Abstract
The data that shed light on contemporary conceptualizations of masculinity have been obtained in a series of semi-structured interviews conducted mostly in 2009. As it was my attempt to study the extent to which physical violence and exposure to danger determine contemporary masculine identity (insofar as significant elements of the model of traditional masculinity), I have focused my research on young men. I thought that as parameters of masculine identity, physical violence and exposure to danger would be much more prominent in a younger population. Some 50 young men, aged between 17 and 25, were part of this portion of my research. I strove to encompass young men of various education levels (high school, junior college, and college), economic status (high, middle, and low income bracket), nationality (Montenegrin, Serbian, Albanian, Bosniac, and Muslim), and religion (Orthodox and Muslim). The bases for studying various types of masculinity were the Male Role Norms Scale (MRNS) and Brannon Masculinity Scale (BMS). The data was collected in various places: on the street, at gyms, at coffee shops, and so on. In the case of most interviewees, I conducted the interview purposely: for example, with young men who I knew were inclined to be involved in incidents, with those who spend a lot of their time in gyms, as well as men who were engaged in activities not normally associated with men.
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Notes
“There is almost not a shred of empathy for homosexuality and there is a simplistic condemnation of homosexual orientations. Even the more tolerant inhabitants of Lovićenac have a hard time understanding this “disease” and think that the participants in the gay pride parade deserve to be beaten. It has been mentioned to me along the way that there are no homosexuals in Lovićenac, and this made me realize that it is best not to pursue the topic. Masculinity reflected directly onto this gender/sexual structure of the examined sample: they were all men. Indirectly I was told that in that community, no one is allowed to approach someone else’s wife or girlfriend, that is, that women are completely protected. Better put, women were, in a way, the property of the men. This was underscored by the complete lack of women in public life: they are not functionaries in public institutions or organizations, they do not frequent places of daily gathering, such as coffee shops or pubs.” ( Nedeljković (2010) “Maskulinitet kao alternativni parametar etničkog identiteta: Crnogorci u Lovćencu,” Etnoantropološki problemi 5 (1): 51–67, 64.
Joshua Parens thinks that the only thing the multiculturalists have in common is the opposition to traditional universalism, reflected in the term the “melting pot.” For more, see Parens (1994) “Multiculturalism and Problem of Particularism,” The American Political Science Review 88 (1): 169–181.
Kymlicka and Norman defined citizenship as the set of rights, duties, roles, and identities that tie citizens with the nation state. However, citizenship is not only a given status defined by a set of rights and responsibilities. It is also one’s identity and expression of one’s membership in a political community. It is clear that many groups (blacks, women, Aborigines, ethnic and racial minorities, gays, lesbians) still feel excluded from “common culture” despite holding common rights of citizenship. Members of these groups feel excluded not only because of their socioeconomic status, but also due to their socio-cultural identity—their “difference” ( Kymlicka and Norman (1994) “Return of the Citizen, A Survey of Recent Work on Citizenship Theory,” Ethics 104 (2): 352–381, 370).
In dealing with different models of citizenship, Rogers Brubaker points out difference between national states and compares the “jus sanguinis” legal tradition, where citizenship is achieved through ethnic origin (Germany), with “jus soli,” where citizenship is achieved by birth on the territory (France, where “jus soli” is dominant) ( Brubaker (1992) Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge: Harvard University Press)).
Beck remarks humorously that “someone has said that multiculturalism is a highly refined variant on the idea that cats, mice, and dogs eat from the same bowl: it postulates, in other words, essentialist identities and a rivalry among them” ( Beck (2004) “The Truth Of Others, A Cosmopolitan Approach,” Common Knowledge 10 (3): 446–447).
Claire Beckett and Mary Macey emphasize that multiculturalism encourages a “conspiracy of silence” in various groups: minority ethnic men, male academics, professionals, and the state. Even though there is clear evidence that family violence is used in order to prevent lesbian relationships, and the black gay population is exposed to violence within the family and the community, the statistics obscure these facts ( Beckett and Macey (2001) “Race, Gender and Sexuality: The Oppression of Multiculturalism,” Women’s Studies International Forum 24 (3/4): 309–319, 312).
