Masculine hierarchies in migrant homosocial workspaces: dominating and subordinating masculinities of Tajik labour migrants in Russia

This article analyzes how masculinity practices transform in homosocial workspaces of labour migrants. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Russia and Tajikistan, the article scrutinises the experiences of Tajik migrant men who work in the largely informal construction sector in Russia. Their interactions are thus embedded in this country’s capitalist system, as well as its migration and labour regimes which are characterised by irregularity and discrimination. It is argued that work relations and hierarchies emerging between migrant men in receiving countries are shaped, on the one hand, by cultural ideas of masculinity and social norms from sending communities and, on the other, by neoliberal forms of precarity. They both contribute to creating new power dynamics, including work-related masculine practices. The article analyzes the process of how two masculinity types emerge which are situational and complementary to each other. The first is dominating masculinity which refers to practices of commanding people, in this case other migrant workers. The second is subordinating masculinity, a concept that we advance to capture the perceptions and practices of migrant men who temporarily accept the authority of other migrant men, such as intermediaries who are informally in charge of workers.