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Hum Rights Rev (2016) 17:934
DOI 10.1007/s12142-015-0377-z
Brandon Hamber1,2
Published online: 21 September 2015# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015
Abstract The study of masculinity, particularly in peacebuilding and transitional justice contexts, is gradually emerging. The article outlines three fissures evident in the embryonic scholarship, that is the privileging of direct violence and its limited focus, the continuities and discontinuities in militarised violence into peace time, and the tensions between new (less violent) masculinities and wider inclusive social change. The article argues for the importance of making visible the tensions between different masculinities and how masculinities are deeply entangled with systems of power and post-conflict social, political and economic outcomes. An analysis of masculine power within and between the structures aimed at building the peace in societies moving out of violence is considered essential. The article argues for an analysis that moves beyond a preoccupation with preventing violent masculinities from manifesting through the actions of individuals to considering how hidden masculine cultures operate within a variety of hierarchies and social spaces.
Keywords Masculinity.Peacebuilding.Transitionaljustice.Gender.Politicalviolence. Hegemony. Intersectionality
In 2007, I wrote what I called an exploratory essay on masculinity and transitional justice. At the time, I noted that studies on masculinity and transitional justice were Ball but nonexistent^ (Hamber 2007, p. 377). I added that although masculinity studies, largely in sociology and psychology, is an enormous field, it, in turn, has said little about political transitions or transitional justice. I navely thought that, after carefully laying out a range of areas for future research in the International Journal of Transitional Justice, my article
* Brandon [email protected]
1 INCORE and Transitional Justice Institute, Ulster University, Northern Ireland, Magee Campus,
Aberfoyle House, Northland Road, Derry/Londonderry, BT48 7JA, UK
2 African Centre for Migration and Society, University of the Witwatersrand, 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, Braamfontein 2000, Johannesburg, South Africa
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10 B. Hamber
would stimulate debate and discussion on the subject of masculinity in the transitional justice field. This has not happened on a large scale. In 2009,...