HomeCall for Papers: Masculinities in Migration

Call for Papers: Masculinities in Migration

Appel à contributions : Masculinités en migration

Llamamiento para contribuciones: Masculinidades en la migración

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Published on Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Abstract

Building on the achievements of feminist approaches to migration, this call for papers invites contributions that place gender—masculinity—at the heart of their thinking. The aim of this thematic folder in preparation is to look beyond the figure of the “breadwinner” (a man who migrates to feed a family back home) in order to explore the plurality of masculinities that emerge in migration. This call for papers is open to contributions from a range of social science disciplines, dealing with a variety of historical and geographical contexts.

Announcement

Argumentation

Since the 1980s, feminist approaches on migration have shown that gender is at the heart of the migration process (Green, 2020; Morokvasic, 1984; Miranda, 1997; Barison and Catarino, 2001; Schmoll, 2024)[1]. Recalling that women migrate, and sometimes alone, this literature also invites us to “grasp gender” in the case of male mobility (Catarino and Morokvasic, 2005: 2). This invitation has been followed by works showing how migration can be a form of testing that brings out figures of masculinity: the “adventurer” (Bredeloup, 2008; Navarro, 2019; Pian, 2009) or the “valiant soldier” (Tyszler, 2020), who crosses borders. These figures, who take up the most common expressions of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1995)[2] and the attributes of virility (such as courage, endurance, perseverance), are part of approaches that conceive migration as a rite of passage. Migration provides the status of a man, capable of marrying and taking care of a family (Monsutti, 2005). This dimension renews with the figure of the “breadwinner”. In this thematic folder, we would like to extend these questions to understand how migration puts masculinities in tension, how it also sometimes generates masculinities experienced as hindered or prevented by a precarious administrative status (Aulanier, 2021; Chossière, 2022; Le Courant, 2022; Zougbédé and Le Courant, 2023) or by gendered forms of care (Vuattoux, 2021; Zougbédé, 2023). These analyses encourage us to cross gender and race[3] dimensions, in particular with the help of historians’ work (for example: Brun and Shepard, 2016; Shepard, 2018). Contributions may draw on the various traditions of migration studies that examine masculinities, and be based on surveys conducted in a variety of contexts (in space and time).

Masculinities are considered here in the plural: the idea is not to describe the masculinity of migrants. The aim is to show the different dynamics underlying both the production and expression of these masculinities, which are generated during interactions (West and Fenstermaker, 1995), and in uncertain social situations due to the multiple pressures on them (Gourarier, 2018). The construction of masculinity is linked to power relationships between men themselves, but also between men and women, according to different historical, social, cultural, geographical and political contexts. It is important not to lose sight of these dynamics in gender relations, so as not to reduce the analysis to an essentialization of the “migrant man”. This special issue looks at how migration reshapes the contours of masculinities. It is an opportunity to set a milestone in the French-language scientific literature and to take stock of the situation with regard to masculinities in migration, as has been done recently in German (Scheibelhofer and Schneider, 2021) or in English literature (Wojnicka and Pustułka, 2017, 2019).

In order to understand how migration affects gender—especially in relation to age, race, class and other social relations—this thematic folder focuses on three main non-exhaustive themes. We are open to contributions from different social science disciplines and from a variety of historical and geographical contexts/backgrounds.

Theme 1: Intimacy, Sexuality, Conjugality and Parenthood

The the day-to-day constraints of migrant life and the complex material situations have an impact on men’s plans for family life, living spaces, forms of cohabitation and intimate life.

As we are interested in the diversity of migratory situations, we expect contributions dealing with single men as with those living in couples or families. For example, family life could be approached through the prism of caring masculinities (Bergnehr, 2022; Stock, 2021). The shift towards care work within the family may in fact be due to difficulties in fulfilling the role of father as they saw it before migration, with some men suffering from seeing their image “tarnished” in the eyes of their children (Barou, 2009 and 2011; Delcroix, 2001). This care work also takes place at a distance, so we need to understand the effects of transnational parenthood and of belonging to a family collective at a distance (Grysole, 2020; Stock, 2021) on these men’s subjectivations.

