It’s difficult to be a man, but it’s even more difficult to be an indigenous man: in/EXISTING masculine identities

• Main Authors: María Alejandra Salguero-Velázquez, Dania Isabella Tabares Castañeda
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Universidad del Valle 2018-08-01
• Series: La Manzana de la Discordia
• Subjects: Masculinities; Indigenous; Identities; Gender
• Online Access: http://manzanadiscordia.univalle.edu.co/index.php/la_manzana_de_la_discordia/article/view/6735/9336

This article deals with the complex pro-cesses of identity construction in indigenous men. By incorporating the concept of “In/EXISTING identities” it seeks to account for a process that takes place in a contradictory manner. The prefix “in” intends to indicate both the existence and nonexistence of indigenous mas-culine identities that often “disappear” as in the case of the forced disappearance of the Azyotzinapa students in 2014. International law links the marginalization of in-digenous peoples in the Americas to the lack of recogni-tion of their rights, undermined by Western ethnocentric principles based on a notion of “white, blond, strong, successful manhood”. A feminist approach, calling for the fight against hierarchies and inequalities, and the giving of voice to “minorities” is incorporated, along with a concept of justice as a principle that requires equal opportunities for everyone regardless of sex, race, or ethnic group. Social inequalities are examined as his-torical and social constructions. Being a man is learned, and re-learned through complex socialization processes that in the case of indigenous identities require identify-ing Western constructs. Indigenous men experience such processes under conditions of economic, political, and sociocultural inequality, reaffirming their generic ethnic-ity in subaltern conditions. Some struggle to re-signify; others die trying.