Doing masculinity: The “look” of unaccompanied male migrant teenagers from the Maghreb

Abstract

The aim of this article is to engage with unaccompanied migrant Maghrebi boys’ styles of physical self-presentation, “looks,” and hairstyles as a source of knowledge on the construction of masculinities. In order to observe such bodily expressive practices, we used general ethnographic methodology and, in particular, a workshop built around different artistic techniques. Since masculinity is inextricably defined in relation to specific agents and contexts, insights into unaccompanied migrant teenagers’ enactments of masculinity are dependent on (1) the collective imagination lying behind such “looks” and bodily images, (2) the discomfort and tensions created in the institutional communities in which these minors live—especially among social workers, and (3) the dialogue and relationships that emerge between the aesthetic and bodily expressions of these young migrants’ own culture and those of the other cultural groups that coexist, in our case, in a European city.