Self-positioning as a man in transnational contexts: constructing and managing hybrid masculinity

ABSTRACT

The majority of research on migrant men is focused on critical analyses regarding the domestic sphere, family relations, power and equality. The analysis is often based on a juxtaposition of migrant and Western patterns of masculinity. Little attention is paid to young, highly skilled, single migrants who may experience challenges regarding their gender role as they change countries. Among adolescents and young adults, different visions of masculinities and gender roles are important factors in general adaptation. These ideas influence the way young people spend their free time, make friends, and are accepted in their peer group. On the one hand, differing perspectives can impede adaptation; however, on the other hand, these differences may be used to evade gender norms that are oppressive or inconvenient. This paper is based on biographical narrative interviews with men of different nationalities who have migrated in childhood and in their adult lives (serial migrants). Three case studies are explored, each illustrating certain strategies of constructing and managing one’s masculinity.

KEYWORDS:

• Transnationality
• migration
• gender
• third culture kids
• hybrid masculinity

Introduction

Since 1990, migration scholarship focused on gender issues has been increasingly interested in issues related to women (Morokvasic, 1984; Parrenas, 2005; Pedraza, 1991, among others) and children (D’Angelo & Ryan, 2011; Gouldbourne, Reynolds, Solomos, & Zontini, 2010; Ni Laoire, Carpena-Mendez, Tyrrell, & & White, 2010; Parrenas, 2005; Pustułka, 2014). Men on the other hand, in spite of the fact that they have always been at the centre of migration research and ‘the position of male subjects was largely argued as privileged’ (Pustułka, Struzik, & Slusarczyk, 2015, p. 123) only recently have become the subject of (critical) gendered reflection (Charsley & Wray, 2015). At the beginning of the twenty-first century a handful of researchers began conducting in-depth analyses of the intersections between mobility and masculinity, the specificity of migrant men’s experiences, and their positioning in destination countries (e.g. Batnitzky, McDowell, & Dyer, 2009; Charsley, 2005; Donaldson, Hibbins, Howson, & Pease, 2009; Pease, 2006; Sarti & Scrinzi, 2010; Scheibelhofer, 2007, 2012). Nevertheless, to date, studies on men and migration have been dominated by analyses focused on a relatively small number of issues, such as the role of migrant men in the labour market or the negative aspects of their mobility as migrant men. Those negative aspects are often associated with criminality and sexism (Griffiths, 2015) and linked with social problems such as domestic and sexual violence, youth criminality or culturally specific crimes such as honour murders, forced marriages and female genital mutilation. Such an attitude draws a picture of migrant men as a rather homogeneous group causing, or dealing with, similar problems. They are rarely seen as part of a complex and diverse social category, and their masculinities are rarely framed as intersectional and multidimensional social phenomena. For example, there is little consideration of such masculinities as potentially non-heterosexual (Kilkey, 2010; Manalansan, 2006; Masullo, 2015a, 2015b), racialised (Golash-Boza & Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2013; Hondagneu-Sotelo & Messner, 1999) or driven by power and class identification (Connell, 2010, 2012; Hearn, 2015). Moreover, analyses are often based on the juxtaposition of migrant patterns of masculinity with patterns in their host country. Little attention is paid to young, highly skilled, single migrants and the way they react to, and negotiate with, the demands and expectations they encounter in different countries. Therefore, the main goal of this paper is to focus on the young, male, migrant representatives from the middle class. We will demonstrate the specificity of their transformations in terms of their gender roles as they change countries. These changes influence not only their adaptation, but also their processes of gender identity construction. We ask questions regarding the character of these transformations, particularly in regard to their masculinities. We wonder how exactly mobility influences their perception of male roles in general, and their own gender identification in particular. Finally, we ask about the emancipatory potential of migration, and in what ways the experience of relocation influences dynamics of gender, class and ethnicity, and their intersections.

