Porous masculinities : agential political bodies among male Hamas youth

Abstract

Constructions of gender, embodiment and agency among male Hamas youths in the West Bank are discussed in this article through the prism of violence. It focuses on the constructions of uncertain masculinities in a complex interplay of violence, political Islam, suffering and loss, and the importance of analyzing the body in such processes – both as agential and as victimized – is highlighted. To be able to move away from the sensationalist Western media that often portray Middle Eastern Muslim men as “violent,” and as terrorists, we need to understand the motivations and the meanings of violence. The method of analysis is to use a discourse-centered approach and to use experience-near ethnography that begins with men’s own practices and attends to how they understand themselves, how their bodies are involved, and how they live out norms and ideologies in their everyday lives. Thereby we are able to understand how men’s realities and identities are interpreted, negotiated and constructed and how the body is actively involved in these processes. This approach is relevant since it is possible to analyze the singularity of experience, not only as a form of social interaction, but as linked to social structures and discourses, which implies negotiations of tensions, conflicts, and uncertainties.