Migration has Stripped Us of Our Manhood: Contradictions of Failed Masculinity Among South Asian Male Migrants in Greece

Abstract

This article explores the contradictions of the failed masculine stature of South Asian male migrants in Greece. Transnational migration provides low-class rural Indian and Pakistani men an opportunity to socially re-inscribe their adult breadwinner stature. It discusses relational hierarchies of masculinities that shape these men’s encounters with Greek employers, compatriots in Greece, and transnationally located families. Discriminatory state migration and labor regimes intersect with discourses of racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia to reinforce these racialized men’s sense of failed masculinity. Relative powerlessness to a range of local and co-ethnic men further emasculates them. Consequently, they adopt a series of compensatory strategies that include self-valorizing their masculinity relationally vis-à-vis co-ethnic males and Greek male workers. Strategically repositioning self as indispensable to the Greek nation and accentuating personal sacrifice for families notionally transforms them into mythic heroes. Notwithstanding, precarious migrant status in Greece renders hegemonic masculine stature elusive to them.