Just Between Us: An Ethnography of Male Identity and Intimacy in Rural Communities of Northern México

Southwest Center Series

by Guillermo Núñez Noriega

A photograph of two men, cowboy-hatted and -booted and discreetly holding hands, is the departure point in a groundbreaking study on masculinity and homosexuality in Mexico. Just Between Us, an ethnography of intimacy and affection between men, explores the concept of masculine identity and homoeroticism, expressing the difficulties men face in maintaining their masculinity while expressing intimacy and affection.
    Using fieldwork from rural Sonora, Mexico, Guillermo Núñez Noriega posits that men accept this intimacy outside gender categories and stereotypes, despite the traditional patriarchal society. This work contests homophobia and the heterosexual ideal of men and attempts to break down the barriers between genders.
    The photograph Núñez Noriega uses to explore the shifting attitudes and perceptions of sexuality and gender provokes more questions than answers. Recognizing the societal regulations at play, the author demonstrates the existence in contemporary Mexico of an invisible regime of power that constructs and regulates the field of possibilities for men’s social actions, especially acts of friendship, affection, and eroticism with other men. The work investigates “modes of speaking” about being a man, on being gay, on the implicit meanings of the words homosexual, masculine, trade, fairy, and others—words that construct possibilities for intimacy, particularly affective and erotic intimacy among men.
    Multiple variants of homoeroticism fall outside the dominant model, Núñez Noriega argues, a finding that offers many lessons on men and masculine identities. This book challenges patriarchal definitions of sex, gender, and identity; it promotes the unlearning of dominant conventions of masculinity to allow new ways of being.
 

232 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2007

Reviews

[Ricardo Peres-da-Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

This study, or should I say ethnography, was really revealing. Especially inasmuch as it showed the friction between academic / scientific binaries, vs. on-the-ground reality as shared in confidential account.

I am sure there is much that Nuñez Noriega left out of his account, after all, this is a study spanning years. Yet what he was able to find was reality, beneath the layers of the daily spectacle. What is happening behind closed doors, past the arroyo, in our own communities? And are some things meant to stay secret?

[alternBRUNO°° · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nuñez Noriega es un investigador concienzudo, sublime y sensible a todos los universos teóricos-metodológicos de la ciencia social. Siempre es una delicia leerlo.