The paper draws on 17 biographical narrative interviews with serial migrant men of different nationalities. We analyse three case studies illustrating different strategies of constructing and managing one’s male identity. Firstly, we discuss difficulties in defining one’s own gender identity when confronted with contrasting visions of masculinity. Secondly, we consider possible difficulties in finding a partner and building a relationship due to different gender role attitudes and expectations. Finally, we examine how non-hegemonic masculinities become a pivotal part of an identity built on contrasts and differences.

Researching migrant men – hegemonic and hybrid masculinities

It has become clear that both women and men are subject to gender role patterns and expectations and that both may suffer from different kinds of ostracism if they fail to conform to them. Many men face pressure to live up to hegemonic ideals (Kahn, 2009), defined by Raewyn Connell as a set of (stereotypically) male traits which creates a specific model of masculinity that dominates, in a normative way, in certain societies. This specific form of masculinity, widely known as hegemonic (1995) is highly respected and linked to power, strength (both physical and economic), heterosexuality and work. The existence of hegemonic masculinity cannot be defined without reference to other models of masculinity such as complicit, subordinated and marginalised masculinities (Connell, 1995; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005) and hegemony itself is ‘understood as both “hegemony over women” and “hegemony over subordinated masculinities”’ (Demetriou, 2001, p. 341). To date, Connell’s concept is still one of the most influential attempts to theorise masculinities and has dominated scholarly discourses on men and masculinities for several decades. However, over the years, Connell’s classification has received some criticism (Beasley, 2008; Demetriou, 2001; Wetherell & Edley, 1999) as a handful of scholars have argued that her conceptualisation not only fails to account for the existence of diverse forms of masculinities but also omits the processual character of both hegemony and masculinity. According to the critics, hegemonic masculinity should be used in a plural form (Hearn, 2015) and the notion of counter-hegemonic masculinities should be discussed in a more profound manner (Demetriou, 2001). Moreover, in Connell’s early works, hegemony itself is not problematised enough, and finally, the influence of marginal and subordinated positions on the hegemonic masculinity is not problematised (Demetriou, 2001). Therefore, throughout the years, critical men and masculinities scholars introduced other conceptualisations of masculinities, for example, caring masculinity (Elliott, 2015; Hanlon, 2012), inclusive masculinity (Anderson, 2009, 2013; Anderson & McGuire, 2010), and toxic masculinity (Kupers, 2005), which reflect the diversity of men and their positions in society to a larger extent. Another such concept is hybrid masculinity, which is especially useful in theoretical attempts aimed at capturing the phenomena of migrants’ masculinities. Hybrid masculinity is defined as a type of gender identity where some elements of subordinated and or marginalised masculinities, along with some ‘feminine’ traits and practices, are selectively incorporated into dominant male identities and practices (Arxer, 2011; Bridges & Pascoe, 2014; Demetriou, 2001; Messerschmidt, 2010; Messner, 2007). The hybrid masculinity framework refers mostly to young, white, heterosexual men who occupy privileged positions in their societies. For some authors, hybrid masculinity exemplifies a progressive type of male gender identification that incorporates non-hegemonic and non-traditional elements of identity and thus deconstructs particular forms of masculinities. For the majority of scholars, however, hybrid masculinity, in its contemporary form at least, lacks emancipatory potential as it in fact reproduces existing gender orders and does not undermine gender inequalities. Rather, hybrid masculinity functions to maintain strategic elements of hegemonic masculinity (Bridges, 2014).

In light of this variety in conceptualisations of contemporary masculinity, the influence of migration on how one’s masculinity is constructed and performed seems to be a promising and worthwhile research area. Among adolescent migrants and young adults, different visions of masculinities and gender roles are important factors contributing to their general adaptation. These differing understandings influence how young men spend their free time, make friends and are accepted within their peer groups. Schools and colleges are particularly important arenas of displaying hierarchies of masculinity (Connell, 2000; Heinrich, 2013). On the one hand, certain approaches to masculinity that do not fit into a hegemonic model can impede migrants’ adaptation and lead to ostracism or marginalisation regarding their gender identity. On the other hand, these differences may be used to evade gender norms that are oppressive or inconvenient and may foster more progressive models of masculinity. In other words, migration may increase individual agency in the domain of gender roles by demonstrating possibilities of acting independently from certain social constraints. Keeping in mind that human actions are results of both structural conditions and agency, we aim in this paper to demonstrate both tendencies, and to explore the way masculinity intersects with other aspects of identity.

