ABSTRACT
The diverse and contested nature of the contemporary skinhead scene makes it impossible to identify a single common body regime, or set of gender norms, characteristic of the skinhead (sub)culture. The contemporary Russian nationalist form of skinhead ideology might be said to be underpinned by a regime of the body based on the principles of defending the ‘purity’1 of the race or nation, ensuring the ‘pure’ reproduction of the genus, strict adherence to patriarchal norms of family and state constitution, the power and authority of physical force, the moral superiority of the titular ethnic group, the display of ‘real’ masculinity, and an active hostility towards ‘others’. However, even within the Russian Nazi-skinhead movement, individual groups shape their own particular versions of masculinity as well as distinctive fraternal bonds and spaces in which these are enacted.
