Much recent writing on and by men suggests that male hegemony is sustained and lent authority by the discipline of "men's studies." This book brings together a critical set of papers about men and masculinities which raise important questions on gender studies. In a sustained cross-cultural enquiry, local experiences of "hegemonic masculinity" are deconstructed to reveal the complexities of gendering and gendered difference. The familiar oppositions--male/female, man/woman and masculinity/femininity are analyzed, as is the other apparent certainty--that "a man is a man."
"Dislocating Masculinity" draws on anthropology and both feminist and postmodern theory to offer an ambitious yet accessible theoretical context for 11 innovative ethnographic studies of masculinity in settings which range from Imperial India to rural Zimbabwe to the gay community in contemporary London. By challenging the rhetoric of masculine power, "Dislocating Masculinity" offers a radical critique of much recent writing on and by men and raises important questions about embodiment, agency and subordinate masculine styles.
The contributors examine the complex relations between desire, sexual orientation, potency, fertility and sexual experience in different social settings, as well as the relation between gender and race, class and age. In both the theoretical and ethnographic chapters, the essayists focus on embodiment, agency and subordinate masculinities and in this way challenge essentialist and constructionist arguments which underwrite dominant ideologies of masculinity. By critically "dislocating" a singular notion of masculinity, the contributors show how particular versions of masculinitydisempower both men and women.