New Methodological Insights Into Communicative Acts That Promote New Alternative Masculinities

Abstract

Communicative acts include verbal and non-verbal acts as well as the analysis of the dialogic relationships and power relationships associated to each of those acts. This article discusses data from two case studies in education, where communicative acts were analyzed to identify those that promote new alternative masculinities that help to prevent gender violence. One of the main methodological challenges was how to conduct the data collection and the analysis of the interactions and non-verbal language. Communicative methodology was used to face this challenge. Specifically, thanks to communicative organization (a) a preliminary analysis with different stakeholders was conducted to define relevant aspects to be covered in the fieldwork, (b) data analysis performed by a multidisciplinary team to guarantee that the focus would not be deviated from the communicative act, and (c) an Advisory Council was created to validate the results obtained through equal dialogue between researchers and participants.

Alternative Friendships to Improve Men’s Health Status. The Impact of the New Alternative Masculinities’ Approach

“…Conversely, Flecha [ 4 ] shed light on this issue and has noted, on the one hand, the positive impact of real friendship on all aspects of life and, on the other hand, the potential transformation in people’s lives due to the movements connected to NAM [ 23 , 24 ]. With our article, we deepen the understanding of these benefits, specifically in regards to health, paying attention to how, through the rejection of hegemonic masculinity and the promotion of friendship and alternative models of masculinity, undesirable health behaviors can be combatted.…”

“Tell Someone,” to Both Women and Men

“…This methodology was successfully used in previous research funded and recognised by the European Commission (European Commission [Ec], 2010;Flecha and Soler, 2014). It has been used also successfully in specific research on communicative acts (Ríos and Christou, 2010;Portell and Pulido, 2012;Rodríguez et al, 2014;Ríos et al, 2018).…”

“…To encourage both men and women to contribute to the solution, we should pay special attention to ensuring that dialogues about affective and sexual relationships, or more generally about gender identities, join the language of ethics and desire (López de Aguileta et al, 2020), connecting attraction and desire with the values of friendship and solidarity (Rodríguez et al, 2014). Indeed, research has found that the discourses that promote the link between desire and violence separate the language of desire, referred to as "the capacity to raise attraction and be desired" (Flecha et al, 2013, p. 100) from the language of ethics, used to describe goodness and values.…”

“…In the case of men, we find this union in the identity that has recently been categorised as the New Alternative Masculinity (NAM), which is characterised by confidence, the courage to fight and ridicule of sexist and racist attitudes, an ethic that is combined with desire, uniting passion, friendship, solidarity, and equality (Portell and Pulido, 2012;Díez-Palomar and Mara, 2020). This union between ethics and desire is not only expressed and promoted through verbal language, but also through other communicative acts such as gestures, voice tone or gaze, among others, filling egalitarian attitudes with attractiveness and desire and emptying violent behaviours from any sort of attraction (Rodríguez et al, 2014;Racionero-Plaza et al, 2020). Taking communicative acts into account is therefore essential for overcoming gender violence (Flecha et al, 2020), as it is through the various elements of communication that attraction and desire are configured.…”

“…Therefore, to overcome the models of attraction tied to violence, it is not enough to identify violent attitudes or relationship, along with the prejudices they carry, nor is it enough to situate oneself exclusively in the language of ethics by simply counselling that this kind of relationship "isn't good for you." To overcome this kind of relationships requires knowing alternative models in a manner that combines the two languages when such models are transmitted and spoken about, for example by stating that relationships following this model not only are "good for you, " but also have "passion and desire" (Rodríguez et al, 2014).…”