Men and the mask: Dramaturgical mask-wearing, masculinities and oilmen's ‘stoical’ emotional shielding practices in Scotland's offshore oilfields

Abstract

Scotland's North Sea offshore oil-drilling-fields have long been stereotyped as sites reinforcing and reproducing unique forms of masculinities aligning with hegemonic masculinity (HM) descriptors: stoicism, competition, and conflict. Oilfields encompass near-all-male workplaces, requiring labour in difficult conditions, distancing from friends, family, and home life. Emerging research in oilfields has begun to resist the HM-stereotype in favour of complex understandings of masculinities, labour-and-identity performances. This work details findings from a lengthy ‘embedded’ ethnography of the UK Offshore Oilfield. Specifically, highlighting and discussing men's metaphorical ‘mask wearing’ practices: the process by which oilmen engaged in complex performances of masculinities that resist HM yet retained overt components of stoicism; a key HM-descriptor. This ‘masked’ stoicism was presented and performed in unique ways that bridged genuine and non-genuine performances of oilfield masculine identities and interconnected with resistances against risk-taking and supports for safety. Goffman's dramaturgical perspective is applied to deepen and interrogate findings. Salient implications for oilmen's wellbeing, masculinities theory and future study are put forward.