Deconstructing Militant Manhood

Abstract

In this article, we consider how privileged masculine performances within different spaces of (anti-)globalization politics discipline political praxis in ways that bolster, as much as contest, the order that these movements seek to subvert or overthrow. We draw on two case studies: a British ‘anti-imperialist’ organization working in solidarity with Latin America and the emerging British anarchist movement. On the basis of our own interpretive participation within these spaces, we consider how each was structured with reference to a privileged masculine identity – that of a patriarchal and authoritarian ‘Man with Analysis’ in the case of the former and what we call ‘Anarchist Action Man’ in the case of the latter. We reflect on how these dominant gendered scripts set restrictions around which bodies and voices could be included, and within what capacity; and how our own ‘off-script’ performances were reinterpreted with reference to available cultural texts within these activist subcultures.