Resistance or Complicity? Chinese Canadian Men Negotiating Whiteness and Masculinity in the Canadian Prairies

Authors

  • Qingyan Sun University of Alberta

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18733/cpi29530

Abstract

In this essay, I critically analyze the practice of masculinity negotiation based on data collected through a qualitative study of hegemonic masculinity. Reflecting some dynamics of the historical subordination of Chinese masculinity in Canada, the Chinese Albertan males who participated in the research framed a somatic white masculinity, via which they discursively displaced themselves from the domain of the masculine. Some of them employed sport-participation to negotiate their masculine statuses. Underscoring whiteness as a material aspect of masculinity that cannot be performatively constructed by Chinese men, I argue that masculinity negotiation does not constitute an equitable means of resistance, as the very practice entrenches an archetypal masculine subject with whiteness at its centre. Through this discussion, I wish to incite conceptualizations of resistance in more critical terms.

Author Biography

Qingyan Sun, University of Alberta

Qingyan Sun has an MA in Interrcultural Communication and a MEd in Theoretical, Cultural and International Studies in Education. He is a doctoral student in the specialization of Social Justice and International Studies in Education in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Alberta. His research interest include masculinities, intersectionality, race and anti-racism, and critical discourse analysis.

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Published

2021-08-27

Issue

Section

Post Colonial Articles, Poetry, Artwork