In terms of conjugality and sexuality, migration raises questions about the choice of potential spouses: is it preferable to return home to marry or to look for a partner locally (Hannaford, 2015; Fidolini, 2020; Mbodj-Pouye and Le Courant, 2017)? In contrast, then, to the figure of the “breadwinner” (the migrant man who comes alone to feed his wife and children back home), this theme invites us to take account of the plurality of migratory situations and to integrate the dimensions of sexual identities and practices into our thinking on migration. We are also expecting contributions on privileged migrations showing, for instance, how the migration of men from the global North to the South can be motivated by the search for partners or spouses (Sizaire, 2024).

In fact, we encourage contributions that document both the phenomena of withdrawal into an unattainable ideal of conjugality and the tactics put in place to define oneself differently or to overcome the difficulties of forming a couple or entering into a union. It should be noted that, as far back as the 19th century, “proscribed people could be led, along the way and in their places of refuge, to withdraw into their private lives” (Diaz et al., 2020). Proposals dealing with historical contexts at different times, combining the history of intimacy and gender, would provide an opportunity to better grasp the way in which these withdrawals into family spaces reconfigure gender norms by modifying the “traditional” role of men.

Theme 2: Political and Media Treatment of Masculinities

This second theme looks at the ways in which institutions and the media perceive migrant men, ranging from hypersexualisation and infantilisation to their reduction to a mere workforce.

The reactions to the attacks on women on New Year’s Eve 2016 in Cologne were used as a pretext to denounce “Arab” or “Muslim” masculinity as inherently dangerous. European governments have also been able to use such framing to legitimise restrictive laws against exiles, as Scheibelhoffer (2017) has shown in the case of Austria. Contributions that focus on media and political discourse and on the way in which these fantasised visions of migrant men, and of a certain “ensauvagement” of social life (Bouamama, 2021), are gradually being enshrined in law would therefore be welcome. It would also be necessary to examine the historical foundations of these fantasies, particularly in colonial contexts (Shepard, 2018; Peiretti-Courtis, 2021).

Historical studies (Diaz, 2014) have also shown that in the nineteenth century, the administrative authorities looked positively at the fact that exiles devoted themselves to work and family life, and therefore did not represent a risk of disturbing public order. Contributions could therefore be envisaged that focus on the reception by migrants themselves of these discourses over the centuries, via newspapers, television and social networks, for example.

Finally, while research on vulnerability emphasises the gender-related achievements that women have to make in order to obtain protection from protection associations (Latouche, 2024), which consider vulnerability in relation to a caricatured and essentialised vision of “the woman”, what about men? Little research has focused on the representations that volunteers or social workers have of migrants’ masculinity, and the ways in which these influence their practices (Zougbédé, 2023).

Theme 3: Masculinities at Work

A great deal of work on migrant workers, starting with the classic texts by Sayad (1977, 1991 and 1997), focuses largely on men, without addressing this dimension head-on. Yet the work of Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) shows that, in addition to having a family, earning a wage is one of the positive contributions of hegemonic masculinity and, in this sense, a key dimension of ‘being a man”.

Following Tcholakova (2013), who ten years ago set out to open up “the study of the gendered dimension of the reworking of refugees” identities’, this theme calls for contributions on the importance of work in the subjectivations of migrant men. Articles on men’s search for “hard” jobs, their determination not to look for an easy solution and “not to give up”, so as not to have to depend on assistance (Puygrenier, 2024), are thus welcome, as they will provide an opportunity to analyse the way in which total investment in work (Le Courant, 2022) is also a strategy for “coping” with the professional or social downgrading that migration often entails.

The proposals in this theme will emphasise the idea that it is not only gender norms that constrain migrants’ experiences, but that migrants’ practices also help to renegotiate gender norms (Miranda, 2009), as well as an ideal of masculinity.

