Now I must go”: uncovering the relationship between masculinity and structural vulnerability in young African men's stories of forced migration

Palillo, Marco (2023) Now I must go”: uncovering the relationship between masculinity and structural vulnerability in young African men's stories of forced migration. International Migration Review. ISSN 0197-9183

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Abstract

Drawing on personal narratives collected from Sub-Saharan African international protection holders and seekers in Sicily, this article aims to advance understanding of the gender-specific processes prompting young men to migrate toward Europe. Focusing on the diverse experiences of (or threat of) violence that prompted participants to migrate, I argue that masculinity can be seen as a mediating factor between the individual and structural levels, producing a set of structural vulnerabilities to male-on-male violence both in the public sphere and in private spaces like the familial context. Here, vulnerability should be understood as positionality, indicating participants’ placement within context-specific masculine hierarchies along the lines of age, migration status, and race. Accordingly, this article interprets the Central Mediterranean migration route as a highly masculinized migration arena, where the social reproduction of vulnerable male mobilities stemming from the hierarchical organization of masculinities is located on a continuum across different migration phases.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Author(s)
Divisions:	LSE
Subjects:	J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology
Date Deposited:	20 Jan 2025 11:48
Last Modified:	20 Jan 2025 19:03
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/126931

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