Abstract

Rapidly changing and divergent everyday realities on the African continent call for a more differentiated examination of the complex experiences and representations of men than is offered by the discourse on the ‘crisis of masculinity’, which depicts men as being criminal, violent, dominant, and irresponsible. By contrast, this introduction to the themed section ‘Masculinities in Africa beyond Crisis: Complexity, Fluidity, and Intersectionality’ aims to engage critically with the concept of hegemonic masculinity and argues that multiple images of masculinities co-exist in Africa and beyond. To comprehend new discourses and practices around masculinities, we must consider the question of how masculinities emerge. Discourses and practices relating to masculinities and manhood are situationally and relationally adopted, contested, transformed, and reconfigured. In this special issue, we closely analyse individual’s daily efforts ‘to be “good men”, as well as “good at” being men’ (Inhorn and Isidoros 2018, 2) in times of political, social, and economic transformations. We aim at examining how ideas and practices of masculinities shape individual and collective agency on social, economic, political, and cultural levels. Paying attention to the historical, geographical, and cultural diversities of masculinities in African countries, we discuss how images of masculinities evolve and become manifest in everyday life and analyse how these imaginations circulate within translocal and transnational spaces. We thereby pay close attention to how gender intersects with other identities, such as age, class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality.

摘要

非洲大陆瞬息万变的日常现实要求对男性的复杂经历和表征进行更加差异化的审视，而不是“男性气质危机”的话语所提供的，后者将男性描述为犯罪、暴力、支配和不负责任。相比之下，本主题部分“危机之后的非洲男性气质：复杂性、流动性和交叉性”的介绍旨在批判性地探讨霸权男性气质的概念，并认为多种男性气质形象在非洲及其他地区共存。为了理解围绕男性气质的新话语和实践，我们必须考虑男性气质如何出现的问题。与男子气概和男子气概有关的话语和实践在情境和关系上被采用、竞争、转变、并重新配置。在本期特刊中，我们仔细分析了个人日常努力“成为“好男人”，以及“擅长”男人的努力（因霍恩和伊西多罗斯2018 年，2) 在政治、社会和经济转型时期。我们旨在研究男性气质的思想和实践如何在社会、经济、政治和文化层面上塑造个人和集体的能动性。我们关注非洲国家男性气质的历史、地理和文化多样性，讨论男性气质的形象如何演变并在日常生活中体现出来，并分析这些想象如何在跨地域和跨国空间中传播。因此，我们密切关注性别如何与其他身份相交，例如年龄、阶级、种族、民族和性取向。