Submission Modalities

Abstract proposals may be written in French, English or Spanish, and should include the author’s affiliation, a proposed title and an abstract (1,000 words or 7,000 characters including spaces). They should clearly present the method, the data and the empirical and theoretical contribution of the article to the theme of the topical collection. They may come from any social science discipline and should be sent to audran.aulanier[at]gmail.com, emeline.zougbede[at]college-de-france.fr and adelina.miranda[at]univ-poitiers.fr

before February 1st, 2025.

Accepted papers can be written in French, English or Spanish.

For further details (standards, number of characters, presentation, etc.): https://journals.openedition.org/remi/5849

Calendar

  • Start of the call: December 1st, 2024
    Deadline to send abstracts and closure of the call
    : February 1st, 2025
    Selection and decision: March 1st, 2025
    Deadline to send articles: August 1st, 2025
    Peer-review
    Deadline to send articles in their latest version: February 1st, 2026
    Publication: September 2026

Selection Committee/Coordination

  • Audran Aulanier, Sociologist, Associated research fellow, CEMS (CNRS, EHESS, INSERM), Paris, France; and CERIES (Université de Lille); Fellow of the French Collaborative Institute on Migration
  • Emeline Zougbédé, Sociologist, Postdoctoral fellow, Université Paris Cité, CNRS, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, CERLIS, Paris, France; Fellow of the French Collaborative Institute on Migration
  • Adelina Miranda, Anthropologist, Professor, Université de Poitiers, CNRS, Migrinter, Poitiers, France; Fellow of the French Collaborative Institute on Migration

Contact

  • remi[at]univ-poitiers.fr

Bibliography

Aulanier Audran (2021) Composer avec une intimité déniée : demandeurs d’asile en France et en Allemagne – Habitabilité précaire, masculinité exclue, identité fragilisée, Genre, sexualité & société, 26, [en ligne]. DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/gss.6872

Barison Noellia et Catarino Christine (Dirs.) (1997) Les femmes immigrées en France et en Europe, Migrations Société, 9 (52), pp. 7-288.

Barou Jacques (2011) Les enfants « perdus » des demandeurs d’asile : désarrois parentaux et réactivité enfantine, Journal des Africanistes, 81 (2), pp. 145-162.

Barou Jacques (2009) Désarroi des parents, compassion des enfants, Rhizome, 4 (37), pp. 12-20.

Bergnehr Disa (2022) Adapted fathering for new times: refugee men’s narratives on caring for home and children, Journal of Family Studies, 28 (3), pp. 934-949.

Bouamama Saïd (2021) Du discours de l’« ensauvagement » à celui sur les « bandes » : la fabrique d’une demande sécuritaire, Contretemps, 17 mars.

Bredeloup Sylvie (2008) L’aventurier, figure de la migration africaine, Cahiers internationaux de sociologie, 125, pp. 281-306.

Brun Catherine et Shepard Todd (Éds.) (2016) Guerre d’Algérie. Le sexe outragé, Paris, Édition du CNRS.

Catarino Christine et Morokvasic Mirjana (2005) Introduction : Femmes, genre, migration et mobilités, Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 21 (1), pp. 7-27, [en ligne]. DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/remi.2534

Chossière Florent (2022) Minorités sexuelles et de genre en exil : l’expérience minoritaire à l’épreuve de la migration et de la demande d’asile en France, Thèse de doctorat en géographie, Paris, Université Paris 12.

Connell Raewyn (1995) Masculinities, Cambridge, Polity Press.

Connell Raewyn W. and Messerschmidt James W. (2005) Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept, Gender & Society, 19 (6), pp. 829-859.

Delcroix Catherine (2001) Ombres et lumières de la famille Nour, Paris, Payot.

Diaz Delphine (2014) Un asile pour tous les peuples ? Exilés et réfugiés étrangers dans la France au cours du premier XIXe siècle, Paris, Armand Colin.

