Masculinity at the margins: – othering, marginality and resistance among young

This article analyses how young marginalized ethnic minority men in Denmark
react to the othering they are subject to in the media as well as in the social arenas of every day life. The article is based on theoretically informed ethnographic fieldwork among such young men as well as interviews and other types of material.
Taking the concepts of othering, intersectionality and marginality as point of
departure the article analyses how these young men experience othering and how they react to it. One type of reaction, described as stylization, relies on accentuating the latently positive symbolic meaning in the subject position of the black man in order to become dangerous and sexy. Another type of reaction is resistance, which may take the form of inarticulate oppositional behaviour often aimed at female welfare state professionals or more articulate ‘street politics’ making the margin a site of critique although in a masculinist way. These reactions to othering represent a challenge to researchers interested in intersectionality and gender, because gender is reproduced as a hierarchical form of social differentiation at the same time as racism is both reproduced and resisted.