Multiplicity, diversity and individualization behind shuttlecock play: Chinese sportsmen’s masculinities in today’s China

Abstract

With sport becoming increasingly mediatized in the global arena that further criss-crosses with the promotion of globalization and Western discourses surrounding manhood and identities, there has been, in contemporary China, a rise of alternate theorizations of masculinities that deviate from hegemonic masculine practices surrounding ‘wen’ (文) and ‘wu’ (武) as well as Maoist ideologies. While such accounts, focusing on demonstrating individuality and individualization, cultivating entrepreneurial spirit and possessing wealth, career success and conspicuous consumption, advocate for a greater understanding of masculinities that call for the diversity and fluidity of Chinese gender roles and male identities, there has also been a revival of traditional masculine ideologies associated with the Chinese Dream, a doctrine established and conveyed by President Xi Jinping, which seeks to highlight China’s quest for modernization and national power while placing ‘wu’ masculine values and culture at the forefront of its agenda. Against such a backdrop, this article, drawing on interviews with and observations of male badminton athletes from Mainland Chinese provincial professional and university teams, argues that, in contemporary China, both traditional and newly emerged masculine values and endeavours are integral to the theorization of masculinities of Chinese men, which are contended to be multiple, pluralized and individualized. With a dearth of academic literature that focuses on the co-presence of and inter-relationships between traditional and new masculinities which are embodied by modern Chinese men, this paper contributes renewed theoretical insights into how the various forms of masculinities coexist, intermix and, ultimately, negotiate with one another to reconstruct Chinese contemporary masculinities, in line with the gender order and hierarchy so upheld within China.