Land, God, and guns : settler colonialism and masculinity in the American heartland / Levi Gahman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gahman, Levi, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

National characteristics, American.

Working class white people--United States.

Working class white people.

Masculinity--United States.

Masculinity.

United States.

Physical Description:

ix, 239 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

London : Zed Books, 2020.

Summary:

This book is an antidote to the forms of American nationalism, masculinity, exceptionalism, and self-anointed prowess that are currently being flexed on the global stage. Through a fascinating combination of ethnographic research across seven US states and application of postcolonial, anti-racist, feminist and poststructuralist theories, Land, God, and Guns reveals how time-honoured rites of passage associated with taken-for-granted notions of manhood in the American Heartland are constitutive of a constellation of colonial worldviews, capitalist logics, gender essentialisms, ethnocentric religious beliefs, jingoistic populism, racial animus, and embodied violence. A constellation that, within the US, upholds a heteropatriarchal and racist ordering of life that both privileges and ultimately damages its main proliferators--white settler men--back cover.

Contents:

1 There's No Place Like Home p. 1

Positionality and Context p. 7

Methods and Fieldwork p. 20

Aims and Rationale p. 24

2 Settler Colonialism, Empire, Borders p. 36

God Shed His Grace on Thee p. 36

Settler Colonialism and Dispossession p. 38

Deracination and Genocide p. 40

Racial Capitalism and the State p. 43

The Twenty-First-Century Color-Line? p. 48

Border Imperialism p. 52

Migration and (non)Belonging p. 59

3 Masculinity, Place, Intersectionality p. 66

Just the Way It Is 'Round Here p. 66

Geography and Hegemonic Masculinity p. 68

Gender and the Body p. 72

Embodiment, Dis/Ability, and Representation p. 75

Race, Whiteness, and "Othering" p. 80

Sexuality and Heteronormativity p. 85

4 Kansas, Bled: Land, History, Violence p. 91

What's the Matter with Kansas? p. 91

Space, Law, and Borders p. 94

Religion and Sexuality p. 99

Enclosure, Elimination, and Nation-Building p. 104

Gender, Race, and Hierarchy p. 108

Emotion, Paradox, and Monster p. 116

"Safe" Communities, Authoritarian Populism p. 119

Denial, Disavowal, and Disaffiliation p. 125

5 Frontier, Family, Nation p. 128

Don't Tread on Me p. 128

Frontier Masculinity: Protectors and Providers p. 131

Ideology: Liberal, Capitalist, Colonial p. 136

God, Fathering, and Nationalism p. 139

Good Guys versus Bad Guys p. 146

The Banal Weaponization of the Rural p. 149

Violence and Criminalization p. 154

Complicity and the Status Quo p. 157

6 Capitalism, Work, Respect p. 159

Take Me Home, Country Roads p. 159

Capitalism and Masculinity p. 160

(Neo)Liberal Self-Making p. 162

Work Ethic and Pulling Your Weight p. 166

Rurality, Religion, and Heteronormativity p. 170

Competition, Pride, and Tradition p. 174

Emotion and Relationships p. 182

Social Reproduction and Consumption p. 186

7 Looking Back, Going Forward ... p. 192

Going Forward p. 195.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 203-228) and index.

Other Format:

Electronic version: Gahman, Levi. Land, God, and guns.

ISBN:

9781786996367

1786996367

9781786996350

1786996359

OCLC:

1114496713