Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and The Swedish School of Social Science invite you to participate in debates at a collaborative symposium. There is no registration fee.

Contemporary scholarship on young masculinities highlights contradictory themes. On the one hand, some studies indicate the pervasiveness of the stubborn particulars of heteronormativity, homophobia and violence in schools and at work. On the other hand, some researchers maintain that recurrent patterns of masculinity have been disrupted by the emergence of a nonhomophobic masculinity where 'homohysteria' is declining in favour of 'inclusive masculinity' (Anderson, 2009). Such straightforward narratives of 'progress' are, however, not the whole story since scores of studies find either little evidence of 'inclusive masculinity' or that it sits alongside contemporary homophobia. Binarised notions of masculinities are, therefore, oversimplifying, reducing the recognized plurality of masculinities. Instead, as Johannsdottir and Gislason (2018: 3) suggest, from an Icelandic study, 'masculinity is more broadly defined than before, that nowadays more things are "permissible," and yet despite this liberalization, certain homophobic attitudes still linger on.'

The picture is even more complex in that the men on whom Anderson bases his theory are predominantly white, middle to upper-middle class UK and US university age men. Yet, as Connell and Hearn and others have long pointed out, racialization, ethnicisation, age, place, nation and 'global north'/'global-south' divisions produce specific power relations as crucial as gender relations. Masculinities are, therefore, heterogeneous (Messerschmidt, 2015) and masculine bodies can be a resource to signal and to challenge hegemonic and heteronormative masculinities. In order, therefore, to understand the complex social processes and power relations that constitute young masculinities, an increasing number of scholars are turning to the concept of 'intersectionality' to analyse the ways in which, for example, boys of the same age in the same schools can have very different experiences of masculinities.

This symposium aims to nuance understandings of young masculinities by bringing together a variety of new thinking to illuminate contradictions and complementarities in contemporary scholarship on boys and young men. Papers in this symposium will be thought provoking and will aim to stimulate debate and discussion. They can come from any discipline, any methodological framework and discuss any of the themes above, or others in a variety of settings. They can be theoretically and/or empirically based.
Co-organised by
Dr Harry Lunabba University Lecturer, Swedish School of Social Science
Dr Marja Peltola Postdoctoral Fellow, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
Prof. Ann Phoenix, Jane & Aatos Erkko Professor, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and Professor of Psychosocial Studies, UCL, UK
Invited Speakers
Dr Tuija Huuki
Dr Jukka Lehtonen
Dr Tarja Tolonen
You are invited to submit your abstracts in English to: marja.peltola@helsinki.fi

Submit your abstract by: 17 March 2018
We will reply to you by: 31 March 2018
Please register by: 14 April 2018