Methodological approach and data

This paper is based on 17 narrative biographical interviews conducted between 2010 and 2012 for Trąbka’s doctoral study, entitled Reconstructed identity: The influence of migration on third culture kids’ biographies (2014). The term third culture kids refers to a specific category of serial migrants: people who have experienced multiple international migrations in their childhood and/or youth due to their parents’ international career. They are often portrayed as growing up in a multicultural environment and are well-educated and privileged in terms of socioeconomic status (Cottrell, 2002; Useem & Downie, 1976). Although the term third culture kids is difficult to use as an analytical notion (Tanu, 2015), it may be useful as a sensitising concept (Blumer, 1954; Trabka, 2015). This qualitative study was devoted to the process of identity (re)construction in the context of serial migration in subjects’ developmental years (all participants moved during their schoolyears and afterwards).

Taking into account the dynamic, processual and subjective character of identity construction, the interpretative approach was chosen. The data were gathered in line with a constructivist version of grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006). Interviewees were sampled purposely to include people varying in terms of gender, age, parents’ profession and nationality. The most important criterion was the experiences of international mobility (at least two moves) in childhood and youth (for at least three years). In order to gain a profound insight into the interviewees’ personal experiences in the context of subsequent migrations, the method of narrative interview was applied (Schütze, 2008). In total, 53 interviews were conducted personally by Trąbka in Polish or English. Although neither gender nor masculinities were the central focus of the abovementioned project, in some interviews these issues played a prominent role. Thus, for this paper, 17 interviews with men (out of the total 53) were re-coded and re-analysed with particular emphasis on the process of constructing gender identity and masculinity over the course of mobile lives. The cases selected for the in-depth analysis here were supposed to reflect both differences (in terms of nationality, ethnicity and countries of residence) and similarities (based on the experience of mobility and international background) among TCKs. It should be highlighted that although the hybridisation of masculinity in the context of migration was a common phenomenon in the sample, it did not concern everybody.

As qualitative research is a ‘situated activity that locates the observer in the world’ (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p. 3) researcher’s particular characteristics (such as ethnicity, class, gender, etc.) may influence the relationship between an interviewer and interviewees. In this case, the fact that the researcher was neither a migrant nor TCK herself put her in the position of an outsider, to whom the mobile experience must be explained. Although questions related to masculinity were not the central interest of this study, gender dynamics could be observed in the research process, for example, in the way interviewees displayed their masculinity. However, in order to understand the role of gender in the interviews, we should not concentrate solely on gender. Instead, we should see how it intersects with other characteristics, such as class or ethnicity (Pini, 2005). Thus, in the case of this study, the researcher’s female gender coupled with her Polish ethnicity meant that she did not represent the dominant culture that was often the reference point for interviewees. This enabled them to openly discuss complex issues regarding their masculinities. Generally, in this particular research context, statuses connected to mobility and ethnicity turned out to be pivotal in shaping the relationship between the researcher and participants.

Migrants’ life stories

Philipp’s story

Philipp is a US citizen.¹ His father works as a manager of international schools, and for this reason Philipp’s family moved every couple of years during his childhood. Philipp was born in the US, and moved to Romania, Japan and Peru before coming back to the US on his own for college. He describes himself as an introverted intellectual and says his childhood and youth were often lonely. Several factors contributed to this image. Firstly, the life of migrating families produces a particular kind of family dynamic. Because families move without other relatives, intra-familial bonds are often very close, and there are no alternative sources of support or role models for children, such as other relatives or friends. Philipp’s father worked a lot, so Philipp spent most of his time with his mother. Philipp explicitly says that he lacked interaction with his father and with peers:

