School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemReframing graffiti writing as a community practice: sites of youth learning and social engagement( 2018)This study investigates how graffiti writing is learnt and how graffiti writers experience this learning. Drawing on the concept of communities of practice, it frames graffiti as a skillful and aesthetic practice that is learned in a communally- situated context. This shifts the focus from graffiti as a stigmatised practice to a demonstration of the expert knowledge that young men develop over time through their engagement with a learning community. The research consisted of semi-structured interviews and observations of graffiti practice with eleven male graffiti writers. The thesis argues that graffiti writing involves a wide range of cognitive, social, emotional and bodily skills. These skills coalesce at the site of practice where they in turn inform the learning of novice graffiti writers. This thesis shows that the way writers experience the learning of graffiti occurs within a highly masculine space that can serve to exclude women’s participation. By developing an understanding of the lived experiences of male graffiti writers, this research contributes new knowledge about youth cultural practice as a site of learning and production.
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ItemNegotiating masculinities: the experience of male teachers in Indonesian early childhood education( 2017)Since the fall of President Suharto, the New Order’s hegemonic masculinity has been increasingly contested and reconfigured. This thesis expands understandings of historical and contemporary formations of Indonesian masculinities. It focuses particularly on ‘nurturing masculinities’ by examining the gender narratives and practices of men who teach kindergarten age children. Specifically, this research demonstrates how male teachers navigate social expectations about their work and gender identity in a female-dominated and feminised profession. It adopts a focused ethnography research design that combines in-depth interviews with classroom observations. Interviews were undertaken with eight male teachers from five schools and their female colleagues, student’s parents, and the school’s principals and managers. Observations took place in classrooms and the broader school environment in order to record male teacher’s interactions with students and teachers and the alignment with their personal narratives. This thesis shows the dynamics through which hegemonic masculinity is constantly being both defended and challenged by male teachers. The discourse of nurture, which is pervasive in the early childhood profession, is the modality through which the negotiations of masculinity take place. The thesis shows how male teachers reorient both gendered discourses of nurture and understandings of hegemonic masculinity in their self-narratives about their work and in their workplace interactions.
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ItemMigrating masculinities, shifting subjectivities: the lives of western men in northeast Thailand( 2016)This dissertation examines the increasing migration of western men into Thailand, focusing on men in transnational intimate relationships in the northeastern region (Isan). Thailand is one of the global locations most marked by men’s migration from developed states, comprising retirees looking for places where a modest pension goes further as well as tourists who end up in transnational relationships. As the global economy experiences shifts in the economic landscape, such north-to-south migrations have become increasingly common. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, I explore the subjectivities, social location and mobility of western men and their Thai partners in Isan. This study highlights how temporal dimensions and particular spaces of settlement affect these migrants’ positions of privilege and performances of masculinity. Focusing on interpersonal relationships, I show how power is constructed and transformed within intimate, kin and social relations, and how men negotiate their positions. I also consider the experiences of Isan women married to western men by looking at how past relationships, kinship obligations and their social location in Thai society shape their imaginings of the future and decisions around migration and marriage. I found that western men in Thailand initially experienced an increase in status and capacity to perform new masculine identities, which they converted into assets in romantic relationships. Their positions of privilege in Isan were grounded in the relatively greater value of their financial resources and their identity as white westerners (farang). However, settling in Isan as a foreigner over time also introduced new forms of marginalization, social isolation and structural vulnerability. The very bases of their farang privilege tended to undermine their potential for trust and intimacy in their relationships, and eroded their sense of belonging. I found that while some Isan women use marriage and migration as advancement strategies for economic and social mobility, emotional and pragmatic desires comingled in ways that did not preclude the possibility of love. However, given the ambiguity of relationships developed within a sex tourism economy and divergent cultural understandings of love, marriage and kinship, many farang men questioned the authenticity of their intimate and kin relationships. Furthermore, Thai policies regarding residency and property ownership shifted power to their Thai partners, creating legal disadvantages and insecurity about the future. Despite a sense of ambivalence and disillusionment among many long-term migrants, most men did not pursue a move home, given their identity constructions were place-bound and financial obstacles affected their capacity for mobility.
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ItemMinerals and masculinity: a new understanding of sexual violence in war from the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo( 2012)The widespread and systematic use of rape and other forms of sexual violence during armed conflict was brought to the attention of the international community through the ground-breaking work of feminist scholars in recent decades. This work helped to shift our understanding of sexual violence in war from being an inevitable, if unfortunate, side-effect of armed conflict to recognising it as a violation of women’s rights and a deliberate tool of war-making. However, much of the research done on the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war has sought to reveal the underlying causes of sexual violence as stemming from a singular motivation; some focus on the personal reasons that individual soldiers perpetrate sexual violence, while others focus on the way in which sexual violence has been used as a deliberate weapon of terror and genocide. The singularity of focus has led to disagreement within the field about how we can understand the causes and consequences of sexual violence in war, and to a standard set of prescriptions for how to respond to this atrocity. This thesis offers a new understanding of sexual violence in conflict as the outcome of micro- and macro-level processes of the hegemonic global structures of patriarchy and the international political economy. By examining trends in the form and function of sexual violence in recent and ongoing conflicts, this thesis offers a preliminary typology of wartime sexual violence in order to argue that, in different contexts, the perpetration of sexual violence may take different forms and be used in pursuit of different objectives. This thesis argues that, in order to understand the use of sexual violence in conflict and construct effective responses to its perpetration, we must understand the reason for the conflict itself and the objectives of the armed groups involved. This thesis uses the ongoing conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo as a case study by which to demonstrate the relationship between the current hegemonic economic, political and gender orders and the use of sexual violence in economic civil wars. Sexual violence in this conflict has been one of the primary instruments used by all participating armed groups to take control of land, resources, and the people that live in these territories. The conflict is both driven and exacerbated by regional and global economic interests and a pervasive lack of political will to effectively address the widespread and systematic use of sexual violence for economic exploitation. This thesis shows that adequately addressing the root cause of sexual violence in contemporary conflicts thus requires tackling both the underlying gender inequality that gives sexual violence the powerful social effect it has, as well as the reason for the conflict (and use of violence therein), in the first place. Disaggregating our understanding of sexual violence in terms of the instrumental purpose it serves for the perpetrator enables both a better understanding of the causes of sexual violence in war, but also provides a more suitable basis for constructing effective responses that may contribute to a reduction in the perpetration of this wartime atrocity.