From Swagger to Serious: Managing Young Masculinities between Faiths at a Young Men’s Christian Association Centre in The Gambia
A renewed focus on studies of masculinity in Africa has so far failed to account for the growing importance of nonproselytizing Faith-Based Organisations (fbos) in the gendering process. This article seeks to address this issue through a case study of the Gambian branch of the Young Men’s Christian...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2016
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| In: |
Journal of religion in Africa
Year: 2016, Volume: 46, Issue: 2/3, Pages: 288-323 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Gambia
/ Young man
/ Christianity
/ Islam
/ Masculinity
/ Interfaith dialogue
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| IxTheo Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AX Inter-religious relations CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations KBN Sub-Saharan Africa |
| Further subjects: | B
Islam
Christianity
masculinity
youth
development
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | A renewed focus on studies of masculinity in Africa has so far failed to account for the growing importance of nonproselytizing Faith-Based Organisations (fbos) in the gendering process. This article seeks to address this issue through a case study of the Gambian branch of the Young Men’s Christian Association (ymca). ymca leaders generate a culture of dynamic leadership that equates to a form of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ based on love, self-sacrifice, and obligation. This article shows how this process is implicated in a series of tensions between the young men and their peers, families, elders, and leaders. While many young men want to ‘have swagger’, they are called ‘stubborn’ and urged to ‘get serious’. Through an ethnographic portrait, the author uses these tensions to explore how ymca ideals of manhood may be superimposing forms of Euro-American, Christian masculinity onto Muslim Gambian men, replicating colonial modes of control, inequality, and oppression. |
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| ISSN: | 1570-0666 |
| Contains: | In: Journal of religion in Africa
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340073 |