My opinion was that I just didn’t have strong role models. I had my dad and my mom, who were and still are awesome, but I was the big brother, I had two younger brothers. I didn’t really have any strong, male role models besides my dad. And my dad is very studious – he runs a school, he’s an academic. He doesn’t do sports, he reads books and it’s hard to have any father-son time, if he just reads books all the time. I think what I really needed was some other male friends, my age, to show me how to be a young man – how to talk to girls, how to be confident, even how to go to the gym. My dad couldn’t really do any of these things – he didn’t go to the gym, he was terrible at talking to girls, he was just really good at reading books. So I became good at reading books too, but not interacting with people. After moving around so much and losing my friends over and over again, I started thinking: ‘What am I doing wrong?’. It made me think: ‘There must be something wrong with me, if I can’t make friends, I can’t get a girlfriend or interact with others. There must be something wrong, but I just don’t know what it is’. Looking back now I know it was because I had no strong male examples.

In Philipp’s case his family’s dynamics intersected with their serial migration. The second reason for his loneliness and problems in youth he claimed was his personality. Due to his introversion and anticipated fear of losing friends when he moved, he had difficulties meeting new people and making friends. It is important to notice that these issues appeared as a problem to Philipp in adolescence and, especially, upon repatriation to the US. Comparing himself to his peers in college made him realise that he lacked important social skills strongly associated with both traditional masculinity and with being successful. Foley (1990) has demonstrated that school and peer group life is a social setting where manhood is enacted and gender order is created and reinforced. Hegemonic masculinity, at the top of hierarchy, is based upon being good at sports, successful with girls and popular at parties – the very skills that Philipp lacks. Consider how he describes his repatriation for college:

They all had driver’s licenses since they were 16 and I had never driven a day in my life. I didn’t have a car, I didn’t drink alcohol, I didn’t know American TV or American music. I only knew a few American movies and they were really old. Pretty soon I realized that I didn’t know how to talk to these people at all. I would be very sweet and polite, like: ‘How are you? That’s wonderful’, but often that was it, so I was just this nice guy who lived in lots of places. But it was definitely a culture shock. Again, I did very well with my studies, but socially I was a disaster. No good friends, I wasn’t friends with my roommates, no girlfriend, no nothing. That’s why I was still depressed for the first two years.

In the following part of Philipp’s life story, he can be seen to be constructing an alternative self-image as a man, negotiating this image with himself and his social environment so that it becomes a part of his identity and a source of self-confidence. In this process he turned to non-hegemonic masculinities. First, he discovered theatre. He joined a small theatre group in college and started to perform, which helped him to relate to his peers and gave him a sense of agency:

So I came out of my shell and realized that I was a leader, I know how to lead, get things done. Once I started doing things, I realized that all this TCK² stuff – moving, loneliness – doesn’t matter that much. What matters is doing something that makes you happy. Your identity will come from those things. You’re not anchored to the bad things that happened in the past. But we only realize that as we get older.

At the same time, Philipp changed his perception of his family heritage and began to follow in his father’s footsteps. He became a resident coordinator, supervising younger students in a dormitory and organising social and educational events:

So for whatever social skills he didn’t give me, he gave me a lot of leadership skills and academic skills. And I think it’s a good trade, because it serves me more in life to be good at my job and to be good with people, rather than to be socially amazing. I don’t have this need to be social all the time, or the need to be funny, this need to be amazing, like: ‘Look at me, I’m fascinating! Look at me, I’m wearing cool fashion’. (…) Seeing him as the boss, hearing people talk about him as the boss, it made me think: ‘Hey, I could do that too’. I like to read too, we both speak the same way. We have similar mannerisms, we even look very similar. So his example has always encouraged me and shown me that it’s all possible.

Despite the abovementioned changes, Philipp still distances himself from mainstream masculine roles and patterns. He stresses that he is an intellectual type of leader, not an ‘aggressive’ one, and that he is not following a career path typical in the US. By the time he finished college his parents came back to the US and he moved in with them:

In America young men are expected to go out and make a career pretty soon after college. (…) If you get a job straight after college, get an apartment, have a career – you’re top dog, that’s great. If you don’t need to go back to your parents – that’s really attractive. In America being no. 1 and being a winner is a big thing. You’ve probably noticed it – Americans are very competitive. It’s an American attitude.

