A Politics of the Body—Sport, Masculinity, and Chinese Albertan Men

Abstract

With a focus on the construction of masculinity in relation to confrontational sport, especially ice hockey, this qualitative research explores Chinese Albertan masculinity in day-to-day settings. Data was collected via five in-depth life history interviews. Drawing on leading gender scholar Raewyn Connell’s hegemonic masculinity theory, I first analyze representations of Chinese masculinity in historical contexts in Canada. Not only were the Chinese workers institutionally subjugated, they were also ideologically emasculated. Their resultant location in the economy and the discursive framing of them as sexually deviant worked in tandem to place them in a subordinate position in the gender order. I then examine the ways in which components of hegemonic masculinity are constructed in the data of the current research and the participants’ self-positioning in relation to the conceptualization of this masculinity. Through a two-phased analysis involving thematic analysis and a critical discourse analysis approach, I first attend to the local constructions of masculinity in the data. I then situate these constructions within the broad cultural celebration of physical toughness which finds expression in hockey and critically analyze the participants’ strategies for negotiating their masculinities. The study concludes by outlining a tentative link between Chinese masculinity in historical contexts and in contemporary Alberta, evident in its consistent occupation in lower or subordinate positions in the gender order.