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Turkish Men and their Going-out Habits: A Moral Critique of Masculinity and Everyday Life on the Franco-German Borderland
Abstract
The concept of gender played a key role for scholars of migration in arguing that the category of the migrant is not void of differences pertaining to one’s gender, but is rather central to shaping a migrant’s life trajectory. Nevertheless, men’s everyday lives have only recently been included in this conversation. De- and-re territorialization is a destabilizing process for women as well as men, as it puts into question the very values that are ascribed to them. Within the context of migrant men, it is often assumed that patriarchal norms are carried from one context to another without much change. Hence, the practices of Turkish men who migrate from highland villages to urban capitals in Europe are seen as a reflection of the gender norms that define rural Turkey. However, as my research on the Franco-German borderland shows, the dispositions that are ascribed to Muslim Turkish men come to be discussed by the very members of the Turkish community, man and woman alike. One way in which they are evaluated is through their leisurely practices—in particular, their going-out habits. Where do Muslim Turkish men go after work? Do they pursue a life of mundane pleasures in Strasbourg and Kehl—Strasbourg’s German neighbor? Do they waste away their time and money on the streets or in shisha bars and coffeehouses chatting and playing cards, or go to Germany to play slotmachines and visit brothels? Or do the spend time at home, with their family, or at the mosque, with the congregation? How do they negotiate how and where they will spend time after work? And how do they deal with the practical as well as moral consequences of their actions? Based on a yearlong ethnographic fieldwork in Strasbourg and Kehl, my paper describes the moral frames through which men’s everyday practices are evaluated, and reflects on how Muslim Turkish men living on the Franco-German borderland deal with becoming subjects of moral inquiry.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
Europe
Sub Area
None