Research on men, masculinities and migration: past, present and future

As the ‘Men and Migration in Contemporary Europe’ conference (Wojnicka, 2016) took place at the Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg back in 2016, we were being bombarded with the media-frenzy around migrant men. This might have simmered down by 2019 in terms of volume, yet the framing has not been altered. Some examples include headlines such as ‘Many refugees walking across Europe are ‘fit young men looking for work’’ (Chorley, 2015) and ‘Why Britain should be worried by this flood of young male migrants’ (Afzal, 2016) in the Daily Mail, ‘Sex – mob in Cologne: Were the perpetrators really refugees?’ in Bild (Karkheck et al., 2016), ‘Abnormal number of young men a problem for Sweden’ in Göteborgs-Posten (Hudson, 2016), and ‘Migrants in Germany are getting more brutal’ (TVPinfo, 10 Apr. 2019).

Media discourses, fuelled by politicians of nationalist and populist persuasions, tend to portray all migrants – regardless of their origin – as male and dangerous (Wojnicka & Pustułka, 2017). In 2016, media coverage was at its peak and large groups of male refugees seeking asylum in Europe were photographed and exemplified threats of difference as non-white, unpredictable incomers from distant cultures. Their presence on the continent was associated with significantly contravening European ‘gender equality’ agenda and regimes. Such fears were conveyed not only by the media and politicians, but also by certain academics who shared this type of convictions (Hudson, 2016). Hence, the above-mentioned conference's primary goals were to engage in evidence-based discussions and empirical verifications of prejudice linked to male migrants. The conference and ensuing publications sought to widen the category of ‘migrant men’ by underlining that this group is far from homogeneous. In that sense, the organizers and involved scholars succeeded in re-opening the scholarly discussion concerning men, masculinities and migration processes.

Notably, the intersection of gender and mobility is not a new field, though it was formerly preoccupied by studies on the disadvantages and challenges faced by migrant women. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, complementary arguments emerged in regard to men. This is crucial in that, for many years, masculinity as an important factor influencing migration had been neglected. Drawing on the case of women, we know that femininity is not only redefined by migration – for instance when women become breadwinners and can renegotiate gender contracts. Also mobility – in itself – must be conceptualized differently when it is realized by women. Similarly, migration as a process influences the changes in defining, negotiating and performing masculinities, while male migrants create a myriad of migration forms. Stating that migration is a gendered and gendering process has conspicuous consequences for men, women and societies, with the notion of migrants’ sex preconditioning our reception of migratory flows.

The latter understanding helped to initialize a proper debate, and analysis of and research on the connections between male gender and migration, often adjusting the frameworks and dynamics of integration and/or transnationalism. From multiple angles, scholars examined migrant men in the context of labour markets, family transformations, as well as social problems such as domestic and sexual violence, youth criminality or culturally-specific crimes (Griffiths, 2015). Shortly after the inception of migrant masculinity research, the majority of projects understandably focused on one, specific ethnic group residing in a particular host society. In time, not only more comparative research on different groups and host countries emerged, but studies became more conceptually-driven and nuanced. By now, critical postcolonial and intersectional approaches are explicitly applied to the scholarly discussions and research (Wojnicka, 2019).

One of the milestones within this process was the publication of the edited volume entitled Migrant Men: Critical Studies of Masculinities and the Migration Experience (Donaldson et al., 2009) in which the editors not only brought together research on men and migration using approaches from critical men and masculinities studies, but – through covering issues such as class, race, ethnicity and citizenship not restricted to a national lens – they introduced an intersectional approach to the field. Another important contribution is the Special Issue of Men and Masculinities, edited by Helen Wray and Katharine Charsley entitled Migrant Men (2015) where the authors of several papers deliver analyses of the diverse experiences of migrant men from an interdisciplinary perspective. Last but not least, in 2017 the first part of this NORMA Special Issue on Men and Migration, the result of the above-mentioned conference, was published. The SI consisted of several articles, dealing with issues such as hybrid masculinity among third culture kids (Trąbka & Wojnicka, 2017), narratives of dangerous foreign masculinity (Scheibelhofer, 2017), relations between nature, space and masculinity of migrant men in the United States (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2017), the multiplicity of masculinities among Polish migrants in different parts of Europe (Bell & Pustułka, 2017), as well as analyses of transnational fatherhood (Souralova & Fialova, 2017). All papers demonstrated that migrant men cannot be treated as a homogeneous group. The main rationale behind this is of course linked to the intersectional matrix of social class, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, family situation, and many aspects that generate discrepant positionalities and outcomes of migrating men. On top of that, it is indispensable to ‘think transnationally’ about masculinities that are shaped by both the host societies and the sending countries.

From editing this double-volume special issue of NORMA, we can certainly encourage scholars to work in an interdisciplinary manner and not overplay the importance of one category or aspect of a group or individual. It is often the case that migration research over explain the social phenomena with mobility, even though it is usually just one event or trait in a longer sequence of significance. For example, the men's migrant status, usually, is not the most pivotal factor influencing their positions in society. Therefore, in a methodological context, there is a need for more advanced analytical tools which will allow for capturing the variety of migrant men's experiences and positionalities. One of such tools can be built around the inclusion of spatially intersectional perspective which posits that ‘(…) masculinities are intersectionally entangled with the question of power. A continuum of spatial freedoms within the geographies of masculinities, assumes that the experiences of men are not only gendered but also diverse with respect of marginalization and privilege’ (Wojnicka & Pustułka, 2017).

