Dal combattente a Omar Gatlato: Modelli di mascolinità nell’Algeria indipendente

Abstract

Shortly after independence (1962), Algeria put in place different political discourses in order to strengthen the new citizens’ identity. Among these the discourse about manhood was crucial and focused especially on the muǧāhid , the fighter, whose fighting allowed Algerian to conquer freedom and independence. Therefore, manhood became a political ideal engaging social and political dynamics devoted to define the man-woman relationships. Moreover, it helped constructing a collective and normative imaginary in line with the hegemonic masculinity (Robert Connell 1996), i.e., men’s identity was construed as a universal model influencing society as well as politics. In this paper I present different forms of this discourse and outline the characteristic of the “true” muǧāhid , underscoring how this was built in order to define an imaged manhood.