Doing Masculinity

Abstract

The aim of this article is to engage with unaccompanied migrant Maghrebi boys' styles of physical self-presentation, "looks," and hairstyles as a source of knowledge on the construction of masculinities. In order to observe such bodily expressive practices, we used general ethnographic methodology and, in particular, a workshop built around different artistic techniques. Since masculinity is inextricably defined in relation to specific agents and contexts, insights into unaccompanied migrant teenagers' enactments of masculinity are dependent on (1) the collective imagination lying behind such "looks" and bodily images, (2) the discomfort and tensions created in the institutional communities in which these minors live-especially among social workers, and (3) the dialogue and relationships that emerge between the aesthetic and bodily expressions of these young migrants' own culture and those of the other cultural groups that coexist, in our case, in a European city.

Mobility and the mobile: A study of adolescent migrants and their use of the mobile phone

“…As noted by Twigt (2018), smartphones are highly personalised. Thus, screensavers and wallpapers of electronic devices—along with the young people’s own bodies (Mendoza Pérez & Morgade Salgado, 2018a)—are amongst the few spaces they can customise to their liking, with personal photos, photos of their mothers and families, or of their girlfriends/boyfriends.…”

“…The two most numerous groups by far were children of Moroccan and Algerian origins. In Bizkaia, as reported by Mendoza Pérez and Morgade Salgado (2018a), 80% of unaccompanied foreign minors were male teenagers, aged 15 to 17, from Morocco; 9% were from Algeria; and 11% were from various countries in West Africa. In addition, it should be noted that in some cases they did have a support network (Mendoza Pérez & Morgade Salgado, 2019).…”

“…1 Moreover, the importance of communication rights (Leurs, 2017) is not understood by the welfare institutions that host these minors. Indeed, these migrants, like young people in general, are perceived as hedonistic consumers of communications technology and its cultural output, which is often seen as a waste of time (Mendoza Pérez & Morgade Salgado, 2018a) or dismissed as having no political value, while their user practices are judged unimportant or unsafe (e.g., sexting; Leurs, 2017; Vickery, 2017).…”

“…Moreover, these are young connected migrants who actively contribute to the formation of a transnational “digital diaspora” (Gajjala, 2018) involving a constant exchange of information. The transnational circulation of young migrant discourses and images is contributing to the slow transformation of youth culture on a national and international scale (Mendoza Pérez & Morgade Salgado, 2018a, p. 15).…”

“…Third, researchers have highlighted that digital media offer basic functions that facilitate integration and participation (Leurs & Ponzanesi, 2011; Twigt, 2018; UNHCR, 2016). Digital media are not only helpful in learning the language of the host country (Alam & Imran, 2015), but also constitute a space that provides important insights into self-performance and identity construction (Leurs & Ponzanesi, 2011; Mendoza Pérez & Morgade Salgado, 2018a, 2019). As we have argued (Mendoza Pérez & Morgade Salgado, 2018a), social networks can be understood as spaces where individuals in specific materially embodied contexts perform symbolic/discursive self-presentation.…”