It needs to be underlined that an intersectional approach to space and masculinity seems to gain more recognition in the most recent research projects wherein (male) gender and migration are at the core of analyses. This particular approach is being used in the study on transnational single men conducted at the moment at Karlstad University by a group of researchers from Sweden, Italy and Germany. The investigation raises several questions with regard to the mobility, belonging, family and identity of several groups of single migrant men living in European countries. A similar approach, even if it is not as explicit, is also used in other research projects on masculinities and migration, which have been or currently are conducted in Europe. These include JUMEN, the German investigation on perceptions regarding gender and sexual diversity among young men with and without migration background can be singled out (JUMEN, 2019). Another project, conducted by the Bundesforum Männer from Berlin, was focused on the experiences and situation of male Syrian refugees that arrived to Germany in 2015 and 2016 (Dähnke, Linke & Spreckelsen, 2018). Last but not least, the issues regarding masculinities, migration and diversity are an intergral part of the research project currently conducted at the Centre for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) entitled ‘Friendship, partnership and family in the perception of young men and women with migration background in Germany’ (DeZIM, 2019).

Moving on to the articles constituting this second batch of the NORMA Special Issue on migrant men and masculinities, it should be stated that they continue the trends described above. An intersectional perspective, for one, can be detected in all three papers. In the first paper, written by Mehmet Bozok and Nihan Bozok, the daily struggle of undocumented young Afghan men in Turkey is presented. Basing on a qualitative research conducted in Istanbul in 2015, the authors analyse not only the dynamic of homosocial solidarity networks that have been created by the young migrants, but also the processes of negotiating masculinities, which have rather flexible character and depend on the social context. The paper provides analyses of three of them: household, labour market and the street, underlining the significance of space and different strategies of performing masculinities observable in each of the delineated spaces. Moreover, the authors focus on underlining the difference between positioning in relation to local and migrant masculinities, as the young migrants develop strategies of coping with power imbalance and inequalities that can be observed in this particular area.

The second paper, entitled ‘The ‘Mangetar Trap’? Work, family and Pakistani migrant husbands’, by Katharine Charsley and Evelyn Ersanilli, concentrates predominantly on the private sphere and family relations. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data, the authors present analyses of masculinities being negotiated by Pakistani migrants who came to the United Kingdom in order to marry. This type of migration, in itself, engenders a very specific dynamic of power, in which men's arrival is interjected with family and conditions their legal/ resident status on a particular vision of their standing as men. The authors not only address the position of these men in the host society – which are marked by perceptible and various (economic, legal, social, emotional) disadvantage and risk, but also focus on the power relations within the (newly) created families. The biographies of the respondents illuminate the consequences of the imbalance in that the lower economic capital is seen as more problematic for migrant men than for women. While women usually have a chance to fall back to traditional femininity through migration, this option is not available to men and their perceived underperformance of masculinity underpins their social position to a great extent and in a long run.

The last paper from this Special Issue, written by Kamila Fiałkowska, focuses on the Polish migrant men's masculinity negotiations. With the empirical material from biographical interviews conducted with migrants who moved from Poland to the UK after 2004, the author investigates the links between social class, (traditional) gender roles, religion and the influence of migration experiences that can be detected in the Polish diaspora. Fiałkowska uses an intersectional perspective to contribute to the discussion on how performances of masculinity and discourses around it can change when the creation and negotiation processes happen in new social spaces. In the research stream foregrounded above, Fiałkowska manages to not only account for socio-demographic and social class characteristics of men, but also underscores that these are always tied to the sending country as well, especially when it comes to the gender regimes.

Concluding this short introduction to the second part of the Special Issue, it can be said that a lot has been achieved in a short time since the interest in masculinity and migration had first been articulated. While part of it comes from the researchers feeling the need to counter anecdotal accounts that reinforce the dominant discourse about male migrants, the emerging cutting-edge research quickly covered ground when it comes to the multifaceted relationships between being a man and living on the move through an intersectional and joint lens of both migration and masculinity studies. With a lot of data, the time is ripe for more compressive theorizing and extending this type of research agenda and coverage to atypical male populations across receiving societies on the global scale. In certain ways, this must happen as we are coming in to another wave of mass-migration predicted in connection to the climate change. Research into climate migrants, whose mobility biographies exemplify power relations of global dominance and local consequences, can be seen as one of the upcoming agenda items. For this powerful topic, it is vital to retain the critical perspective that an intersectional approach to gender brings. Furthermore, again drawing on the studies dedicated to migrant women, it is paramount that the research does not become a ‘static picture’ but rather continues in a longitudinal way. While we have a good deal of information about men as migrants in specific age groups that are politicized, a generational perspective is needed. First, it is paramount to learn how the neighbouring generations – both the parents/fathers and the children/sons – of the current migrants will be affected by the mobility projects. A very poignant question is thus about the masculinities of 1.5 and second-generation migrants. This needs to be answered empirically, although research shows that, for women, both re-traditionalization and emancipatory effects of gender/migration interplay have been noted over time, little attention has been dedicated to migrant men and boys. Second, as time passes, a phase of replication for the existing studies should be envisioned so that the social changes that will inevitably come from the currently observed shifts in migrant masculinity can be captured and addressed by scholarly work.