Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction: Studying masculinities, middle-classness, and relations to the state during forced displacement 1.Being a man vis-à-vis militarisation, war, and the uprising 2.Becoming and ‘un-becoming’ refugees 3.Claiming successful middle-class masculinity through work 4.Loss of status and ‘groom-ability’: Making sense of changes in marriage negotiations 5.Establishing a living among several ‘others’ in Egypt 6.Masculinities, interaction with the state and the migration of fear Conclusion: On Masculinities, forced displacement, middle-classness and relations with the nation state Bibliography

Promotional Information

Examines the social and emotional impact of forced migration and the label of “refugee” on middle-class Syrian men living in Egypt

About the Author

Magdalena Suerbaum is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religion and Ethnic Diversity, Gottingen, Germany. She has worked as a lecturer both at Humboldt University in Berlin and SOAS, University of London. She completed her PhD in Gender Studies at SOAS, University of London, UK.

Reviews

This is a very timely and original book that makes an important contribution to both masculinity studies, which so far has not engaged deeply with questions of migration and displacement, and to migration and refugee studies that has overlooked the question of masculinity. It makes a convincing case about the importance of this relationship
*Mahiye Seçil Dagta?, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Waterloo, Canada*

Suerbaum offers a revealing account of male experiences of displacement and new forms of masculinity after the Syrian uprising. Insightful and timely in its analysis, the book shows how the efforts of young men to “reclaim middle-classness” play out on fragile ground in Egypt, and how these are bound up with new ideas and practices of manhood. The first-hand narratives Suerbaum presents have an unforgettable immediacy. Through them, she deftly explores the contradictions men face as they renegotiate their status in Egypt in the labour market and the marriage market, all the while suspended between two authoritarian states.
*Paul Anderson, Cambridge University, UK*