Abstract

This volume provides intimate anthropological accounts of Muslim men’s everyday lives in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and diasporic communities in the West. Amid increasing political turmoil and economic precarity, Muslim men around the world are enacting nurturing roles as husbands, sons, fathers, and community members, thereby challenging broader systems of patriarchy and oppression. By focusing on the ways in which Muslim men care for those they love, this volume challenges stereotypes and showcases Muslim men’s humanity.

“This volume is an important correction to various types of literature, from within anthropology as well as from other disciplinary fields… it will become a significant contribution to the field of masculinity in general and to Muslim men in particular.” · Leif Manger, University of Bergen

Nefissa Naguib is Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo. Much of her work has focused on rupture and displacement, particularly in the Middle East and the Mediterranean. She has written on memory and diaspora, food activism and the politics of water, and local responses to global crises. Current research centers on Syrian refugees arriving in Norway by way of the Arctic Circle. Her most recent monograph is Nurturing Masculinities: Men, Food, and Family in Contemporary Egypt.

Marcia C. Inhorn is the William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs in the Department of Anthropology and Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. A specialist on Middle East gender, religion, and reproductive health issues, she is the author of six award-winning books, including The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East. She is also co-editor of this Berghahn Book series on Fertility, Reproduction, and Sexuality.