This article explores the ways in which the aesthetics of employees' bodies are used as a site of control and resistance, processes which are activated through ethnic and gendered practices. By exploring three resistance strategies used by Israeli combat soldiers, we demonstrate the construction of competing identities of military masculinity. We demonstrate how, by activating a process of self-ethnicization, Israeli soldiers use an ethnic identity that empowers them and challenges the 'appropriate' professionalism expected from them. This process illuminates the interrelations between ethnic and masculine identities, and emphasizes the dynamic and fluid nature of the constructing of identities within organizations.The aim of this article is to examine how the aesthetics of the male body, which are activated through ethnic practices, are used as a site of discipline and resistance. More specifically, the article focuses on the ways that the male body of Israeli combat soldiers serves as a resource of power in the struggle for status, prestige and dominance within the military organization. As such, it takes issue with previous analyses of the relations between ethnicity and organizations as well as with

In this article, we consider Connell's theory of masculinity through a phenomenon we encountered in our respective research projects, one focusing on the construction of masculinity among early Zionist ideological workers and the other focusing on present-day military masculinities and ethnicity in Israel. In both contexts, a bodily performance which marks the breach of "civilized behavior" is adopted in order to signify accentuated masculinity. In both, a symbolic hierarchy of masculinities emerges, in which Arabs-and in the case of Golani soldiers, also "Arab Jews," that is, Jews who descended from Arab countries-are marked as more masculine than hegemonic Ashkenazi men (i.e., men of European descent). Thus, while our case studies support Connell's argument that masculinity may be practiced in various ways, the hierarchical relationship between masculine styles appears to be more multilayered than Connell's theory suggests. We connect the tension between masculine status, understood as a location within a symbolic hierarchy of masculinities, and social status in our case studies to the contradiction at the heart of modern masculinity. We argue that in order to account for this tension, which may arise in specific interactional contexts, we need a concept of masculinity as a cultural repertoire, of which people make situated selections. The repertoire of masculinity is where the elements and models that organize both

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The aim of this article is to examine the effect of ethnic habitus, in a specific setting, on the construction of alternative dominant masculinity and the challenge of hegemonic masculinity. Based on Bourdieu's notion of habitus, the article will show that in a specific ethno‐cultural setting, characterized by ethnic habitus, marginalized groups construct and perform situated dominant masculinity. The study is based on the military, which is a central organization for the construction of masculine identities, and will focus specifically on combat soldiers, who constitute the most significant model of idealized masculinity. Based on semi‐structured interviews, this micro‐level study demonstrates the part of self‐performance in the construction of masculinity and the challenge of hegemonic masculinity. Furthermore, illustrating the performance of worthy dominant masculinity by inferior ethnic groups in effect exposes the separation between the social status and the masculine status. Separation between social status and masculine status gives emphasis to masculinity as relational and contextual social practice and enables alternative dominant masculinities to be detected that challenge hegemonic masculinity within different settings.

This paper examines the process of ''acting ethnic'', and demonstrates that, in certain circumstances, people act in keeping with an ethnic identity. Based on a study of two infantry brigades in the Israeli army (the IDF), the paper shows how organizational ethnic culture forms the basis of the process of ''acting ethnic''. This paper highlights the tendency in certain situations to suspend nonethnic privileges by adopting an ethnic identity and in addition, to exaggerate ethnic performance. Moreover, it is argued that ''acting ethnic'' is a collective performance, aimed not only at belonging to the group, but also as a means of maintaining and reproducing ethnic identity and asserting a legitimate alternative to the hegemonic identity.