ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the potentials, contradictions, and outcomes of working with male refugees on the issue of masculinity today. Critically analyzing their experiences in a project for young men from Afghanistan living in Austria, the authors outline implications for theories and pedagogic approaches to masculinities from an intersectional perspective.
After 2015 new restrictive migration policies, accompanied by gendered and sexualized discourses of dangerous foreign masculinity, were introduced throughout Europe. On the one hand, this context stimulated relevant debates about toxic masculinity and spurred interest as well as funding for pedagogic projects working with migrant boys and men. But this interest, on the other hand, was often framed by racializing notions about refugees “importing” a problematic, archaic masculinity and thus in need of special education.
The critical analysis shows parallels to colonial narratives about sexually deviant male “Others” and argues for the need to self-critically question how far a pedagogy of masculinity becomes part of contemporary “civilizing missions” in this context.
