Masculinidades

Gender, Place and Culture, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 351–360, December 2003

Placing Masculinities and Geography
LAWRENCE D. BERG, Okanagan University College, Vernon, BC, Canada ROBYN LONGHURST, University of Waikato, Hamilton, Aotearoa/New Zealand

There has been an increasing focus in feminist and pro-feminist inspired studies on examining men, male subjectivities and masculinities in thedecade since Gender, Place and Culture began publication. Our aim in this article is to provide readers with a brief overview of some of this recent research, and then to place these works within a critique of the Anglocentric character of geographic knowledge production. The article proceeds in the following manner. We begin with a brief definition of masculinity, in order to stress its temporal andgeographical contingency. We follow this discussion with a brief review of some of the research on masculinities undertaken in the past two decades, with a particular emphasis on studies of the social and cultural geographies of masculinity completed in the decade since Gender, Place and Culture began publication. It is important to note that our review is far from exhaustive, but rather, moreindicative. Our purpose here is to provide a context for our subsequent critique of a specific scaling of knowledge that constitutes much of the context for the way that work on masculinities is understood in Anglo-American geography.

Introduction

Defining Masculinity

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term ‘masculinity’ refers to: ‘The state or fact of being masculine; theassemblage of qualities regarded as characteristic of men; maleness, manliness’. In defining masculinity in this way, without qualifying the social character of what it means to be a man, male or ‘manly’, the editors of the OED implicitly draw on taken-for-granted and common-sense understandings that draw on binary divisions of sex/gender. In this sense, the OED defines masculinity as an object, that is, asan assemblage of qualities, a natural character, a set of behaviours, or a norm. These qualities or characteristics arise from the taken-for-granted attachment of masculinity to essentialist understandings of male bodies (see Longhurst, 2001). If we are to avoid the pitfalls of definitions of masculinity that rely on essentialist—and closely related positivist or normative understandings (seeConnell, 1995)—we need a more critical definition of masculinity that accounts for the relational character of identity (re)construction. In order to think masculinity relationally, it must be connected to the system of gender relations within which it arises. Although a focus on the relational and processual
Correspondence: Lawrence D. Berg, Department of Geography, Okanagan University College, 7000College Way, Vernon, BC, Canada V1B 2N5; e-mail: Lberg@ouc.bc.ca

ISSN 0966-369X print/ISSN 1360-0524 online/03/040351-10  2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI 10.1080/0966369032000153322

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contexts of masculinity (re)construction makes it more difficult to define the concept, we think that Bob Connell (1995, p. 71) provides a useful starting point for aworking definition of masculinity: Masculinity … is simultaneously a place in gender relations, the practices through which men and women engage that place in gender, and the effects of these practices in bodily experience, personality and culture. Although Connell understands the temporal contingency of masculinity, ironically (given his use of spatial metaphors), he does not explicitly acknowledgeits geographical specificity. Yet, given the importance of contexts, relationships, and practices in both the (re)construction of masculinity and the way that we come to understand the meanings of the term, it should be very clear that masculinity is both temporally and geographically contingent. Perhaps equally important is the implication that given the multitude of possible gendered contexts,...