Displacement and subalternity: masculinities, racialization and the feminization of the other

In different historical and cultural contexts it is important to examine the ways in which diasporic and transnational relations are a key process of societal change, which may involve complex forms of dislocation and integration. Drawing on a qualitative research project on immigrant men in Portugal, we aim at disentangling the ways in which community identities are constructed in a gendered manner, with differences pertaining to the constitution of specific diasporic communities (Brazilians, Cape Verdeans and Mozambicans), hailing from diverse Portuguese colonial and post-colonial histories. We contend that for a deeper understanding of the overall consequences of migration and transnationalism, a gender perspective, which is often neglected when tackling cultural encounters and multiple modernities, is mandatory. For immigrant men, the experience of otherness, even if permeated by cultural entanglements, hibridity and social inclusion, is marked, in most cases, by subalternity. This subordinate condition, of being a discriminated stranger, a categorized other often experiencing feelings of frustration and disenchantment with the ‘European dream’, is reinforced by racialized/ethnic otherness vis-à-vis the dominance of whiteness. The ways of dealing with discrimination lead to the construction of identities, along national lines of origin, in a highly gendered form, namely in terms of masculinities. As a consequence, Portuguese and European men are strongly devaluated and viewed as feminine and emasculated. Simultaneously, Portuguese women tend to be perceived as strongly masculinized. Conversely, immigrant men tend to stress self-definitions of identity that give priority to a virile sexuality and bodily performances as a way to compensate for the lack of other capitals of masculinity (e.g. financial and public power). However, these strategies can be quite paradoxical. On the one hand, there is a reinforcement of a defensive communitarist sense of belonging that ultimately leads to ghettoization. On the other hand, there are also aspirational processes operating through the mimicry of the dominant other, even if these are often conflicting and contradictory. In sum, at the same time, immigrant men do aspire to power in many-sided ways (namely by reinventing multiple forms of male bodily performativity) and tend to shut themselves to inclusion in the dominant Portuguese gender order, frequently being complicit with their own fetichization as Other