In sum, we can see the evolution in Philipp’s attitude towards his own masculinity. At first, he seems lost and confused due to his lack of role models, which in his perception would have helped him to fit in within dominant masculinity patterns. He then aspires to the hegemonic masculinity represented by his peers in high school and college. Finally, he distances himself from this dominant pattern, and accepts the non-hegemonic masculinity represented by his father. This evolution is connected firstly with life-span changes (isolation in his peer group representing hegemonic masculinity in adolescence and later on) and with his social and cultural environment. On the one hand, American culture appears to be the most demanding as far as hegemonic masculinity is concerned. On the other hand, however, a rather privileged social status facilitates the construction and performance of other models of masculinity.

Mateusz’s story

Mateusz was born in Poland and at the age of six he moved with his mother, a medical doctor, to Norway. His parents were divorced and he had no contact with his father, both before migration and subsequently. His mother decided to take the opportunity to work in Norway, a country which, in the 1980s, appeared to be a land of abundance in comparison with communist Poland. Mateusz started to attend school in Norway and adapted rather quickly, without major academic problems. However, he mentions difficulties in finding a ‘real friend’. In high school he went for two years to Great Britain to attend an international boarding school, before coming back to Norway for a while, and finally moving to Australia for college.

There, for the first time, issues of masculinity and gender relations began to bother him:

I could not understand that, even women did not see that they are discriminated against. They tried to demonstrate it to us in college, at the classes on media, on representations of sport in media. They gave us sport pages of the newspaper and asked ‘does anything strike you in this paper?’ Others were: ‘No, nothing’. And I immediately said: ‘Where is female sport?’ There was nothing about it, nothing at all. There was one article, or rather short paragraph, 10 lines, a small frame about Sharapova’s skirt. You know, in five newspapers. And then there was a question: ‘Do you watch female sport at all?’ And even girls were like: ‘Nooo, female sport is so boooring!’

Being socialised in a country that values gender equality and more inclusive models of masculinity, Mateusz could not fit in to the Australian model of hegemonic masculinity, a masculinity associated with strength, domination, heterosexuality and power. He mentions some situations in everyday life when, due to his way of being, he was called ‘gay’ and it was meant to be offensive (although he himself did not perceive it as such):

For example, there was terrible homophobia there, everybody was so macho! For example, my jeans were tighter, because in Europe they were already in fashion. And those guys in rugby t-shirts or something were shouting at me from the other side of the street: ‘Hey, you fuckin’ puffta!’. And at the beginning I was wondering: ‘What’s going on here?’ I am not a gay, nor … And then I realized … oh, my trousers! (laughter). Or leather shoes … 

Being brought up in Norway, Mateusz internalised a non-hegemonic form of masculinity and distanced himself from the masculinity that appeared dominant among his Australian peers. This became an important plot in Mateusz’s life in Australia and continued to be significant when he arrived back in Poland, several years after college:

At first, at the beginning I was just a tourist, I was Norwegian. But I spoke Polish, so I had the best from both worlds – I had freedom of a tourist, I did not see all these social norms [including gender norms, what is proper and what is not]. Because these norms … Norms! Norms! Norms! Finally, I’ve learnt them and now I can purposefully fight them!

Mateusz sees his (declarative) engagement in fostering gender equality as a way to ‘do something good’ for Poland and make it a better place. However, the abovementioned norms apply also to the Polish relationship model (a traditional, patriarchal one) resulting in difficulties in finding a partner:

I somehow doubt that I will be with a Polish girlfriend, really. Maybe I will find one who is really liberated. But the thing is that now it is the first generation, who liberates from all these norms and expectations. Expectations from a family and from a society, like ‘Why you don’t have a husband yet?’ ‘Why you don’t have kids?’, ‘You have to go the church’ etc.

