The purpose of this article is to examine the interconnections between embodiment and masculinity. Departing from the predominant discursive view of masculinity, I explain how a phenomenological, post-dualistic approach, inspired by Merleau-Ponty and Butler, can be mobilized to conceptualize masculinity as an embodied, performative accomplishment that reverberates around socio-material relations. Towards this end, this article traces the masculine regulation of the body schema as it develops in reciprocal relations between ‘self-others-things’. Drawing from reflexive field notes and participant interviews, gathered over a 5-year period of observant participation with male motorcycle repairers, the article shows machinic masculinity as an embodied emplacement that is constituted by socio-material entanglements and performative enactments. In so doing, the article conceptually reframes how masculinity and embodiment are understood in Consumer Culture Theory (CCT).
AndersonL. (2006) ‘Analytical Autoethnography’, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography35: 373–95.
2.
AskegaardS.LinnetJ. (2011) ‘Towards an Epistemology of Consumer Culture Theory: Phenomenology and the Context of Context’, Marketing Theory11(4): 381–404.
3.
AskegaardS.GertsenM.C.LangerR. (2002) ‘The Body Consumed: Reflexivity and Cosmetic Surgery’, Psychology & Marketing19(10): 793–812.
BelkR. (1988) ‘Possessions and the Extended Self’, Journal of Consumer Research15(2): 139–68.
6.
BelkR.CostaJ. (1998) ‘The Mountain Man Myth: A Contemporary Consuming Fantasy’, Journal of Consumer Research25(3): 218–40.
7.
BettanyS. (2007) ‘The Material-Semiotics of Consumption, or, Where (and what) are the Objects in Consumer Culture Theory? in BelkR.W.SherryJ.F. (eds) Consumer Culture Theory (Research in Consumer Behavior. Vol. 11). Oxford, UK: JAI Press.
8.
BettanyS.KerraneB. (2011) ‘The (Post-Human) Consumer, the (post-avian) Chicken and The (post object) Eglu’, European Journal of Marketing45(11): 1746–56.
9.
BettanyS.KerraneB.HoggM. (2014) ‘The Material Semiotics of Fatherhood: The Co-Emergence of Technology and Contemporary Fatherhood’, Journal of Business Research67: 1544–51.
10.
BorgmannA. (1987) ‘Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
11.
ButlerJ. ([1990]2006) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge.
12.
ButlerJ. (1993) Bodies that Matter: On The Discursive Limits of Sex. London: Routledge.
13.
ButlerJ. (2000) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (10th anniversary ed.). London: Routledge.
CannifordR.ShankarA. (2013) ‘Purifying Practices: How Consumers Assemble Romantic Experiences of Nature’, Journal of Consumer Research39(5): 1051–69.
17.
CannifordR.RiachK.HillT. (2018) ‘Nosenography: How Smell Constitutes Meaning, Identity and Temporal Experience in Spatial Assemblages’, Marketing Theory18(2): 234–48.
18.
CarmenT. (2008) Merleau-Ponty. Oxford: Routledge.
19.
ConnellR.W. (2019) ‘New Maps of Struggle for Gender Justice: Rethinking Feminist Research on Organizations and Work’, Feminist Frontiers26: 54–63.
20.
ConnellR.W.MesserschmidtJ.W. (2005) ‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept’, Gender and Society19: 829–59.
21.
CrawfordM. (2010) The Case for Working with Your Hands: Or Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good. London: Penguin.
22.
CrossleyN. (1995) ‘Merleau-Ponty, the Elusive Body and Carnal Sociology’, Body & Society1(1): 43–63.
23.
DowneyG.DalidowiczM.MasonP. (2015) ‘Apprenticeship as Method: Embodied Learning in Ethnographic Practice’, Qualitative Research15(2): 183–200.
24.
DreyfusH. (2014) Skilful Coping: Essays on the Phenomenology of Everyday Perception and Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
25.
EppA.M.PriceL.L. (2010) ‘The Storied Life of Singularized Objects: Forces of Agency and Network Transformation’, Journal of Consumer Research36(5): 820–37.
26.
GibsonJ. (1979) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
27.
GouldingC.ShankarA.ElliottR., et al. (2009) ‘The Marketplace Management of Illicit Pleasure’, Journal of Consumer Research35(5): 759–71.
28.
HalesS.RiachK.TylerM. (2019) ‘Close Encounters: Intimate Service Interactions in Lap Dancing Work as a Nexus of “Self-Others-Things’, Organization Studies42(4): 555–74.
29.
HancockP.SullivanK.TylerM. (2015) ‘A Touch too Much: Negotiating Masculinity, Propriety and Proximity in Intimate Labour’, Organization Studies36(12): 1715–39.
30.
HarawayD.J. (1991) Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association.
31.
HeideggerM. ([1962]2001) Being and Time. Oxford: Blackwell.
32.