Diaz Delphine, Durand Antonin et Sánchez Romy (2020) Introduction. L’exil intime. Familles, couples et enfants à l’épreuve de la migration contrainte au XIXe siècle, Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle, 61 (2), pp. 8-26.

Fidolini Vulca (2020) Heteromasculinities. Sexual Experiences and Transition to Adulthood among Young Moroccan Men in Europe, Men and Masculinities, 23 (2), pp. 242-265.

Gourarier Mélanie (2018) Raewyn Connell et la masculinité hégémonique, in Patrick Savidan Éd., Dictionnaire des inégalités et de la justice sociale, Paris, Presses universitaires de France.

Green Nancy L. (2020) Quatre âges des études migratoires, Clio. Femmes, Genre, Histoire, 51, pp. 185-206.

Griffiths Melanie (2015) “Here, Man Is Nothing!”: Gender and Policy in an Asylum Context, Men and Masculinities, 4 (18), pp. 468-488.

Grysole Amélie (2020) Fabriquer des enfants redevables. Pluriparentalité transnationale entre les États-Unis et le Sénégal, Revue des politiques sociales et familiales, 134, pp. 11-24.

Hannaford Dinah (2015) Technologies of the spouse: intimate surveillance in Senegalese transnational marriages, Global Networks, 15, pp. 43-59.

Latouche Alice (2024) Exilées sans refuge : l’impact de l’appropriation du lieu sur la vulnérabilité des femmes migrantes en Grèce, Thèse de doctorat en sociologie, Poitiers, Université de Poitiers.

Le Courant Stefan (2022) Vivre sous la menace : les sans-papiers et l’État, Paris, Seuil.

Mazouz Sarah (2020) Race, Paris, Anamosa.

Mbodj-Pouye Aïssatou and Le Courant Stefan (2017) “Living away from Family is not Good but Living with it is Worse”: Debating Conjugality across Generation of West African Migrants in France, Mande Studies, 19, pp. 109-130.

Miranda Adelina (2009) Migrations féminines et perspective de genre en question, NAQD, 26-27 (1-2), pp. 55-71.

Miranda Adelina (Dir.) (2001) Femmes italiennes en France. L’émigration féminine entre passé, présent et futur, Migrations Société, 13 (78), pp. 17-141.

Monsutti Alessandro (2005) La migration comme rite de passage : la construction de la masculinité parmi les jeunes Afghans en Iran, Cahiers Genre et Développement, 5, pp. 179-186.

Morokvasic Mirjana (1984) Birds of passage are also women, International Migration Review, 18 (68), pp. 886-907.

Navarro Cécile (2019) “The Soldier didn’t Run Away, He Went Looking for Strength”: Exploring Migration Imaginaries through Artistic Careers in Rap in Senegal, Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 35 (1-2), [online]. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/remi/13166

Pallilo Matteo (2019) Road to manhood: masculinity and vulnerability across the central Mediterranean migration route to Europe, Thèse de doctorat en sociologie, Londres, London Scholl of Economics.

Peiretti-Courtis Delphine (2021) Corps noirs et médecins blancs. La fabrique du préjugé racial, XIXe-XXe siècles, Paris, La Découverte.

Pian Anaïk (2009) Aux nouvelles frontières de l’Europe. L’aventure incertaine des Sénégalais au Maroc, Paris, La Dispute.

Puygrenier Lucas (2024) Les gens de trop : gouvernement des populations et mise au travail sur l’île de Malte, Thèse de doctorat en sociologie, Paris, Sciences Po Paris.

Sayad Abdelmalek (1997) Lien social, identité et citoyenneté par temps de crise, Sociétés & Représentations, 5 (2), pp. 107-128.

Sayad Abdelmalek (1991) L’immigration ou les paradoxes de l’altérité, Bruxelles, De Boeck-Wesmael.

Sayad Abdelmalek (1977) Les trois « âges » de l’immigration algérienne en France, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 15, pp. 60-79.