Mateusz’s stereotyping Polish women as not ‘enlightened’ enough indicates some sense of superiority as well as sheds doubts on his caring and inclusive attitude. Additionally, this paragraph illustrates the broader phenomenon of migrant difficulties in finding partners within a receiving country, due to different ideas around gender roles seen as either too traditional or vice versa. For example, women coming to Poland from Western Europe or Canada highlighted, on the one hand, the courteous attitude of Polish men towards women. However, on the other hand, they emphasised the very traditional, patriarchal vision of gender roles in a relationship (Wojnicka & Młodawska, 2011). At the same time, some women from Poland or the Ukraine who have dated German or Dutch men have perceived certain aspects of equality, such as sharing the bill in a restaurant or maintaining separate bank accounts, as demonstrating a lack of commitment (Trabka, 2014, pp. 99–100). Mateusz’s case demonstrates how an internalised model of gender roles may impede adaptation to a new country, leading to a sense of being out of place. Yet, his case also indicates that being an outsider can make it easier to evade or negotiate traditional gender roles.

Divank’s story

Divank was born in Washington, DC. His father, a US citizen, worked in a US government department dealing with foreign aid. His mother, who is Indonesian, worked as an English teacher. Due to his father’s job, the family moved every four to five years. When Divank was two years old they moved to Fiji, and following this the family also lived in Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka. When Divank was about 15 they came back to the US. Like Philipp, Divank attended mostly international schools, with a high percentage of non-American students. He appreciated the ethnic and cultural diversity of these schools, as well as the values of tolerance and openness promoted there, claiming that these values had an important influence on his attitude. Again, as with Philipp, the experience of repatriation was more difficult to him than any preceding move:

As soon as we came to Washington DC I was put into this Catholic school. I have nothing against religion at all, but this environment of very socially conservative people, all boys. I was interested in music, I wasn’t interested in sports. I also happen to be gay, so I was discovering these gay feelings around that age as well, at the time of my repatriation. So I felt extremely alienated from my surroundings.

American high school turned out to be a homogenous environment, characterised by the abovementioned models of hegemonic masculinity, in which Divank did not fit. Divank did not know American culture very well, he did not like sport, he did not share his peers’ interests and he was gay. His sexual orientation, that he began to discover during his adolescence and at the time of repatriation, intersected with his being half-American and half-Indonesian as well as with his previous experiences of mobility. The alienation he mentions stems from the fact that he did not feel as if he belonged to any social category. To make the experience of re-adaptation even worse, his parents did not accept his non-heterosexual orientation. He still perceives this as a turning point in his life:

And I really had this sense of belonging to my family, because that was the one constant, throughout my whole life. So when I came out to my parents and they didn’t accept me, I immediately felt this break, this loss of belonging with them. And I already didn’t feel that with the surrounding culture, or city, or country, or school. So I felt like: ‘Ok, I really don’t need these people – I’m going to find my own people’. And I think from that moment on, it set off this longing to belong somewhere, that I’m still experiencing to this day. That moment when I had my coming out and the repatriation at the same time, it was extremely significant for me – in shaping who I am as an adult right now. But I’m still dealing with the repercussions of that.

After rebellious years in high school, Divank moved to another city to study composition. He travelled a lot, experiencing new places and meeting new people. After college he moved several times within the US, looking for a place to settle down, but he did not feel ‘at home’ anywhere. Professionally, he was not following any particular career path, working as a graphic designer, and in the music industry among other jobs. Throughout this time in the US, he had a persistent feeling of not fitting in and an ambivalent attitude to society: ‘I am different and I don’t care what you say’. Divank’s childhood experiences, and his feelings of foreignness, contributed to his tendency to interact mainly with other migrants, foreigners or TCKs:

You develop your identity based on context; I’ve changed my context so much and this is why I have to find a concept of who I am basing on that – that is the TCK identity. So I hang out with these people, but I don’t feel like I belong with the TCKs either. Maybe because I’m gay or maybe it’s just something that follows me around no matter what. But what I share with the TCKs is something that I don’t share with other people, who have grown up in one place – it’s as simple as that. And it’s so nice to have some people that understand, without me having to explain everything.

Even among people with similar experiences, Divank still feels different. On the basis of Divank’s story we can see how several factors intersect and cause difficulties in constructing a coherent sense of identity. The first of these factors is ethnicity and coming from mixed marriage, the second is sexual orientation and the last is the mobile childhood that uprooted Divank from the US. It is little wonder that he felt most at ease with people who had similar experiences to his, or at least a similar sense of being ‘marginal’.

