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Authors
Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
In different historical and cultural contexts it is important to examine the ways in
which diasporic and transnational relations are a key process of societal change,
which may involve complex forms of dislocation and integration. Drawing on a
qualitative research project on immigrant men in Portugal, we aim at disentangling
the ways in which community identities are constructed in a gendered manner,
with differences pertaining to the constitution of specific diasporic communities
(Brazilians, Cape Verdeans and Mozambicans), hailing from diverse Portuguese
colonial and post-colonial histories. We contend that for a deeper understanding of
the overall consequences of migration and transnationalism, a gender perspective,
which is often neglected when tackling cultural encounters and multiple
modernities, is mandatory. For immigrant men, the experience of otherness, even if
permeated by cultural entanglements, hybridity and social inclusion, is marked, in
most cases, by subalternity. This subordinate condition, of being a discriminated
stranger, a categorised other, often experiencing feelings of frustration and
disenchantment with the ‘European dream,’ is reinforced by racialised/ethnic
otherness vis-à-vis the dominance of whiteness. The ways of dealing with
discrimination lead to the construction of identities along national lines of origin,
in a highly gendered form, in terms of masculinities. As a consequence, Portuguese
and European men are strongly devaluated and viewed as feminine and
emasculated. Simultaneously, Portuguese women tend to be perceived as strongly
masculinised. Conversely, immigrant men tend to stress self-definitions of identity
that give priority to a virile sexuality and bodily performances as a way to
compensate for the lack of other capitals of masculinity (e.g. financial and public
power). However, these strategies can be quite paradoxical. On the one hand, there
is a reinforcement of a defensive communitarian sense of belonging that ultimately
leads to ghettoisation. On the other hand, there are also aspirational processes
operating through the mimicry of the dominant other, even if these are often
conflicting and contradictory. In sum, at the same time, immigrant men aspire to
power in many-sided ways (namely by reinventing multiple forms of male bodily
performativity), and tend to shut themselves to inclusion in the dominant
Portuguese gender order, frequently being complicit with their own fetishisation as
Other.
Description
Keywords
Masculinidade Pós-colonialismo
Pedagogical Context
Citation
Aboim, S., & Vasconcelos, P. (2014). Displacement and Subalternity: Masculinities, Racialization and the Feminization of the Other. In Anna Pilińska and Harmony Siganporia (Eds.), 'All Equally Real': Femininities and Masculinities Today (pp. 267-277). Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press