From ‘difference’ to complexity in men and masculinity studies: exploring research methods

Abstract

The subject of this article is a critical view on methodology when researching ‘difference’ in men and masculinity studies. My concern is the risk of (re)producing the same differences that we in our research aim to challenge. I argue for a complexity perspective that implies a challenge to substantiate the messiness of realities through our methods. Using a research project of fatherhood among ‘ethnic minority’ men in Norway as the starting point, I ask how we can research ‘difference’ without (re)producing dichotomies and discuss this question by exploring my own research method. I argue that reflecting on method is a way to move from ‘difference’ to complexity in our research, and call for more contributions from men and masculinity scholars on this methodological issue.

Keywords:

• complexity
• method
• qualitative interviews
• intersectionality
• ethnicity
• fatherhood

Notes on contributor

Anette Schjerpen Hoel is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, Norwegian University of Technology and Science (NTNU). She has a BA Journalism (UQ, Australia) and a MA Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture (NTNU, Norway). Her field of research is men and masculinities, ethnicity, fatherhood and gender equality. She has hitherto published one book chapter about the ‘fathers quota’ in multicultural Norway (Hoel, 2013) and one article on cultural hybridisation in fatherhoods (Hoel, 2014).

Notes

1. I use quotation marks to signal that ‘ethnic minority’, as well as ‘race’, are active processes of marginalization and racialization that are at work in designating certain attributes of groups in particular contexts as being in a minority (Brah, 1996; Gunaratnam, 2003, p. 17).

2. This approach is a mix of what McCall (2005) describes as anticategorical and intracategorical complexity. An anticategorical approach views categories as problematic because they are reductionist, exclusionary and establish hierarchies. An intracategorical approach agrees with this critique, however, it also argues for the use of categories as examples of stable and lasting relations of power.