Margin becoming centre: for a world-centred rethinking of masculinities

Discussions of globalization and masculinity need to be reconsidered through a critical examination of the global economy of knowledge. Scholarship in the South is generally oriented to theories and methods developed in the global North. The coloniality of knowledge has ironically made it difficult to appreciate the coloniality of masculinity. There is a rich archive of accounts and analyses of masculinity from around the global South, in a variety of genres. These provide an important foundation for post-colonial thinking about masculinities. The formation of masculinities needs to be considered on a historical terrain including worldwide processes of conquest and social disruption, the building of colonial societies and a global economy, and post-independence globalization. A world-centred, rather than metropole-centred, domain of knowledge is possible, requiring rethinking of familiar concepts and methods in masculinity studies but opening new perspectives and new questions.