The War Within: Militarised Masculinities and Azerbaijani Nationalism in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War

This article explores how militarised and hegemonic Azerbaijani masculinities shaped online discourses during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, with a focus on digital performances of humiliation, war crimes, and martyrdom. Drawing on feminist critical discourse analysis and netnography, it analyses social media posts to show how nationalist, militarised and gendered ideologies were articulated, legitimising violence and reinforcing militarised masculinity as a normative ideal. The paper situates these dynamics within Azerbaijan’s post-Soviet authoritarianism, colonial legacies, and nationalist state-building, arguing that militarised masculinity is not fixed but contextually produced through conflict, propaganda, and state rhetoric. The findings highlight how hegemonic Azerbaijani masculinities mobilised digital platforms to humiliate Armenian masculinities, justify wartime violence, and romanticise martyrdom, contributing to the broader militarisation of male authority. The study contributes to gender and masculinity studies, digital anthropology, post-Soviet and critical military studies by centring a decolonial and context-specific analysis. It calls for reflexive and inclusive methodologies that avoid extractive scholarship and attend to the lived realities of those shaped by war. Ultimately, this article advocates for a critical rethinking of masculinity, militarisation, and justice beyond Eurocentric frameworks, arguing for the necessity of decolonial feminist engagements in analysing gendered power in war and conflict-affected societies.