DRINKING LIKE A MAN: DILEMMAS AND PITFALLS IN GENDER ETHNOGRAPHIES, MASCULINITY

Abstract

This article presents the trajectory of the recent ethnographic research on gender and masculinity highlighting the unfolding of the theme in its crossing with the issue of alcohol consumption. It deals with the contribution of the ethnographic research to the study of alcohol consumption, so avoiding a biomedical and moralizing approach to the issue and its immediate link with alcoholism. In this sense, the article considers the socially shared meanings about the social act of drinking, as well as the elements involved in work and conjugality, and the wider network of relations in which the actors are embedded. Such approach proves to be important in order to understand how the concerned persons cannot be seen simply as dependents or ill, and the ways in which multiple identities are negotiated.

Ethnography; Alcohol consumption; Gender; Masculinity; Men