HeideggerM. (1985) History of the Concept of Time. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
33.
HewerP.HamiltonK. (2010) ‘On Emotions and Salsa: Some Thoughts on Dancing to Rethink Consumers’, Journal of Consumer Behaviour9(2): 113–25.
HoltD.B.ThompsonC.J. (2004) ‘Man-of-Action Heroes: The Pursuit of Heroic Masculinity in Everyday Consumption’, Journal of Consumer Research31(2): 425–40.
36.
HowesD. (2005) Empire of the Senses: The Sensory Culture Reader. Oxford: Berg Publishers.
37.
JoyA.VenkateshA. (1994) ‘Postmodernism, Feminism, and the Body: The Visible and The Invisible in Consumer Research’, International Journal of Research in Marketing11(4): 333–57.
38.
JudovitzD. (2001) The Culture of The Body: Genealogies of Modernity. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
39.
KnightsD. (2015) ‘Binaries Need to Shatter for Bodies to Matter: Do Disembodied Masculinities Undermine Organizational Ethics?’ Organization22(2): 200–16.
40.
LarsenJ. (2014) ‘(Auto)Ethnography and Cycling’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology17(1): 59–71.
MellströmU. (2003) ‘Masculinity, Power and Technology: A Malaysian Ethnography. Hampshire: Ashgate.
43.
Merleau-PontyM. ([1945]2002) Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by PaulK.London: Routledge.
44.
Merleau-PontyM. ([1945]2012) Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by LandesD.London: Routledge.
45.
Merleau-PontyM. (1968) The Visible and The Invisible. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
46.
MilesM.HubermanA. (1994) An Expanded Source Book: Qualitative Data Analysis (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
47.
MoisioR.ArnouldE.J.GentryJ.W. (2013) ‘Productive Consumption in The Class-Mediated Construction of Domestic Masculinity: Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Home Improvement in Men’s Identity Work’, Journal of Consumer Research40(2): 298–316.
48.
MurphyS.PattersonM. (2011) ‘Motorcycling Edgework: A Practice Theory Perspective’, Journal of Marketing Management27(13–14): 1322–40.
49.
MurphyS.PattersonM.O’MalleyL. (2019) ‘Learning How: Body Techniques, Skill Acquisition and the Consumption of Experience’, Marketing Theory19(4): 425–45.
50.
PaechterC. (2006) ‘Power, Knowledge and Embodiment in Communities of Sex/Gender Practice’, Women’s Studies International Forum29(1): 13–26.
51.
PattersonM.LarsenG. (2019) ‘Listening to Consumption: Towards A Sonic Turn in Consumer Research’, Marketing Theory19(2): 1–23.
PinkS. (2011) ‘From Embodiment to Emplacement: Re-Thinking Competing Bodies, Senses and Spatialities’, Sport Education and Science16(3): 343–55.
54.
PirsigR.M. (1974) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. New York, NY: William Morrow.
55.
SalihS. (2004) The Judith Butler Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
56.
SchoutenJ.W. (1991) ‘Selves in Transition: Symbolic Consumption in Personal Rites of Passage and Identity Reconstruction’, Journal of Consumer research17(4): 412–25.
57.
SchoutenJ.W.McAlexanderJ. (1995) ‘Subcultures of Consumption: An Ethnography of the New Bikers’, Journal of Consumer Research22(1): 43–61.
58.
ScottR.CaylaJ.CovaB. (2017) ‘Selling Pain to the Saturated Self’, Journal of Consumer Research44(1): 22–43.
59.
ShankarA.ElliottR.FitchettJ. (2009) ‘Identity, Consumption and Narratives of Socialization’, Marketing Theory9(1): 75–94.
60.
SherryJ.F.JrKozinetsR.V.StormD., et al. (2001) ‘Being in the Zone: Staging Retail Theatre at ESPN Zone Chicago’, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography30(4): 465–510.
61.
ThompsonC. (1996) ‘Caring Consumers: Gendered Consumption Meanings and the Juggling Lifestyle’, Journal of Consumer Research22(4): 388–407.
62.
ThompsonC.ArnouldE.GieslerM. (2013) ‘Discursivity, Difference and Disruption: Genealogical Reflections on the Consumer Culture Theory Heteroglossia’, Marketing Theory13(2): 149–74.
63.
ThompsonC.HirschmanE. (1995) ‘Understanding the Socialized Body: A Poststructuralist Analysis of Consumers’ Self-Conceptions, Body Images, and Self-Care Practices’, Journal of Consumer Research22(2): 139–53.
64.
TylerM. (2020) Judith Butler and Organization Theory. London: Routledge.
65.
WacquantL. (2004) Body and Soul. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
66.
ZahaviD. (2001) ‘Beyond Empathy. Phenomenological Approaches to Intersubjectivity’, Journal of Consciousness Studies8(5-7): 151–67.
