Gender,masculinity and the new economy

This paper examines the ‘remaking’ of white working class masculinities in the latter quarter of the twentieth century. It draws on ethnographic data gathered at two points in time in order to interrogate the relation of macro-economic and social relations on individual and group identities; to excavate the social psychological relations ‘between’ genders and races, as narrated by white working-class men; and to explore the nuanced variations among these men. Addressing theoretical, empirical and methodological issues associated with these studies, I argue that the remaking of the white working class can only be understood in relation to gendered constructions within itself, the construction of relevant ‘others’, as well as deep shifts in large social formations.