Re-Negotiating Rural Masculinities as Vulnerability: Cattle Ranchers in Climate Change Affected Rural Nicaragua

Patriarchy hurts the environment and men as well, and this is increasingly so under the effects of climate change in rural areas of the Global South. However, the climate justice debate is still not giving enough attention to the reasons why men keep performing masculinities that are harmful for the environment. The possibilities for ecological masculinities—i.e. masculinities that would go hand-in-hand with climate change adaptation—to emerge in such communities and subcultures during these times of climate change are underway. Based on ethnographic research in Nicaragua, one of the most climate change affected countries in the world, I discuss the making and performances of the hegemonic masculinities of cattle ranchers and how they are affected by climate change in general and deforestation in particular. I argue for a reconceptualisation of masculinities as vulnerability to open up the conceptual possibilities for ecological masculinities to emerge.