Dislocating Masculinity (1994 Cornwall, Lindisfarne) Review

Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies (1994) Edited by Andrea Cornwall & Nancy Lindisfarne ‘Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies’ largely fulfils that which it states in its title. The 1994 editorial by Andrea Cornwall and Nancy Lidisfarne ultimately aims to ‘dislocate’ the notion of masculinity from its presupposed conceptions, both within the academic field of anthropology and across society as a whole. The editorial composed of an introduction, opening chapter by Cornwall & Lindisfarne, and 10 varied ethnographies on the subject of ‘masculinity’, aims to deconstruct and demystify the male/female dichotomy and all associated semantic oppositions in the form of man/woman, masculine/feminine in a true post-modernist approach. Cornwall’s contribution to the editorial is apparent, coming from a political background with a research focus on women’s rights and development, her stance is largely non-compromising and self-admittedly radical. Five main arguments are laid out by Cornwall & Lindisfarne from the offset, and although these in some regards still remain drastic statements today, we owe much of our academic progress and understanding in the field of gender studies to works which created new waves of thought and understanding. Masculinity studies, an offshoot from gender studies which evolved out of the women’s movement and feminist theory in the 1970’s, was largely popularised around the mid 1990’s. Masculinity studies of this time including this publication by Cornwall & Lidsisfarne, aimed to deconstruct the relationship between ‘hegemonic masculinities’ and ‘subordinate masculinities’. The feminist movement had successfully showed how patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity was associated with the subordination of women, however gender studies began to question what affect cross-cultural conceptions of what it is to be male/a man/masculine had on the lives of men. Owing to their post-modern school of thought, Cornwall & Lindisfarne explicitly state their reluctance to use the semantic dichotomies male/female producing a reflexive and relativistic argument in stating that sex, as well as gender, has no absolutes, and placing greater emphasis on individual analysis. The semantic difficulty of ‘masculinity’ as a lexical term is discussed further by Hart, chapter 1. Their argument that “interpretations of maleness, manhood and masculinity are not neutral but rather all such attributions have political entailments” (p.10) is also influenced by the postmodern objective of demystifying power (Foucault, 1982) and revealing hierarchy. Feminist and Marxist literature similarly appear to be influential within this argument, with suspect tones towards power and its structures, ‘hegemonic masculinity’ and emphasis on the individual lived experiences of class and race in conjunction with gender throughout. The ethnographies detailed within this editorial were indeed successful in anticipating the directions that anthropological studies of masculinity have taken post 1990’s, with an abundance of work on the topic of new emerging identities particularly in the face of modernisation since the new Millennium. Again meeting post-modern objectives of subjectivity, all the ethnographies presented fulfil Cornwall & Lindisfarne’s aim of contextual cross-representation of the plurality of ‘male’ identities within the frameworks of sex, sexuality, class, race, and social roles. Chapter 6, on gendered identities among travesty sex workers in Salvador, provides the ideal case study for challenging the gender binary oppositions which Cornwall & Lindisfarne claim are damaging to our understandings of sexual identity. Cornwall’s ethnographic description shows how travesti’s do not fit in into the semantic categories which have been highlighted throughout Lindisfarne’s & Cornwall’s critiques. Travesti’s are neither transsexual, nor transgendered, (or ‘transformista’ in Portuguese). For this group gender is constructed through sexuality rather than biological sex. This is reinforced in the variety of sexual encounters travesti’s may have, maintaining that they will never penetrate or use their penis when with their boyfriends as they would lose their status as a woman within this given relationship. In sum, the sexual acts travesti’s perform determine their gender in a given encounter - if you penetrate you are a masculine, if you are penetrated, you are feminine. This case also ethnographically contextualises Cornwall & Lindisfarne point that gender is assumed to be a natural state from which we emerge – transvestites are seen to be cross dressing rather than simply dressing. Cornwall poses that the belief in Candomblé orixás (deities) which maintain fluidity of gender, both influence and reinforce practice in everyday life. However, others (see Kulick 1998) have maintained that Cornwall’s claims regarding travesti’s heavy involvement in Candomblé are invalid and that Candomblé’s influence on the sexuality and identities on travesti’s is over exaggerated. In showing how travesti’s are created, not born into a given gender or sex, we are brought back to Lindisfarne & Cornwall’s emphasised discussion on Stathern’s (1988) notion of the partible person can be related in showing how travesti’s have both ‘male’ and ‘female’ parts. This also follows on from Cornwall & Lindisfarne explicit aim to deconstruct the attachment between masculinity and notions of power in showing how travesti’s are marginalised by the dominant form of masculinity which both pays for their services yet dismisses them as deviant. Their male clients adhere to the hegemonic masculinities that Lindisfarne & Cornwall describe by maintaining the travesti’s identities as ‘females’ as to not stray from dominant notions of acceptable