Cosmopolitan Revolutionaries: Masculinity, Migration, and Gender Performativity in Latin American London
https://doi.org/10.17583/mcs.2020.4376
Keywords:
Downloads
Abstract
This article explores the relational dynamics by which a particular group of young Colombian men strategically construct and perform masculinity within context of Latin American London. Focusing on quotidian experience and seeking to move beyond stereotypical narratives of masculine “loss” or “adjustment” relating to machismo, it demonstrates how “traditional” hegemonic norms are resourced as constitutive elements in the articulation of new modalities of gendered orientation. Observing that with migration Latin American men are often placed under contradictory pressure to both conform to and subvert cultural stereotypes of machismo and hegemonic masculinity, here young male Colombian migrants are seen to harness vernacular cosmopolitanism as an important moral orientation through which to creatively rearticulate machismo, dynamically reframing their subjectivities in ways that meaningfully engage with their life predicaments. What emerges are expressions of a subject position referred to here as the ‘cosmopolitan revolutionary,’ a performative orientation that encourages the expression of masculine authority and decisiveness while also emphasising anti-authoritarian and egalitarian principles of positive reciprocity and worldly care.
Downloads
References
Arciniega, G.M., Anderson, T.C., Tovar-Blank, Z.G., & Tracey, T.J.G. (2008). Toward a Fuller Conception of Machismo: Development of a Traditional Machismo and Caballerismo Scale. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 55(1), 19-33. doi: 10.1037/0022-0167.55.1.19
Google Scholar CrossrefBasham, R. (1976). Machismo. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 1(2), 126-143. doi: 10.2307/3346074
Google Scholar CrossrefBeck, U. (2002). The Cosmopolitan Society and its Enemies. Theory, Culture & Society, 19(1-2), 17-44. doi: 10.1177/026327640201900101
Google Scholar CrossrefBhabha, H. (1996). Unsatisfied: Notes on Vernacular Cosmopolitanism. In L. García-Morena & P.C. Pfeiffer (Eds.), Text and Nation: Cross-disciplinary Essays on Cultural and National Identities (pp. 191-207). Columbia, SC: Camden House.
Google Scholar CrossrefBrigden, N. K. (2018). Gender Mobility: Survival Plays and Performing Central American Migration in Passage. Mobilities, 13(1), 111-125. doi: 10.1080/17450101.2017.1292056
Google Scholar CrossrefBrusco, E.E. (2010). The Reformation of Machismo: Evangelical Conversion and Gender in Colombia. Austin, TX: The University of Texas Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefCharsley, K., & Wray, H. (2015). Introduction: The Invisible (Migrant) Man. Men and Masculinities, 18(4): 403-423. doi: 10.1177/1097184X15575109
Google Scholar CrossrefChoi, S.Y. (2019). Migration, Masculinity, and Family. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45(1), 78-94. doi: 10.1080/1369183X.2018.1427562
Google Scholar CrossrefConnell, R.W. (1995). Masculinities, Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Google Scholar CrossrefConnell, R.W., & Messerschmidt, J.W. (2005). Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept. Gender & Society, 19(6), 829-859. doi: 10.1177/0891243205278639
Google Scholar CrossrefDel Aguila, E.V. (2014). Being a Man in a Transnational World: The Masculinity and Sexuality of Migration. New York, NY: Routledge.
Google Scholar CrossrefDonaldson, M., Hibbins, R., Howson R., & Pease, B. (2009). Migrant Men: Critical Studies of Masculinities and the Migration Experience. New York, NY: Routledge.
Google Scholar CrossrefDugas, J.C. (2001), Drugs, Lies, and Audiotape: The Samper Crisis in Colombia (Book Review). Latin American Research Review, 36(2), 157-174. Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com.ez.library.latrobe.edu.au/apps/doc/A75140974/AONE?u=latrobe&sid=AONE&xid=b5bf12e6
Google Scholar CrossrefFabian, J. (2002), Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefFlake, D.F., & Forste, R. (2006). Fighting Families: Family Characteristics Associated with Domestic Violence in Five Latin American Countries. Family Violence, 21(1), 19-29. doi: 10.1007/s10896-005-9002-2
Google Scholar CrossrefGutmann, M.C. (1996). The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefGutmann, M.C. (2004). Dystopian Travels in Gringolandia: Engendering Ethnicity among Mexican Migrants to the United States. Ethnicities, 4(4), 477 - 500. doi: 10.1177/1468796804047470
Google Scholar CrossrefHearn, J. (2015). Men of the World: Genders, Globalizations, Transnational Times. London, England: Sage.
