Theoretical Article


DOI :10.26650/JECS2019-0035   IUP :10.26650/JECS2019-0035    Full Text (PDF)

Loss of Masculinity as a Face of Masculinity Crises Experienced as a Result of Migration

Mehmet Bozok

The debates on migration and gender in social sciences are a growing field. In recent years, the relations between migration and masculinities have come to the fore in these debates when the field of critical studies on men and masculinities had begun to discuss migrant men. Although they are in dominant positions in patriarchal relations, men and masculinities can experience crises that may undermine these positions. The notion of “masculinity crises” is used to point out the intense discontent in the gender identities of men. With the development of critical studies on men and masculinities, masculinity crises have begun to be discussed in this field. The founding researchers of this field emphasized that a general crisis of masculinity could not be mentioned, but rather certain groups of men experiencing certain crises of masculinity. In the following years, masculinity crises began to be investigated by focusing on different contexts that lead to the crisis, and different groups that experience crisis. One of the dynamics that lead to masculinity crises is migration. In various studies on migration and masculinity, the tensions that migrant men experience have begun to be considered in recent years, adopting different approaches such as dislocation, disempowerment and bargaining. Focusing on such researches, this article proposes considering the situations that produce the tensions and anxieties, which patriarchal masculinities experience, such as loss of power, status and social legitimacy as a result of migration, as masculinity crises experienced as a loss of masculinity. 
DOI :10.26650/JECS2019-0035   IUP :10.26650/JECS2019-0035    Full Text (PDF)

Göç Sonucu Yaşanan Erkeklik Krizlerinin Bir Yüzü Olarak Erkekliğin Kaybı

Mehmet Bozok

Sosyal bilimlerde göç ve toplumsal cinsiyet üzerine tartışmalar, giderek gelişen bir tartışma alandır. Göç ve erkeklikler arasındaki ilişkiler, erkekler ve erkeklikler üzerine eleştirel incelemeler alanının son yıllarda göçmen erkekleri de tartışmaya başlamasıyla son yıllarda gündeme gelmiştir. Ataerkil ilişkilerin hakimi konumunda olsalar da, erkekler ve erkeklikler bu konumlarını sarsıntıya uğratabilecek krizler yaşayabilirler. “Erkeklik krizleri” fikri, erkeklerin cinsiyet kimlikleriyle ilgili yaşadıkları yoğun kaygılara işaret etmek için kullanılmaktadır. Bu konu erkekler ve erkeklikler üzerine eleştirel incelemelerin başlangıcıyla birlikte bu alanda da tartışılmaya başlanmıştır. Alanın kurucu araştırmacıları genel bir erkeklik krizinin yaşandığından söz edilemeyeceğini, ancak belirli, gruplardan erkeklerin erkeklik krizi yaşadığının altını çizmişlerdir. İzleyen süreçte erkeklik krizleri, krize yol açan farklı bağlamlara ve kriz yaşayan farklı gruplara odaklanılarak ele alınmıştır. Erkeklik krizlerine yol açan dinamiklerden biri de göçtür. Göç ve erkeklikler üzerine çeşitli çalışmalarda, son yıllarda göçmen erkeklerin gittikleri farklı kültürlerde yaşadıkları gerilimler, güçsüzleşme, bağlamından kopma, pazarlık yapma gibi farklı yaklaşımlarla ele alınmaya başlanmıştır. Bu makale, sözkonusu çalışmalara odaklanarak, ataerkil erkekliklerin göçle birlikte iktidar, statü ve toplumsal meşruiyet kaybı gibi gerilimler ve kaygılar yaşadıkları durumları erkekliğin kaybı olarak yaşanan erkeklik krizleri olarak değerlendirmeyi önermektedir. 

EXTENDED ABSTRACT


This paper discusses the relations between international migration and masculinity crises, grounding on the data from the findings of a number of cross-cultural studies that focus on men’s loss of power under migration. Although the debates on migration and gender are a growing field in social sciencessince the late 1970’s, issues related to men and masculinities were not discussed until recently in this field. Critical studies on men and masculinities had developed concurrently with the debates on gender and migration on a different side of social sciences, as an ally of feminist scholarship. 

With the studies of founding scholars, such as Raewyn Connell, Michael Kimmel, Michael Messner and Jeff Hearn amongst others, this interdisciplinary field critically investigated issues such as men’s identities, experiences of being a man in different cultural contexts, men’s roles, men’s differential access to patriarchal privileges, discourses of masculinity, masculinity crises and men and masculinities’ experiences of migration lately. Connell and her colleagues emphasized that men and masculinities are neither essentialistic, nor universal. From the very beginning, this field emphasized that men and masculinities are social constructs that present social and cultural diversities and that are subject to change. Therefore, from the beginning, pluralistic notion “masculinities” became one of the trademarks of this field. Based on the notion of social construction, this field presented that masculinities are subject to “crises”, as well as possessing and being in dominant positions of patriarchal power. 

Discourses around “masculinity crises” have a quite a long history, even dating back to works of the late 19th century and early 20th century authors such as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Henry David Thoreau and Sigmund Freud. From the beginning, the idea of “masculinity crises” suggests the loss of men’s power, shaking and quaking of the grounds under men and masculinities, and the transformation of existing masculinity into something unknown and something undesirable. Indeed, from the beginning, the discourses of masculinity crises imply anxiety, regression and fear of the loss of men’s power. Later, with the rise of second wave feminist activism and feminist scholarship in the 1970’s, those discussions were transferred to the debate of men’s (widespread) loss of privileges and power under the development of women’s empowerment and expansion of gender-based rights. Those scholarly and political debates found acceptance amongst mainstream discussions and were reflected in journalism and the media as well.

