Remarking the Unmarked: An Anthropology of Masculinity Redux

Abstract

This review surveys studies of men and masculinities in anthropology and ethnography from other disciplines, as well as theoretical frameworks and debates among anthropologists and other relevant scholars in the field. It also aims to assess developments in these studies since an earlier Annual Review of Anthropology article was published on this subject. By considering the ethnographic boom in men and masculinities studies across the globe since 2000, increasingly authored by anthropologists from the Global South, this review considers anthropology's singular contributions topically and conceptually—for example, masculinity and militarism, men and public health, gender inequalities, and trans* social movements—including through innovative research in biological and linguistic anthropology and archaeology. Throughout, this article reflects on the extent to which anthropologists have moved (and if they should have moved) beyond the study of women or men to instead explore gender, sex, and sexuality of humans and nonhuman animals in less binary frameworks. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume 52 is October 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Of Masks and Masculinities in Africa

“…Whether as a research topic or a subject of public discourse, masculinity appears to have risen dramatically in prominence all over the world in recent years. The field of gender studies, once widely misunderstood as a female scholarly space, increasingly incorporates critical analyses of masculinity, and the study of masculinities has grown into a vibrant subfield (Gutmann, 2023). This subfield has especially burgeoned in Africa, as evidenced by an expanding scholarly literature (discussed below).…”

“…The turn of the millennium witnessed a veritable global explosion of research explicitly interrogating notions of masculinities, as Gutmann (2023) has recently noted. Early works on African masculinities often had a historical focus, grappling with whether the core concept of hegemonic masculinity was useful for African contexts.…”