ABSTRACTMicro-interaction dynamics of affective sanctioning have received insufficient attention when exploring the emergence of masculine identities and practices among gang members. We provide an analytical approach that places affective sanctioning at the heart of explanations of local masculine subjectivities. Affective sanctioning is a key method through which gang members facilitate successful face-to-face interaction via the constitution of shared group status markers as collective ‘goods’. Using empirical data contrasting two types of Glasgow gang groups, sharing contexts in which similar structural determinants operate, each embodies idiosyncratic modes of masculine identity, characterised by distinct hyper-masculine traits, which in turn constitute the group’s boundaries. Group markers emerge and are maintained by the constitutive force of individuals’ mutual susceptibility to affective inter-valuation practices. Here the acts of recognition and honouring, and dishonouring are the most socially significant affective sanctioning mechanisms. Our methodological investigation rests on an ‘intrinsic’ structuralist approach which prioritises micro-situational data over wider structural arrangements. We contrast this with ‘extrinsic’ models which dominate current gang scholarship and which tacitly view individuals as socialised ‘from the outside’. Our methodology and findings have profound implications for practitioners who must start from a recognition that individuals operate within the constraints of their emotionally bound group.

ABSTRACTWhite heterosexual cisgender men’s narratives saturate the literature on college masculinities, thus far, perpetuating a hegemonic and essentialist definition of masculinity and conflating sex and gender identity and expression. The exclusion of other-gendered masculine voices in turn limits possibilities to destabilize and transform hegemonic masculinity. Additionally, the emergent literature on trans* students presents a dismal outlook for an aggregated population with little if any understanding of how trans* students conceptualize gender. This manuscript provides a critical review of these two expanding strands of literature, calls for more critical interrogations of masculinity/ies from divergent perspectives, such as trans*masculine students, with potential implications to trans*forming masculinities.

ABSTRACTBased on ethnographic data collected among the Bahnar ethnic group in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, I discuss the lived experiences of masculine performing people (assigned female at birth) whose gender characteristics blur the boundaries between lesbian and transgender. In reviewing non-normative gender practices in supernatural rituals in Southeast Asia and in Vietnam I explore the links between these practices and present-day terminology and discourses relating to the complexities of gender and sexual diversity in the secular realm. I also discuss the disclosure experiences of these people, their vulnerability to social discrimination and draw attention to the nuances of contingent masculinities against the backdrop of the complex inter-ethnic relations in the Central Highlands.

ABSTRACTDrawing from Michel Foucault’s theorization of disciplinary power and biopolitics, this paper advances and reconstructs earlier scholarly literature on American eugenics through an examination of nineteenth- and twentieth-century penological and psychiatric techniques that contributed to the birth of a discourse on gender nonconformity as psychopathology. In this paper, I ask: how do certain forms of embodiment, dress and expression come to be interpreted as ‘effeminate’ and ‘sissy’? Furthermore, how did various moral and penological techniques around gender nonconforming embodiment and subjectivity contribute to the development of psychiatric treatment methods for homosexuality and transsexuality? Drawing from early sexological studies on prisoners as well as psychiatric studies on institutionalized children, the paper argues that in the context of ‘boyhood effeminacy’, normalizing power operates not merely on the disciplinary level of the individual body, but also through a biopolitical governing of health, reproduction, family and citizenship. The paper concludes by addressing the contemporary European Trans sterilization legislation as a biopolitical offshoot of eugenic rationality.

ABSTRACTThis article describes a mixed methods study of men’s organizations in Switzerland, a topic only scantly addressed in research. In the first phase, a content analysis of the websites of the 40 major men’s organizations in Switzerland identified three overarching perspec-tives on masculinity: Defensive, Expressive and Relational, and Radical pro-feminist. Subsequently, survey responses from 324 men in these various organizations identified the positioning of these individuals on the three perspectives. The use of these two methods allows for a comparison of the positioning of the spokespersons of these organizations with the views of the members. The survey also reveals important ideological con-vergences across very different types of organizations at the level of the individual member.

The armed forces in virtually all countries are traditionally male-dominated organisations. Military rangers constitute an elite unit whose chief skills and capabilities centre on unconventional warfare and intelligence gathering in enemy territory, as well as conducting low-intensity warfare. The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the process of becoming a military ranger and what it means to be one in this context from a masculinity perspective. The study was carried out with informants from three military ranger units in Sweden: the Army's ranger battalion, parachuting rangers from an airborne battalion and intelligence battalion, and coastal rangers. In total, 28 informants participated in the study. All of them were men. A qualitative analysis resulted in a model where the core variable was labelled on becoming a ranger through reproducing masculinity as a form of emotional regime. This core variable is built up by three different strategies, each of which contains a number of actions: building social identity by means of coolness strategies, observing symbols and rituals to build a sense of pride and building cohesion to maintain group intimacy, and emotionally exclude the external environment.

This paper explores how ‘gender’ is being conceptualized in Indian policies on men's violence towards women. It demonstrates that the politics of masculinities, operating within a deeply political process of policy formation, allows men and masculinities to remain invisible in ‘gender’ policies. The paper argues that a dominating economic logic, a hierarchy of knowledge, a reductionist ‘rationality’ and an apolitical understanding of gender in the Indian policy process, allow for a narrow and compartmentalized idea of ‘gender’ in such policies. This inevitably leads to a narrow understanding of ‘gendered violence’ too by not bringing men and masculinities into question. Violence towards women gets conceptualized at the macro level as violence against a woman's ‘modesty’ and her femininity which relationally places men and masculinities as ‘protectors’ whilst keeping the ‘threats’ to this ‘modesty’ obscured. The central tenet of this paper is that making the role of men and masculinities visible in policies and debates around gendered violence is a crucial step in better understanding and designing policies that check male violence against women.

The military is an arena in which strong ideals regarding masculinity are enforced, with the soldier often portrayed as a model of hegemonic masculinity in the USA. Men who adopt an anti-war position, which may directly conflict with positions taken by the military as an organization, may be particularly challenged in the renegotiation of their masculine identity upon re-entry to civilian life. This study employs Burke and Stets' Identity Theory (2009) and Connell's hegemonic masculinity (2005) to examine masculine identity among a group of 26 veterans. Using data from in-depth interviews with 26 former military personnel that now claim an anti-war position, the study explores how masculinity is (re)negotiated among these men. The findings include respondents' description of masculinity before and after adopting an ‘anti-war’ identity, as well as variations in masculinity among our respondents. Specifically, we found three types of masculinity among respondents. The masculinity scripts within these typologies, as well as patterns occurring within each type are presented and best explained by social status giving some men more freedom to protest the hegemonic ideal.

This study focuses on boxing champion Muhammad Ali’s resistance to patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity in American warfare. The narrative textual analysis is designed around Ali’s final three championship-boxing bouts before he was stripped of his heavyweight championship title because of his conscientious objection to the Vietnam War. The author constructed a narrative that found that Ali’s performance during this specific period was an extension of the black radical tradition. As a prizefighting champion and a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, the gender performance of black radical masculinities is distinguished in Ali. The results from the bouts were organized with biographical quotes and facts during the period and connected with black radical theory and the trajectory of black masculinities. Amid the three bouts and resistance that led to his eventual exile from boxing, Ali’s black masculinity is reconfigured through an analysis of multiple themes, such as voice, skill, anger, faith, style, and corporeality.