The Question of Rural Masculinities*

Abstract

Abstract By way of introduction to this special issue on rural masculinities, we provide an overview of masculinity studies, emphasizing the influential work of Robert W. Connell on hegemonic masculinity. We go on to distinguish between two main avenues of rural inquiry in masculinity studies: studies of the masculine in the rural and studies of the rural in the masculine, or what we also term the masculine rural and the rural masculine. We apply this distinction to the six contributions to this special issue, showing how most of the papers maintain a kind of dialogue between the two. We conclude by arguing that studies of rural masculinities are a contribution rather than an alternative to feminist scholarship in the rural social sciences, and that the topic of rural masculinities provides rural scholarship with opportunities for conducting research in other disciplines.