Full Description
Rural masculinity is hardly a typical topic for a book. There is something unexpected, faintly disturbing, even humorous about investigating that which has long been seen and yet so often overlooked. But the ways in which we think about and socially organize masculinity are of great significance in the lives of both men and women. In Country Boys we also see that masculinity is no less significant in rural life than in urban life.
The essays in this volume offer much-needed insight into the myths and stereotypes as well as the reality of the lives of rural men. Interdisciplinary in scope, the contributions investigate what it means to be a farming man, a logging man, or a boy growing up in a country town and how this impacts both men and women in city and country. Chapters cover not only the United States but also Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, giving the book an unusually broad scope.
Contents
Contents
Foreword—Carolyn Sachs
1. Country Boys: Masculinity and Rural Life
Hugh Campbell, Michael Mayerfeld Bell, and Margaret Finney
Part I: Practices
2. Cultivating Dialogue: Sustainable Agriculture and Masculinities
Gregory Peter, Michael Mayerfeld Bell, Susan Jarnagin, and Donna Bauer
3. Three Visions of Masculine Success on American Farms
Peggy F. Barlett
4. Masculinities in Rural Small Business Ownership: Between Community and Capitalism
Sharon Bird
5. Real Men, Real Locals, and Real Workers: Realizing Masculinity in Small-Town New Zealand
Hugh Campbell
6. Rooted and Routed Masculinities Among the Rural Youth of North Cork and Upper Swaledale
Caitríona Ní Laoire and Shaun Fielding
7. "White Men Are This Nation": Right-Wing Militias and the Restoration of Rural American Masculinity
Michael Kimmel and Abby L. Ferber
8. Rural Men's Health: Situating Risk in the Negotiation of Masculinity
Will H. Courtenay
Part II: Representations
9. Cowboy Love
David Bell
10. Embodiment and Rural Masculinity
Jo Little
11. Beer Advertising, Rurality, and Masculinity
Robin Law
12. Changing Masculinity in a Changing Rural Industry: Representations in the Forestry Press
Berit Brandth and Marit S. Haugen
13. Warrior Heroes and Little Green Men: Soldiers, Military Training, and the Construction of Rural Masculinities
Rachel Woodward
Part III: Changes
14. Country/City Men
Robert W. Connell
15. Gendered Places and Place-Based Gender Identities: Reflections and Refractions
Linda Lobao
About the Contributors
A Note on the Photographs
References
Index
