Crip Theory and Country Boys: Masculinity, Dis/Ability, and Place in Rural Southeast Kansas

Abstract

This article examines the discursive and material practices of rural masculinity in Southeast Kansas by foregrounding ability and place as essential in understanding gender. It draws on empirical data gathered from autoethnographic participant-observer research conducted in the region. I begin with a synopsis of critical studies on masculinity in the field of human geography and proceed by offering a summary of research specifically addressing rural masculinities. I then illustrate contrasting perspectives surrounding dis/ability as a concept and also provide an in-depth overview of crip theory. I next describe the research context and methods utilized during the project, as well as how men use their bodies as conduits through which cultural norms pertaining to “manhood” are expressed, affirmed, and reproduced. My results demonstrate how situated assertions of masculinity are inextricably linked to ability, (hetero)sexuality, and sociospatial context, as well as how the pervasive yet veiled pressures of heteronormativity and compulsory able-bodiedness and able-mindedness impose banal and strictly policed social boundaries in regard to belonging and inclusion. The piece is thus a “cripping” of hegemonic notions of manhood in rural Southeast Kansas suggesting that both ability and place are necessary constituent elements for any critical analysis of masculinity.

本文透过强调能力与地方作为理解性别的关键, 检视堪萨斯东南部的乡村男子气概的论述与物质实践。本文运用在该区域从事自我民族志及参与式观察研究所搜集的经验数据。我首先概要人文地理学领域中的男子气概的批判研究, 接着提供特别处理乡村男子气概的研究摘要。我随后描绘围绕在能力／残疾的概念之对立观点, 并提供打残理论的深刻综述。接下来, 我将描述研究脉络和本计画运用的方法, 以及人们如何应用自身的身体作为导管, 而关乎“男子气概”的文化常规便是以此进行表达, 确认并再生产。我的研究结果显示情境化的男子气概主张, 如何与能力, （异性恋）性向和社会空间脉络相互纠结, 以及异性恋常规与强迫性的有能力的身体与心灵的普遍但隐蔽的压力, 如何在归属与包容上施加平庸且严格警备的社会边界。本文因此是个“打残”堪萨斯东南部乡村中的男子概念之霸权概念, 主张能力和地方同为任何对男子气概的批判分析所需的组成元素。

Este artículo examina las prácticas discursivas y materiales de la masculinidad rural en la Kansas del Sudeste, destacando la capacidad y el lugar como esenciales para entender el género. El artículo se apoya en datos empíricos derivados de investigación autoetnográfica de observador–participante llevada a cabo en la región. Empiezo con una sinopsis de estudios críticos de masculinidad en el campo de la geografía humana y procedo ofreciendo un resumen de la investigación que específicamente aboca las masculinidades rurales. Después ilustro las perspectivas de contraste que rodean la in/capacidad como concepto y suministro también una revisión a profundidad de la teoría de la incapacidad física. Luego describo el contexto de la investigación y los métodos utilizados durante el proyecto, lo mismo que sobre la manera como los hombres usan sus cuerpos como los canales a través de los cuales expresan, afirman y reproducen normas culturales propias de la “hombría”. Mis resultados demuestran el modo como los asertos situados de masculinidad están inextricablemente ligados con la capacidad, la (hetero)sexualidad y el contexto socioespacial, lo mismo que la manera como las presiones ubicuas, aunque veladas de la heteronormatividad y la obligatoria capacidad física y mental imponen límites sociales banales y estrictamente policíacos en relación con pertenencia e inclusión. El artículo es entonces un “incapacitorio” de nociones hegemónicas de la hombría en la Kansas del Sudeste rural que sugiere que tanto la capacidad como el lugar son elementos constitutivos necesarios en cualquier análisis crítico de la masculinidad.

Key Words:

• crip theory
• critical disability studies
• health geography
• masculinity
• rural geography

关键词：:

• 打残理论
• 批判残疾研究
• 健康地理学
• 男子气概
• 乡村地理学。

Palabras clave:

• teoría de la incapacidad física
• estudios críticos de la incapacidad
• geografía de la salud
• masculinidad
• geografía rural

Acknowledgments

My most sincere gratitude to Angelita and Wesley for their continuing support and encouragement, as well as Nik Heynen for his affable guidance and acumen. I also extend deep appreciation to Elise Hjalmarson, Rachelle Hole, and the anonymous referees for their constructive comments and keen insights, as well as time and labor. Finally, I would like to thank the zapatistas, for hope.

Notes

1. I use the term dis/ability throughout the article to prompt readers to think about disability and ability simultaneously, as well as indicate the socially constructed natures, fluid boundaries, blurred continuums, varying notions, and inseparability of both, particularly in relation to each other.

2. All informants have been given aliases. The descriptor “men” appears not to perpetuate gendered essentialisms but rather because it is how participants self-identified.

3. Ethics approval for this research was issued on behalf of the University of British Columbia's Behavioural Research Ethics Board.

4. I deploy the term enabled here as well as throughout the rest of the article for two reasons: (1) to destabilize the normative status afforded to what are typically perceived to be (yet often neither critically nor consciously scrutinized) “able” bodies and (2) to signify that people are “disabled” not necessarily because the characteristics they engender are lacking or abject but rather because the (material and discursive) conditions in which they are placed are restrictive, repressive, and disabling. Put differently, using “enabled” draws attention to the fact that people who are deemed to be “normal,” “able-bodied,” “of sound mind,” and so on, generally, quite simply, have much easier and less taxing daily lives in relation to the built environments, cultural norms, political processes, and economic prospects they experience. Put another way, non-disabled people can readily be thought of as enabled because their way of being is often unwittingly catered to in terms of more comfortably navigating life, accessing services, and having their needs and even desires fulfilled.

5. In a concerted effort to ensure that I did not exclude anyone from the project who was gender variant or nonconforming, I used the phrase “identifies as a man” throughout recruitment. Despite the use of this inclusive phrasing that would have allowed for a range of people of differing genders to participate, all of those who volunteered were normative, cisgender “men.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Levi Gahman

LEVI GAHMAN is with the Department of Geography and Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago. E-mail: [email protected]. His current work focuses on the structural, cultural, spatial, and socio-psychological products of settler colonialism, masculinity, and neoliberalism, as well as the research areas of rural geography, radical pedagogy, anti-colonial feminist praxis, and struggles against capitalism.