It is much easier to derive group rights if one starts with communitarian, rather than liberal, premises. Within the liberal-communitarian debate, the liberals assume that the individual has a given identity prior to and independently of society, and that individual rights, on which liberalism is founded, should not be derived from one’s cultural, social, religious, or linguistic background. On the other hand, the communitarians claim that individuals are constituted through the community in which they live, and that values that influence the individual’s behavior, along with the symbolism through which life is given meaning, come from the community. In addition, the public good or interest of the community is more important than the individual’s interests and values ( Abu-Laban (2002) “Liberalism, Multiculturalism and the Problem of Essentialism,” Citizenship Studies 6 (4): 459–482
Hickhman (1990) “The Idea of Individuality: Origins; Meaning, and Political Significance,” The Journal of Politics 52 (3): 759–781
Lehrer (2001) “Individualism, Communitarianism and Consensus,” The Journal of Ethics 5 (2): 105–120
Morrice (2000) “The Liberal Communitarian Debate in Contemporary Political Philosophy and Its Significance for International Relations,” Review of International Studies 26 (2): 233–251
Taylor (1989) “Cross-Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,” in Liberalism and Moral Life, ed. Nancy L. Rosenblum (Cambridge: Harvard University Press)
Theobald and Dinkelman (1995) “The Parameters of the Liberal Communitarian Debate,” Peabody Journal of Education 70 (4): 5–18).
Many women’s groups organized a protest march against this practice, while many Rajput people, both men and women, defended this practice by way of cultural relativism. The latter claimed “sati” as an ancient Rajput tradition and as part of their culture. Roop Kanwar became a cultural symbol for such groups of Rajput fanatics. The case threw up a slew of hypothetical questions: is it at all important that Roop Kanwar agreed voluntarily to submit to “sati?” Does her acquiescence justify the cultural practice? Is it legitimate for a woman to agree to her own immolation? Does she have a right to reject the cultural practices of her culture or ethnic subgroup? Does it matter that were she to refuse to die, she would be banished from her village and family and have nowhere to go? Would “sati” be justified if it were supported by the majority of the group? Does the justification of “sati” have the same legitimacy if the majority of its supporters are men, when all its victims are women? What if the supporters of “sati” are political opportunists who use the practice to gain political support and divide a culture along ethnic practices? Is the age of the victim important? What if it is a child? What if it is an older woman who is an economic burden to her relatives? Is reference to ancient customs enough to legitimize this practice? What if the woman is entirely under the control of her family? Is it important whether the woman is pregnant? If the woman has lived her entire life in one village and has never seen a different model of behavior, can she legitimately acquiesce? Is it wrong for Indian feminists and activists of human rights to refer to universal ideals of human rights in their struggle against “sati” and other forms of violence and torture? Do Indian feminists betray their heritage and are they, along with human rights activists, victims of Western imperialism? ( Zechenter (1997) “In the Name of Culture: Cultural Relativism and the Abuse of the Individual,” Journal of Anthropological Research 53 (3): 319–347).
To quote Rorty: “Multiculturalism began to go sour soon after it was invented. It started out as one more attempt to get white middle-class males to behave better toward the people they enjoy shoving around—black and brown people, women, poor people, recent immigrants, homosexuals. It hoped to encourage these groups to take pride in themselves rather than accept the derogatory descriptions that the white males had invented for them … The movement began in colleges and universities as an attempt to make room for courses and programs in African American studies, Hispanic studies, and the like. This attempt succeeded, and the results have been fruitful. On the campuses, particularly those where such programs exist, there is less humiliation of blacks and browns, less condescension to women, and more safety for homosexuals than anywhere else in society. And these programs are often staffed by some of the liveliest, most interesting, and most devoted teachers. A debilitating mistake was made, however, when academics began to campaign for compulsory undergraduate courses that would “sensitize students to cultural differences.” … It is the difference between gently suggesting, as universities always have, that attitudes acquired at home may need supplementation or correction and telling undergraduates that they are sick and need treatment … Starting from the thought that white children too should know about heroic African Americans, it ends up with the self-fulfilling prediction that they will remain separated from their black contemporaries not just by money and life chances but by a ’difference of culture’” ( Rorty (1995) “The Demonization of Multiculturalism,” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 7: 74–75).
