Hegemonic Masculinity and African Masculinity Studies

The chapter explores how to decolonise and Africanise the concept of hegemonic masculinity invented by Raewyn Connell and colleagues over three decades ago. Hegemonic masculinity has become the most widely used analytical concept in masculinity studies worldwide. However, it carries with it Eurocentric assumptions about gender that seem to overlook “other” non-Western ontologies and epistemologies. In particular, the Global North masculinity literature represents hegemonic masculinity as “configuration” of practices within a gender structure, overlooking matters of spirituality pertinent to African people. This chapter reconceptualises hegemonic masculinity as a “complex configuration” to highlight specifically the African ways of conceptualising social reality and human action. It shows that African endogenous ontologies consider humans as “composite beings”, encompassing both the human elements and non-human elements, like the ancestral spirits living “inside” human bodies. In accounting for hegemonic masculinity (i.e. practise that legitimates men’s power over women), our research must consider both the corporeal and non-corporeal aspects of personhood because all of them have an impact on men’s social conduct and human relationships. By only focussing on physical manifestations of hegemonic masculinity, current masculinities research misses critical aspects of social life in Africa. The first section offers a brief account of hegemonic masculinity, followed by an exploration of how hegemonic masculinity applies to an African context to elucidate certain societal dynamics such as, amongst others, male domination, multiple masculinities, and gender justice. The last section offers a decolonial, African-centred, decolonial conceptualisation of hegemonic masculinity.