Our 'Ideal': Reconfigurations of Masculinities among Filipino Men Who Experienced Violent Conflict and Internal Displacement in Southern Philippines

Abstract

The Philippines has one of the world’s longest-running violent conflicts in the Southeast Asia region (Colleta, 2011; International Alert Philippines, 2016), with its southern island of Mindanao, marked by protracted violent conflicts and internal displacements. This thesis examines the performances of masculinities among Filipino men in Mindanao who experienced violent conflict and internal displacement. Based on data collected from a mix of qualitative methods, but primarily using life story interviews, men in this study constructed an ideal Filipino-man masculinity that is reflective of their environment and experience of violent conflict and internal displacement. This ideal Filipino-man masculinity served as the male participants’ basis for valorising their own enactments of masculinities and for the construction of a hierarchy of masculinities in the study sites. Men in this study valorised their masculinities by redefining the performances of the breadwinner and ‘head of the family’ (padre de pamilya) roles, enacting a good-natured social persona, and differentiating themselves from other men in the study sites. This study argues that analysis of relations between hegemonic and nonhegemonic masculinities is inadequate in comprehending men’s enactments of masculinities relative to legitimising unequal gender relations. An examination of relations between and among nonhegemonic masculinities, in this case, those of marginalised masculinities, extends our knowledge of how gender inequalities is cultivated in the context of violent conflicts and internal displacements. Furthermore, this thesis argues that the use of the dominant victim-perpetrator binary in constructing men’s enactments of masculinities in this setting limits a more comprehensive investigation and understanding of masculinities as well as ignores men’s agentic selves in the context of violent conflicts and internal displacements.