-
The story of contemporary Chinese culture is, to a large degree, a story
of amalgamation: cultural identities in China form in relation to a
number of competing discourses and traditions—from consumerism and
nationalism, to Maoism and Confucianism. In their compelling work Men and Masculinities in Contemporary China,
Geng Song and Derek Hird carefully examine the production and
performance of masculinities through the prism of these dynamic social,
cultural, and economic traditions.
-
That Song and Hird refer in the book's title to 'masculinities' as
opposed to a singular 'masculinity' is demonstrative of their most
central points. To understand men and manhood in modern China, Song and
Hird contend, requires that one move beyond a restricted focus on a
monolithic Chinese masculinity and towards an acknowledgement of the
pluralities of masculinities: 'notions and practices of masculinities in
contemporary China,' they write, 'are constituted through "assemblages"
of masculinity, composed of transnationally circulating images and
practices, and locally situated identities, practices, and locales' (pp.
6–7). These masculinities in China, however heterogeneous and
distinctive, also interact in important ways—they are defined, described
and performed in reference to one another. In this way, Song and Hird
achieve in bringing light to the 'highly hybridized and diversified'
nature of masculinities (p. 13).
-
Song and Hird unpack these masculinities at two predominant analytic
sites: in the context of other identities like class and at the nexus of
global and local forces. The authors underscore the importance of
tangential identities and of local and global forces over six chapters.
Chapter 1 explores representations of masculinity in Chinese television
and emphasises the significance of nationalism, homosociality, and
commercialisation in these representations. Moving from television to
print, Chapter 2 focuses on depictions of masculinity as they appear in
magazines. The authors demonstrate how masculinities tied to global
notions of consumerism and masculinities tied to more local notions of
'Chineseness' merge and interact in these magazine depictions. Song and
Hird delve into this transcultural circulation and hybridisation of
masculinities even further in Chapter 3, which provides a reading of
Chinese masculinities in cyberspace. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 depart from the
proceeding chapters in their methodological approaches, introducing
ethnographic data as a way of understanding how real individuals engage
with these discursive representations of masculinity. Specifically,
these final chapters situate masculinities within three different
locales—'at work,' 'at leisure,' and 'at home'—and contribute insights
into the complex processes by which discursive norms of masculinity are
refracted through the realities of daily life.
-
While each chapter nominally centres on a discrete aspect of masculinity
in China—whether in professional, recreational, or domestic
contexts—Song and Hird are careful to point out the ways in which these
seemingly discrete spheres in fact overlap and interrelate. In, for
example, their chapter on masculinities in the recreational sphere, Song
and Hird stress that leisure time cannot be cleanly delineated from
professional interests. Nowhere is this integration more apparent than
in Song and Hird's analysis of sex consumption in saunas and karaoke
bars. In particular, Song and Hird show that while such leisure
activities are 'ostensibly conducted for the purpose of enjoyment,' they
also have 'the very serious purpose of building trusting business
relationships between men through shared experiences of heterosexual
flirting and sex' (p. 181). Clearly, although the authors rely on
conventional boundaries in structuring their analysis, they also expose
how permeable these boundaries can be.
-
As Song and Hird move among these different facets of masculinity, they
simultaneously move among different methodological traditions: where the
first three chapters offer critical readings into the representations
and discourses of masculinity, the final three chapters are more
ethnographic in character, based on interviews and engagements with
actual men in contemporary China. In this structure lies one of the
book's principal strengths. By considering media representations of
masculinity in tandem with ethnographic fieldwork, Song and Hird not
only sketch out the discursive depictions of masculinity, but also
explore the ways in which these depictions unfold in the realities of
everyday life.
-
Some might question whether Song and Hird's granular focus on particular
case studies permits them to draw conclusions about contemporary China
broadly. To fault the book, however, for its rich and grounded focus is
to overlook its underlying argument. Indeed, among the book's most
important contributions is the recognition that male-oriented identities
and subjectivities are contingent, effervescent and entangled. Song and
Hird, therefore, deviate from previous works of scholarship that
consider masculinity along a single dimension in favour of a more
synthetic approach: masculinities emerge not merely through discourse or
through practice, but rather through their complex interaction. Song
and Hird, then, attend to the connections between discourse and lived
realities without ignoring the slippage that often occurs between the
two. In other words, it is 'through the tension between discourse and
everyday conditions' that masculine subjectivities are forged (p. 124).
-
As much as Song and Hird deal overtly with manhood, the authors
demonstrate that masculinities cannot be fully captured if detached from
considerations of women and femininities. As the authors note in the
chapter on men in the workplace, 'men take on working identities…in
distinction to women' (p. 165). Such observations speak to Song and
Hird's insistence that masculinities cannot be studied or understood in
isolation; their existence depends on their relationship to other
socio-political forces and their positions within broader networks of
meaning.
-
Impressive in its depth and complexity, this book stands as a critical
entry point into studies of men's identities and practices in
present-day China. In short, to write a compelling and coherent book on a
topic as broad and diffuse as masculinity would alone be a notable
achievement; to do so in a way that not only respects but embraces the
contingencies, the multiplicity, and the heterogeneity inherent to this
topic is more impressive still.
|
