, 13, 18, 19, 27, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 93, 102, 105, 122, 177, 192, 193, 196, 211, 239 Security forces, 45, 211 Security industry, 19, 27, 47, 54 Semiperiphery, 18, 20, 111, 112, 163–76, 178–81, 240 Sex dolls, 102 Sex industry, 19, 27, 59–60, 63–9, 71, 72, 243 Sexism, 97 Sexuality, 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 15, 19, 20, 31, 37, 88, 92, 98–105, 112, 126, 149, 151, 152, 153, 159, 236, 239, 241, 242, 243, also see Cybersex, Sex dolls, Transnational sexual arenas Sex work, 59, 60, 62, 63, 65, 69, 70, 175 Social capital, 158, 173, 212, 217 Social change, 98 Societies, 4, 14, 16, 18, 45, 51, 79, 134, 135, 139, 165, 168, 169, 172, 173, 174, 175, 181, 195

Songs, 209, 213 South, 45, 56, 87, 113–18, 120, 121, 122, 123, 128, 129, 212 Space/s, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 17, 18, 20, 66, 93, 94–6, 100, 101, 104, 114, 116, 123, 127, 128, 137, 141, 168, 170, 209, 210, 212, 214, 226 Sport, 53, 56, 144, 156, 223, 224, 225, 233, 239 Stafford-Fraser, Quentin and Jardetzky, Paul, 91 State, 5, 8, 12, 13, 20, 37, 40, 45, 47, 51, 57, 61, 68, 92, 94, 115, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122, 123, 126, 127, 141, 168, 176, 177, 180, 181, 187, 190, 193, 195, 199, 204, 205–8, 210–7, 219, 221, 223, 228, 229, 230, 233, 234, 235, 236 Subordination of women, 5, 59, 73 Sunbuloğlu, Nurseli Yeşim, 20, 187, 204–18, 244 Supranational, 9, 15 Sweden, 2, 20, 62, 114, 147, 148, 151, 152, 154, 155, 156, 159, 187, 220, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 239, 241, 243, 244 Symbolic violence, 85, 209

T Taxonomy/taxonomical, 38, 39, 40 Techno-masculinity, 19, 28, 80, 87, 88, 111, 113, 115–17, 119, 121, 122, 125, 128, 129, 130 Technologies, 10, 13, 17, 19, 28, 76, 77, 80, 87, 88, 91, 94, 95, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 120, 128, 134, 220, 241, 242 Temkina, Anna, 222, 236 Territory, 1, 172 Time (changes in the concept of), 11, 18, 48, 91, 95, 99, 100, 104, 122, 126, 136, 172, 177, 178, 244 Todorova, Maria, 165, 172 Trafficking in women, 69 Transgression, 10, 200 Transmigrant/ transmigration, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 145 Transnational,1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41,

Index 45, 49, 50, 87, 88, 91–94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100–5, 111–5,117–9, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 135, 137, 141, 144, 151, 155, 163, 167, 168, 170, 172, 173, 179, 180, 187, 189, 190, 204, 206, 212, 213, 214, 215, 219, 220, 221, 237, 244 Transnational business masculinity, 12, 14, 34, 35, 37, 39, 40, 114, 115, 128, 129 Transnational corporations, 34, 45, 170, 220 Transnational hegemony of men, 14, 17, 92, 93, 94 Transnationalism, 1, 9, 112, 125, 135, 163, 166, 167, 168, 170, 179, 187, 212, 243 Transnationalization, 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 27, 28, 87, 91, 92, 94, 104, 111, 112, 163, 166–68, 170, 179, 180, 204, 205, 211–15, 219, 242, also see Transnational Transnational men, 1, 11, 19, 20, 27, 96, 111, 187 Transnational migration, 9, 10, 50, 135, 144 Transnational patriarchies, 8, 18, 19, 91, also see Transpatriarchies Transnational processes, 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 16, 20, 40, 104, 219 Transnational sexual arenas, 98 Transnational sites, 11 Transnational social fields, 135 Transnational space/s, 17, 18, 100, 101, 123, 127 Transpatriarchies, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 28, 91, 92, 93, 94, 99, 105, 166, 171, 174 Trollers, 65 Turkey, 2, 95, 187, 204, 205, 207–11, 213–7, 239, 244 Turkishness, 207, 208, 214

U UK/United Kingdom, 2, 49, 50, 63, 64, 66, 67, 78, 85, 121, 153, 155, 159, 239, 242, 244 Ukraine, 2, 20, 75, 187, 220, 221–4, 227–30, 233–6, 240 UN/United Nations, 10, 15, 240 Underclass of the global south, 212 Units of analysis, 10, 191 Unstable equilibrium, 140, 144

251

USA/United States of America, 2, 16, 19, 20, 49, 50, 85, 86, 95, 111, 187, 193, 232, 233, 240, 241, 243

V Vikings, 20, 231–6 Villain-victim-hero narrative, 196, 201 Villains, 197, 198 Violence, 6, 11, 37, 47, 53, 56, 57, 60, 61, 62, 68, 69, 85, 101, 102, 113, 125, 126, 127, 164, 169, 177, 191, 192, 195, 198, 199, 200, 209, 214, 215, 233, 240, 242, 243, also see Symbolic violence Virtual, 1, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 16, 17, 18, 73, 86, 87, 92, 95, 96–100, 102, 103, 105, 114, 116, 123, 124, 125, 128, 167, 170, 244, also see Information and communication technologies Virtuality, 8, 16, 17, 92, 93, 94, 98, 105 Virtualization, 10, 16, 17, 19, 28, 91, 92, 98, 99, 104, 219, also see Information and communication technologies

W Wallerstein, Imanuel, 168 War, 11, 16, 20, 51, 115, 117, 156, 182, 187, 189–91, 193, 195–7, 202, 209, 233, 244 Web 2.0, 79, 96, 97, 101 Webcam, 67, 85, 100, 101, 105 Whiteness, 116, 155, 160, 233, 235 Women, agency of, 2, 5, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 27, 28, 31, 36, 47, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 59–73, 78, 79, 80, 91, 94, 97, 98, 99, 103, 104, 111, 113, 117, 119, 123, 125–7, 129, 130, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 151, 152, 155, 157, 159, 160, 164–6, 169, 170–9, 182, 189–95, 197–202, 205, 217, 222, 236, 239, 240, 243

Y Young, Brigitte, 169, 170, 171, 172, 197, 198

Z Zdravomyslova, Elena, 222, 236