Margins and Marginalisations: Men and Masculinities beyond the Centres

By approaching the margins as productive sites of theory-making and bringing intersectionality and decoloniality into sustained dialogue, this chapter proposes a theoretical reorientation in Critical Studies on Men and Masculinities. The analysis addresses a long-standing shortcoming in masculinity theory by examining how power operates within marginal positions, where subordination, authority, and moral legitimacy may coexist. Attending to these contradictions requires moving beyond an understanding of marginality as a fixed condition and instead distinguishing between margins as relational social and spatial positions and marginalisation as historically situated processes through which power, inequality, and hierarchy are produced and contested. From this perspective, hegemonic masculinity is neither displaced nor reaffirmed, but placed under analytical scrutiny, revealing both its continued relevance and its conceptual limitations. The chapter then situates the volume’s contributions as empirically grounded engagements with this perspective, drawing on research from across the Global South and North. Across the chapters, masculinities are examined as shaped through intersecting processes of marginalisation linked to colonial legacies, racialisation, class, caste, migration, violence, queerness, and digital transformations, demonstrating how masculinities formed at the margins generate conceptual insight into the relational and historically contingent nature of masculine power.