Google Scholar CrossrefHernandez, J.C. (2012). Machismo: The Role of Chicano Rap in the Construction of the Latino Identity. International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2(20), 98-106. Retrieved from http://www.ijhssnet.com/journal/index/1350
Google Scholar CrossrefHondagneu-Sotelo, P. (1994). Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences with Immigration. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefHondagneu-Sotelo, P. (2000). Feminism and Migration. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 571(1), 107-120. doi: 10.1177/000271620057100108
Google Scholar CrossrefLinklater, A. (2007). Distant Suffering and Cosmopolitan Obligations. International Politics, 44(1), 19-36. doi: 10.1057/palgrave.ip.8800156
Google Scholar CrossrefMcIlwaine, C. (2008). Subversion or Subjugation: Transforming Gender Ideologies Among Latin American Migrants in London, London, England: Queen Mary, University of London.
Google Scholar CrossrefMcIlwaine, C. (2010). Migrant Machismos: Exploring Gender Ideologies and Practices Among Latin American Migrants in London from a Multi-Scalar Perspective. Gender, Place, and Culture, 17(3), 281-300. doi: 10.1080/09663691003737579
Google Scholar CrossrefMesserschmidt, J.W. (2018). Hegemonic Masculinity: Formulation, Reformulation, and Amplification. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Google Scholar CrossrefParedes, A. (2003). The United States, Mexico, and Machismo. In M.C. Gutmann, F.V. Matos Rodriguez, L. Stephen, & P. Zavella (Eds), Perspectives on Las Americas: A Reader in Culture, History, & Representation (pp.329 - 341). Oxford, England: Blackwell.
Google Scholar CrossrefPease, B. & Crossley, P. (2005). Migrant Masculinities: The Experiences of Latin American Migrant Men in Australia. Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, 11(1), 133-140. doi: 10.1080/13260219.2005.10426813
Google Scholar CrossrefPérez, I. & Stallaert, C. (2015). Male Domestic Workers and Gendered Boundaries among Latin American Migrants in Brussels. Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, 98(69), 69-86. Retrieved from https://www-jstor-org.ez.library.latrobe.edu.au/stable/43279247
Google Scholar CrossrefPratt, M.L. (1992). Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London and New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar CrossrefRamirez, J. (2009). Against Machismo: Young Adult in Mexico City. New York, NY: Berghahn Books.
Google Scholar CrossrefStevens, E.P. (1965). Mexican Machismo: Politics and Value Orientations, The Western Political Quarterly, 18(4), 848-857. doi: 10.2307/445889
Google Scholar CrossrefTorres, J.B., Solberg, V.S.H., & Carlstrom, A.H. (2002). The Myth of Sameness Among Latino Men and their Machismo. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 72(2), 163-181. doi: 10.1037/0002-9432.72.2.163
Google Scholar CrossrefWade, P. (1995). Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefWalter, N., Bourgois, P., & Loinaz, M. (2004). Masculinity and Undocumented Labor Migration: Injured Latino Day Laborers in San Francisco. Social Science and Medicine, 59(6), 1159-1168. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2003.12.013
Google Scholar CrossrefWerbner, P. (2006). Vernacular Cosmopolitanism. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(2-3), 496-498. doi: 10.1177/026327640602300291
Google Scholar CrossrefWichoroski, M.A. (1994). The Secretary: Invisible Labor in the Work World of Women. Human Organization, 53(1), 33-41. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ez.library.latrobe.edu.au/stable/44126557
Google Scholar CrossrefWilkins, A.C. (2009). Masculinity Dilemmas: Sexuality and Intimacy Talk among Christians and Goths. Signs, 34(2), 343-68. doi: 10.1086/591087
Google Scholar CrossrefWojnicka, K., & Pustułka, P. (2017). Migrant men in the Nexus of Space and (dis)Empowerment. NORMA, 12(2), 89-95. doi: 10.1080/18902138.2017.1342061
Google Scholar CrossrefDownloads
Published
Almetric
Dimensions
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
All articles are published under Creative Commons copyright (CC BY). Authors hold the copyright and retain publishing rights without restrictions, but authors allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy articles as the original source is cited.