From the Proletariat to the Precariat: Transformations in Masculinities in the the Neoliberal Period in Mexico.

• In Event: 4242 - Gender and the Crises of Global Capitalism

Abstract

In this essay, I locate the economic reconfiguration of the Mexican-state from the period of the Import-Substitution model to the current neoliberal context as an important historical nexus, in which to identify significant re-configuration of masculinity. As the obrero industrial masculinity model which interpellated masculine subjects as patriotic and working subjects no-longer has material resonance, the question arises: how are men making sense of their gendered identities? Employing ethnographic data from the city of Monterrey, this study extends on the concept of complicit masculinity as proposed by Matlon (2011), and concludes that men coming from a variety of employment trajectories, and classed positions who are absorbed into Uber-work rely upon market-based identities of freedom, entrepreneurship and consumerism to become socially visible as men. While precariat and maquiladora workers construct an image of a free-agent, Uber drivers with greater access to capital ground their identities on entrepreneurship and consumerism. At the end, Market-based masculine identities serve to consent to capitalism in its neoliberal articulation, and more specifically, serve to consent to the work-arraignments of Uber.

Author

• Mariana Manriquez, University of Arizona