Hybridisation of migrant masculinities

All the cases described above demonstrate that the experiences of migration have a significant impact on gender identity development. In each particular case, serial relocations impacted the ways in which the research participants perceived masculinity as a general concept, and shaped their personal strategies in constructing their own masculinities. Moreover, despite variations in the subjects’ experiences, ethnicities, family settings, and sexual and racial identities, one can identify a number of common traits that characterised each subjects’ process of re/constructing their gender identities. The most pivotal is the persisting presence of hegemonic masculinity in all analysed cases. For each of the men, this particular notion had been a reference point in their search for identity, although each chose a different approach in response to it. Of all the participants discussed, Philipp seems to value this type of identity the most. Through the course of the interview, he referred to his inability to internalise the most pivotal elements of hegemonic masculinity. He attributes this difficulty to a set of factors including his emotionally absent father who did not display the characteristics of hegemonic masculinity, his lack of a peer group in which the internalisation of traditional masculine traits could be reinforced, and his lack of familiarity with American culture in which, he believed, this type of masculinity is especially valued. Due to these factors, Philipp never identified himself with a hegemonic image of masculinity, and at some point he managed to internalise and accept a different type of masculine identity. However, unlike in the two remaining cases, he seems to regret that the specificity of his migration experience prevented him from reaching this ideal. He appears to view his current identity as a sort of compromise that he needed to accept eventually.

Philipp’s perception of hegemonic masculinity contrasts with Mateusz’s and Divank’s. Although this notion is present in both Mateusz’s and Divank’s discourses on gender roles and identities, both have reached the point where they have (cautiously) rejected this type of masculinity. In Mateusz’s case, it was migrating to Norway, one of the most ‘gender equal’ countries in the world³ that most profoundly influenced his personal quest to deconstruct hegemonic masculinity. The non-hegemonic character of Divank’s gender identity is predominantly linked with both his non-heterosexual orientation and with his non-white racial identity. A cursory analysis suggests that the masculine identity internalised by Mateusz fits with an inclusive masculinity framework (he rejected the homophobic discourse popular among his Australian peers) or with a caring masculinity framework (he cares about gender equality and tries to foster it in Poland). Divank’s identity might be seen to be a form of marginalised masculinity. However, a more in-depth investigation reveals resonances with the other type of masculine identity. Detailed analysis of the discourses and perceptions of the research participants demonstrate that in fact all three of them represent variants of hybrid masculinity. As already mentioned, Philipp’s hybrid masculinity might be seen as a sort of compromise, made when he realised his inability to internalise the hegemonic ideal. Philipp resigned from attempts to achieve the traditional ‘American blueprint for manhood’⁴ (Brannon & David, 1976) and instead internalised characteristics of other masculinities such as a ‘soft’ leadership style. Nevertheless, in doing so, he did not necessarily challenge the ideal of hegemonic masculinity as such. His case proves that ‘the emergence of hybrid masculinities indicates that normative constraints are shifting but that these shifts have largely taken place in ways that have sustained existing ideologies and systems of power and inequality’ (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014, p. 247).

The hybridity of Mateusz’s masculinity is characterised by the fact that the non-hegemonic elements of his masculine performance seem to be rather declarative and are predominantly expressed through his style and discourse rather than in his actual social practices. Mateusz declares that he cares about gender equality but does not mention any type of social activism or everyday practices that he has undertaken to change patriarchal society, either in Australia or in Poland. Moreover, he does not contest the gender order and dominant power relations that he is engaged in. He limits his quest for gender equality to the criticism of not only other men but also women’s views and perceptions, without reflecting on the habitus and their position in society. Therefore, his hybrid masculinity represents some variations in the expression of systems of power and inequality, but does not aspire to change them (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014; Demetriou, 2001; Messerschmidt, 2010; Messner, 2007).