sexual behaviour. Both travesti’s and Bofes (male prostitutes) refer to their clients as ‘bichas’, a derogatory term similar to a homosexual pest. This also highlights Cornwall & Lindisfarne’s argument that ‘subordinate masculinities’ internalise the mainstream hegemonic perceptions of homosexuals as negative in some cases. Forrest’s ethnography of homosexuality in Britain (chapter 5) also highlights how the hegemonic masculinity in any given setting or context ‘seeks’ to contro the subordinate masculinity present. Cornwall’s contrast of travesti’s and bofes also shows how both are deemed attractive in different circumstances for adhering to cultural norms of attractiveness in the form of femininity and ‘machoism’. In Cornwall & Lindisfarne’s discussion of the plurality of male identities in the context of race and class, Cornwall’s representation of travesti’s demonstrates how in patriarchal Brazil subordinate masculinities such as travesti’s and gay men are rejected. The historical discourse of colonialism within Brazil also portrays it as a racist society or ‘power’ in Cornwall & Lindisfarne’s terms. As such, travesti’s are often stigmatised on multiple accounts in the context of being poor, black, gay, prostitutes. The diachronic approach of assessing histories contribution to gendered identity as well as the influence of race on constructing masculinity can also be found in Kanitkar’s ethnography of ‘the cadets of imperialism’ (chapter 11). McElhinny’s essay on police officers in the USA (chapter 9) is here linked contextually and provides a more realistic approach to the subject of gender in reaffirming Cornwall & Lindisfarne’s notion that we should assess what gendered identity means to people within local contexts for example within class, race, age, occupation. Cornwall description of how travesti’s violent behaviour, often in robbing clients, is interpreted as a reversion back to their ‘natural’ masculine ways, reinforcing Cornwall & Lindisfarne’s argument regarding hegemonic masculinity and its association with dominance and violence. Here we can see a contextual link between Cornwall’s case study and that of McElhinny’s (chapter 9). Female officers that don’t adhere to hegemonic interpretations of gender, for example in losing their temper too quickly are referred to as unreasonable as opposed to their male counterparts who are stigmatised for being ‘do-nothing men’ if they are ‘weak’ or ‘frightened’. (p.161) Lindisfarne & Cornwall select these two monographs to solidify their argument that that gendered behaviour can be performed and commoditized, in these cases being used for economic gain. In the same sense that the travesti’s adopt ‘typical’ feminine attire and characteristics to coerce customers, both male and female police officers similarly adopt hegemonic masculine behaviour in order to carry out their roles of protecting the public. This contextual link is also followed into chapter 10 in Lee Black’s discussion of an occupational environment in which hegemonic masculinity is associated with power, and its absence is associated with feminisation. Male workers in Back’s south London factory therefore need to commodity their masculinity in order to be accepted within the workplace. Further solidifying Lindisfarne & Cornwall’s argument, McElhinny’s ethnographic inclusion (chapter 9) shows how a female police officers refusal to attribute their occupational behaviours to a particular gender can redefine boundaries but can also be damaging as they see the work on the whole as ‘masculine’. Overall, Lindisfarne & Cornwall’s contribution to the field of gender and masculinity studies is a solid one. Considering its date of production in 1994, it can be considered ahead of its time in literally dislocating preconceived ideas about the ‘male’, and it’s influence alongside its academic peers (see Connell, 1995) still has remains today. The texts radical aims and arguments from the offset can however be perceived as problematic in the way the text refuses to see any truth in essentialist notions of male/female sex difference. A key aim posed by Cornwall & Lidisfarne was to avoid being ethnocentric as they have accused many other studies of masculinity in doing. However, despite the fact that the ethnographies included span a vast array of both western and non-western cultures, there is no concrete evidence to show that the objection to male/female sex binaries are constructed and ultimately accepted elsewhere in the world. In fact, it could be argued that Cornwall & Lindisfarne are themselves guilty of ethnocentrism in believing that all cultures and societies have the freedom to create and define their own sexual and gendered identities in the ways which we increasingly do in the west. As with many editorials, the ethnographies included are selected to reinforce certain points on behalf of the authors, however this can raise issues of the validity and quality of ethnographic data (as highlighted by Kulick, 1998, in the discussion, above). However, Cornwall & Lindisfarne’s text must be credited on its retained position place as a staple of masculinity studies in challenging conceptions even two decades later. Bibliography Connell, Raewyn. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California, 1995. Print. Cornwall, Andrea, and Nancy Lindisfarne. Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies. London: Routledge, 1994. Print. Foucault, Michel. "The Subject and Power." Critical Inquiry 8.4 (1982): 777. Print. [cited at] http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1343197?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103500664711 Kulick, Don. Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1998. Print. Strathern, Marilyn. The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California, 1988. Print. Keira Henderson Theoretical topics Book Review