Reconsidering the Concept of Hegemonic Masculinity: Discursive Psychology,Conversation Analysis and Participants’ Orientations

This article provides a critical review of Wetherell and Edley’s (1999) discursive reformulation of the concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’. While I retain some familiar features from Wetherell and Edley’s approach, I develop a discursive perspective that is located more firmly in the technical, conversation analytic tradition - as outlined in the recent exchange between Schegloff (1997, 1998) and Wetherell (1998). In particular, I argue that previous research is based on the assumption that we need to venture further than the limits of the text to explain why participants say what they do, and go beyond participants’ orientations to be able to say anything politically effective. Using data from two semi- structured interviews with men in their early 20s, I explore how participants construct masculinity and situate themselves (and others) in relation to those constructions. This involves an analysis that is more attentive to participant orientations and gendered category membership than that used in the analysis of masculinity so far. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of this approach for feminist psychology.