Initiation as a rite of surveillance: Precarious manhood and the making of masculinity in Jeffrey Rakabe’s Led by Shepherds: An initiate’s memoir

This paper critically examines masculine identity formation by analysing Jeffrey Rakabe’s memoir Led by Shepherds, using the text as a sociological narrative to interrogate how manhood is produced, validated, and policed within ritualised contexts. Drawing on critical masculinity scholarship, the paper explored how initiation rituals function as sites of bodily discipline, sexual regulation, and peer surveillance, reinforcing hegemonic masculinity while rendering masculine status precarious rather than secure. The analysis challenges the assumption that ritual participation alone confers stable manhood, demonstrating instead that initiation often inaugurates an ongoing process of masculine surveillance in which legitimacy must be continuously performed and defended. Particular attention is given to the role of sexual purity and heterosexual dominance in marginalising subordinated and queer masculinities, as well as to the often-overlooked maternal perspectives that reveal the relational and emotional costs of masculinity-making practices. By conceptualising initiation as a rite of surveillance rather than a rite of passage, this paper contributes to contemporary debates on precarious manhood, hegemonic masculinity, and rituals in the Global South, highlighting how culturally sanctioned practices of masculine becoming reproduce inequality both between men and women and among men themselves.