Margin becoming centre: for a world-centred rethinking of masculinities

Abstract

Discussions of globalization and masculinity need to be reconsidered through a critical examination of the global economy of knowledge. Scholarship in the South is generally oriented to theories and methods developed in the global North. The coloniality of knowledge has ironically made it difficult to appreciate the coloniality of masculinity. There is a rich archive of accounts and analyses of masculinity from around the global South, in a variety of genres. These provide an important foundation for post-colonial thinking about masculinities. The formation of masculinities needs to be considered on a historical terrain including worldwide processes of conquest and social disruption, the building of colonial societies and a global economy, and post-independence globalization. A world-centred, rather than metropole-centred, domain of knowledge is possible, requiring rethinking of familiar concepts and methods in masculinity studies but opening new perspectives and new questions.

Keywords:

• masculinity
• coloniality
• post-colonial
• gender studies
• globalization
• southern theory
• knowledge

Acknowledgements

This article began as a keynote address to the Nordic Conference on Men and Masculinities in Reykjavik, June 2014. I am grateful to organizers and participants in this conference.

Notes on contributor

Raewyn Connell is Professor Emerita at the University of Sydney, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and one of Australia's leading social scientists. Her most recent books are Confronting Equality (2011), about social science and politics; Gender: In World Perspective (with Rebecca Pearse, 2014); and Southern Theory (2007), about social thought on a world scale. Her other books include Masculinities, Schools & Social Justice, Ruling Class Ruling Culture, Gender & Power, and Making the Difference. Her work has been translated into 18 languages. She has taught at universities in Australia, Canada and the USA, in departments of sociology, political science, and education. A long-term participant in the labour movement and peace movement, Raewyn has tried to make social science relevant to social justice. Details at website: www.raewynconnell.net

Notes

1. My own experience shows a variant of the pattern. I come from a settler-colonial country in the global periphery that is culturally and economically dependent, though comparatively rich (Connell, 2013). The research that gave rise to the concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ was done under the eucalyptus trees in Australian cities and originally published in Australia. The idea only gained attention, however, when it was published some years later in metropolitan journals and in the US and British editions of my books, and was then taken up in metropolitan debates. Many readers simply assumed that I was American. There is some excuse for them, as Gender & Power especially is strongly extraverted, in Hountondji's sense.