Finally, the least obvious version of hybrid masculinity can be observed in Divank’s case. He is a non-heterosexual, non-white man who rejected the ideals of hegemonic masculinity at an early stage of his life. However, similar to Philipp and Mateusz, he does not recognise the privileges that are linked to his class identity. Unlike the majority of migrants, all three research participants have significant economic, social and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1996) that enable them to change their locations and professions freely, and allow them to search for the places where they will be able to cultivate the lifestyles that they have chosen. Moreover, all three seem to concentrate on their own personal tensions (and costs) with regard to masculinity and gender relations, omitting the broader picture where their masculinity and class identification still gives them a number of privileges unavailable to the majority of migrants. Therefore, even Divank’s masculinity can be defined as hybrid, whereby non-hegemonic elements of his identity (non-normative sexuality and race) are ‘enriched’ by hegemonic elements (social class). As Bridges and Pascoe have pointed out, ‘ … young, straight, White men are not the only ones with hybrid masculinities. Research also illustrates the ways that groups of marginalized and subordinated. Others craft hybrid gender identities – though often with very different consequences and concerns’ (2014, p. 249).

Concluding remarks

This paper aimed to analyse how the transnational mobility of young people influences the process of constructing gender identity in general, and creating/performing one’s masculinity in particular. To this end, we analysed three case studies with a focus on young men’s discourses regarding their adolescence and early adulthood. There appeared to be three main aspects which play a significant role in the process of masculinity formation among serial migrants, who moved internationally in their childhood. It appears, in line with other research, that the school environment is an important milieu, where masculinities are enacted and reproduced. Changes in cultural contexts, and thus experiences with different peer groups, play a pivotal role in the formation of gender identity, often resulting in the formation/performance of non-mainstream forms of masculinity. Different cultures and societies construct gender differently (Connell, 1995, p. 10). For migrants, different ideas of masculinity and gender roles are important factors contributing to their general adaptation, as they are associated with how migrants spend their free time, make friends or are accepted within their peer group. Therefore, on the one hand, perspectives on gender can impede migrants’ adaptation, but on the other hand, migrants may sometimes evade oppressive social norms claiming that in their country of origin they internalised different models (though this ‘liberating’ aspect was more often mentioned by women).

However, in spite of the abovementioned differences, the inherence of hegemonic masculinity, even as a discursive figure, seems to be the main reference point for young migrant men in their search for gender identity. Across various cultural settings, this type of identity is always taken under consideration in the process of individual masculinities formation. Finally, despite different experiences, nationalities, family settings and sexual and racial identities, hybrid masculinity seems to be a common trait that characterised each research participant’s process of re/constructing their gender identity. This particular type of masculinity can thus be seen as a typical form of gender identity representative of young, middle class, migrant men.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Agnieszka Trabka is a psychologist and sociologist working at the Institute of Applied Psychology at Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Her research interests encompass migration and mobility studies, cultural psychology, identity construction (especially in the context of migration) as well as qualitative research methods. She holds an MA in psychology (2003) and sociology (2006) and PhD in sociology (2013). Her dissertation was dedicated to biographical consequences of migration in childhood.

Katarzyna Wojnicka earned a PhD in Sociology from Jagiellonian University in Poland. She is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Katarzyna has extensively published on the nexus of critical men and masculinities studies and European studies. She is author of the scientific blog Dr. K & the men.

Notes

1. Participants have been anonymised.

2. Third Culture Kids (TCK) is a term describing people moving internationally in their developmental years with their parents due to their parent(s)’ job. Usually it refers to children of diplomats, military personnel, employees of international companies or schools. The term proved to be a very attractive label applied by expatriates’ children, especially in international schools, mainly in the USA and some of the multicultural Asian metropolises, but it is rarely used in academia.

3. In the Global Gap Gender Index 2016, Norway is ranked as the third most gender equal country in the world while Poland is placed at the 38th position.

4. According to their theory a ‘real man’ cannot do ‘sissy stuff’ and must distance himself from femininity. He should be ‘a big wheel’ and strive for success at any price. He must act like ‘a sturdy oak’ and be independent. Last but not least he should ‘give ’em hell’, in other words he should act aggressively and dominate others.