Thomas Hylland Eriksen points out that arguments critical of the concept of culture could be divided into four: the first concerns the pluralism of words. (Culture can be conceptualized as the opposite of nature, where culture is everything that is learned. Following this position, culture unites people. On the other hand, culture can be that which divides people. This shifts the focus from what is unique to humans to what differentiates them.) The second argument concerns the concept of tracing. (Within any group of people, there are significant variations, and in some cases these variations can be greater than between different cultures.) The third argument refers to the political use of the concept of culture and points out the reduction of the complexity of culture to only a few simplistic categories. The fourth argument concerns the “roughness/awkwardness” of the concept of culture, as it is used in daily life and the media to “explain” any number of conflicts and problems (when people beat their children, the response could be a simple shrug of the shoulders and reference to “their culture”) ( Eriksen [2004] What is Anthropology [London: Pluto Press]: 28–31). In writing against the concept of culture, Lila Abu-Lughod has offered as her main argument the attempt to think about how to write an ethnography of the Bedouin community (on which she has worked for many years) that would do justice to the complexity, vacillation, and contradiction of everyday life. Ultimately, her conclusion is that the concept of culture, with its inevitable generalizations and typifications, has become the main component of distancing, against which she wishes to struggle.
See the reply of Lila Abu-Lughod to Cristoph Brumann, in Brumann (1999) “Writing for Culture: Why a Successful Concept Should Not be Discarded (and Comments and Reply),” Current Anthropology 40: 13–15).
To quote Marcus: “we as anthropologists feel we can’t, yet, do without culture, but how to make it appear in our analyses, how to make it resonate is a very large problem” ( Rabinow and Marcus [2006] Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary [Durham and London: Duke University Press]: 106–110). In Eriksen’s view, it is necessary to be aware of difference, the problem of borders, political abuse, change, flow, and conceptual incorrectness; however, for anthropology it would be equally intellectually suicidal to reject the concept according to which people have different backgrounds, have grown up in different milieus, live (to a greater or lesser degree) in different life-worlds, and see the world in different ways. Therefore, it appears necessary to keep the concept of culture. In an ideal world, however, it should be securely locked in the armoire and brought out only when needed. In most uses of the concept of culture today (in and out of anthropology) there would be no warrant to open the armoire (Eriksen 2004: 31).
For similar issues, see Gonzales (1999) “What Will We Do When Culture Does Not Exist Any More,” Anthropology & Education Quarterly 30 (4): 431–435.
Following Jenkins, in studying identity, we ought always keep in mind that we are speaking about complex processes of identification and guard against occasional reification. It is these processes that have to be “unpacked” before being treated as a “black box” ( Jenkins [2008 (1996)] Social Identity [London: Routledge]: 15).
The genealogy of myth is concerned with the conditions in which the meaning of the myth takes shape, as well as the values that have influenced its creation. Therefore, genealogy of myth cannot be seen as history of myth, nor does it focus on continuity, but just the opposite ( Bottici [2007] A Philosophy of Political Myth [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press]: 16–20).
In Foucault’s sense, genealogy presupposes the identification of the, so-called, minute of deviation, error, wrong assessment, incorrect calculation at the moment of “birth” of a thing that continues to exist and later acquires significance for us ( Foucault [1988] Politics, Philosophy, Culture, Interviews and Other Writings, 1977–1984 [London: Routledge]: 262). Following Foucault, genealogy represents a new form of rebellion: “They (genealogies) are about the insurrection of knowledges. Not so much against the contests, methods, or concepts of a science; this is, above all, primarily, an insurrection against the centralizing power-effects that are bound up with the institutionalization and workings of any scientific discourse organized in society as ours … Genealogy has to fight the power-effects characteristic of any discourse that is regarded as scientific”
( Foucault [1997] Society Must Be Defended, Lectures at the College de France 1975–76 [New York: Picador]: 9). The basic questions of genealogy are: what types of knowledge are you trying to disqualify when you say that you are a science? what speaking subject, what discursive subject, what subject of experience and knowledge are you trying to minimize when you begin to say: I speak this discourse, I am speaking a scientific discourse, and I am a scientist? (Foucault 1997: 10).
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© 2016 Branko Banović
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Banović, B. (2016). Traditional Gender Roles and Contemporary Multicultural Politics of Identity: Men between Reality and Multiculturalism. In: The Montenegrin Warrior Tradition. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137552280_4
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