The emergence and development of critical studies on men and masculinities brought concrete grounds for debates on masculinity crises. Authors such as Joseph Pleck, Lynne Segal, Raewyn Connell, Stephen Whitehead and Robert Levant were amongst those who discussed whether there was a prevalent contemporary masculinity crisis that shook the grounds under masculinity. Those authors pointed out that, “masculinity crises”, the anxieties that arise from the dislocation of contemporary masculinities is predominantly a discourse rather than a historical situation of widespread crisis of present-day masculinities. However, those discussions were carried to fields and reasons in which men feel anxieties because of loss of power, dislocation of men’s prestige-attributed social statuses, loss of contexts where men’s identities were constructed and re-constructed, such as unemployment, subcultures and representations of masculinities in cinema. 

This paper brings emergent literature on masculinity crises to the contemporary debates on masculinities and migration. As a developing area of discussion since the early 2000’s, masculinities and migration literature began to investigate migrant men in different cultures. Focusing on concurrent debates with critical studies on men and masculinities, this literature covered issues such as unemployment, power, transnationalism, identity, health and regional patterns of change of gender identities of men under the conditions of migration. One of the issues of this recent field of research is men’s loss of power and status as a result of migration. Investigated by scholars such as Bartolomei (2010), Haile and Siegmann (2014), Sarti (2010), Scrinzi (2010), Sinatti (2014), Charsley and Wray (2015), Nare (2010), Hibbins and Pease (2010), Pease (2009), Bozok ve Bozok (2019) and Güney and Konak (2016) amongst others, was discussed with approaches such as men’s “feminization”, “loss of power”, “change of roles”, “loss of patriarchal privileges”, “demasculinization” or “invisibility”. Here, focusing on studies on migrant masculinities, this paper considers this pattern as masculinity crises experienced as the loss of masculinity as a result of migration.

In conclusion, this paper argues that migration may lead to masculinity crises through the loss of masculinity, especially amongst lower class men who are more unprepared for cultural differences and integration. This form of masculinity crises amongst migrant men manifests itself as a backlash from men’s privileged positions of power and authority, and loss of income and status. Therefore, they feel themselves demasculinized under circumstances of migration, and experience a masculinity crisis. Finally, this paper underlines that since crisis is a temporary position, these perceptions of loss of masculinity may lead to reconstructions of other patriarchal masculinities with different constructive dynamics.


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APA

Bozok, M. (2019). Loss of Masculinity as a Face of Masculinity Crises Experienced as a Result of Migration. Journal of Economy Culture and Society, 0(60), 171-185. https://doi.org/10.26650/JECS2019-0035


AMA

Bozok M. Loss of Masculinity as a Face of Masculinity Crises Experienced as a Result of Migration. Journal of Economy Culture and Society. 2019;0(60):171-185. https://doi.org/10.26650/JECS2019-0035


ABNT

Bozok, M. Loss of Masculinity as a Face of Masculinity Crises Experienced as a Result of Migration. Journal of Economy Culture and Society, [Publisher Location], v. 0, n. 60, p. 171-185, 2019.


Chicago: Author-Date Style

Bozok, Mehmet,. 2019. “Loss of Masculinity as a Face of Masculinity Crises Experienced as a Result of Migration.” Journal of Economy Culture and Society 0, no. 60: 171-185. https://doi.org/10.26650/JECS2019-0035


Chicago: Humanities Style

Bozok, Mehmet,. Loss of Masculinity as a Face of Masculinity Crises Experienced as a Result of Migration.” Journal of Economy Culture and Society 0, no. 60 (Nov. 2024): 171-185. https://doi.org/10.26650/JECS2019-0035


Harvard: Australian Style

Bozok, M 2019, 'Loss of Masculinity as a Face of Masculinity Crises Experienced as a Result of Migration', Journal of Economy Culture and Society, vol. 0, no. 60, pp. 171-185, viewed 15 Nov. 2024, https://doi.org/10.26650/JECS2019-0035


Harvard: Author-Date Style

Bozok, M. (2019) ‘Loss of Masculinity as a Face of Masculinity Crises Experienced as a Result of Migration’, Journal of Economy Culture and Society, 0(60), pp. 171-185. https://doi.org/10.26650/JECS2019-0035 (15 Nov. 2024).


MLA

Bozok, Mehmet,. Loss of Masculinity as a Face of Masculinity Crises Experienced as a Result of Migration.” Journal of Economy Culture and Society, vol. 0, no. 60, 2019, pp. 171-185. [Database Container], https://doi.org/10.26650/JECS2019-0035


Vancouver

Bozok M. Loss of Masculinity as a Face of Masculinity Crises Experienced as a Result of Migration. Journal of Economy Culture and Society [Internet]. 15 Nov. 2024 [cited 15 Nov. 2024];0(60):171-185. Available from: https://doi.org/10.26650/JECS2019-0035 doi: 10.26650/JECS2019-0035


ISNAD

Bozok, Mehmet. Loss of Masculinity as a Face of Masculinity Crises Experienced as a Result of Migration”. Journal of Economy Culture and Society 0/60 (Nov. 2024): 171-185. https://doi.org/10.26650/JECS2019-0035



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Submitted07.04.2019
Accepted28.07.2019
Published Online22.10.2019

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