Scheibelhoffer Paul (2017) “It won’t work without ugly pictures”: images of othered masculinities and the legitimisation of restrictive refugee-politics in Austria, Norma, 12 (2), pp. 96-111.

Scheibelhoffer Paul und Matthias Schneider (Dirs.) (2021) Männlichkeit und Flucht zusammendenken, Z’Flucht, 5 (1), pp. 1-174.

Schmoll Camille (2024 [2020]) Women and Borders in the Mediterranean, London, Palgrave Macmillan.

Shepard Todd (2018) Sex, France, and Arab Men, 1962-1979, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.

Sizaire Laure (2024) « Migrer pour dominer ? L’expérience des hommes français dans les pays postsoviétiques au prisme de l’intimité et des régimes de genre », Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 40, pp. 127-147, [en ligne]. DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/12htz

Stock Myriam (2021) Verbindliche Männlichkeiten in Zeiten der Krise – junge geflüchtete Männer aus Syrien in transnationalen Familien, Zeitschrift für Flüchtlingsforschung, 5 (1), pp. 13-43.

Tcholakova Albena (2013) Ouvrier malgré soi : réfugié-e-s « reconnu-e-s » en France et en Bulgarie (début XXe siècle) », Clio, 38, pp. 163-179.

Tyszler Elsa (2020) Masculinités et féminités à la frontière maroco-espagnole : miroirs d’un contrôle migratoire racialisé et genré », Anthropologie & développement, 51, pp. 155-170.

Vuattoux Arthur (2021) Adolescences sous contrôle. Genre, race, classe et âge au tribunal pour enfants, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po.

West Candace and Fenstermaker Sarah (1995) Doing Difference, Gender and Society, 9 (1), pp. 8-37.

Wojnicka Katarzyna and Pustułka Paula (Dirs.) (2019) Men and Migration II, Norma, 14 (2), pp. 91-145.

Wojnicka Katarzyna and Pustułka Paula (Dirs.) (2017) Men and Migration, Norma, 12 (2), pp. 89-174.

Zougbédé Emeline (2023) Augurer du genre. L’ambivalence des rapports aux identités de genre et de sexe ethnoracialisées dans le travail social auprès de jeunes migrants, Revue des politiques sociales et familiales, 146-147 (1-2), pp. 97-112.

Zougbédé Emeline et Le Courant Stefan (Éds.) (2023) Masculinités en migration : (re)penser le genre masculin comme performance sociale, historique et culturelle, De Facto, 34.

Notes

[1] This call for papers was written with Stefan Le Courant (anthropologist, research fellow, CNRS, EHESS, INSERM, CEMS, Paris, France; Fellow of the French Collaborative Institute on Migration).

[2] “Hegemonic masculinity was understood as the pattern of practice […] that allowed men's dominance over women to continue. […] It embodied the currently most honored way of being a man, it required all other men to position themselves in relation to it, and it ideologically legitimated the global subordination of women to men” (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005: 832).

[3] There is no such thing as ‘race’ as a biological characteristic that distinguishes the human species. The term refers to historically and geographically situated social constructs: it ‘designates a hierarchical relationship in the same way as class or gender’ (Mazouz, 2020: 31).


Date(s)

  • Saturday, February 01, 2025

Keywords

  • masculinité, travail, migration, intimité, traitement médiatique, masculinitie, work, migrations, intimacy, media treatment, masculinidades, trabajo, migración, intimidad, tratamiento mediático

Contact(s)

  • Adelina Miranda
    courriel : adelina [dot] miranda [at] univ-poitiers [dot] fr
  • Emeline Zougbédé
    courriel : emeline [dot] zougbede [at] college-de-france [dot] fr
  • Audran Aulanier
    courriel : audran [dot] aulanier [at] gmail [dot] com

Information source

  • Audrey Montépini
    courriel : remi [at] univ-poitiers [dot] fr

License

CC0-1.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

To cite this announcement

« Call for Papers: Masculinities in Migration », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Tuesday, December 10, 2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/12vvo

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