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MEXICAN MORMON MASCULINITIES: Navigating Religious and Gender Normativities and Identities in Mexico City

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MEXICAN MORMON MASCULINITIES: Navigating Religious and Gender Normativities and Identities in Mexico City MEXICAN MORMON MASCULINITIES: navigating religious and gender normativities and identities in Mexico City. A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2018 ISAAC A SILES-BÁRCENAS SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES CONTENTS LIST OF IMAGES, TABLES AND FIGURES 4 ABSTRACT 5 DECLARATION 6 COPYRIGHT STATEMENT 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 7 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 8 ‘WHY MEN, WHY MORMONS?’ 8 OBJECTIVE AND SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH 13 THE STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS 14 CHAPTER 2: RELIGIOUS MASCULINITIES BEYOND TRADITION-LATE MODERN DICHOTOMIES 20 INTRODUCTION 20 THE SECULARIZATION THESIS: DEVELOPMENT AND CRITIQUE 23 THE ‘NEW’ RELIGIOSITY 28 BELIEVING, EMOTION AND AFFECT 30 TRADITIONAL AND NEW HEGEMONIC MASCULINITIES? 33 (HEGEMONIC) MASCULINITY FROM A GENDER PERSPECTIVE 38 DOUBLE THINKING AND SOCIAL EMBODIMENT IN THE CONFIGURATION OF RELIGIOUS MASCULINITIES 44 CONCLUSION 51 CHAPTER 3: A METHODOLOGY FIT FOR MEXICAN MORMON MASCULINITIES 53 INTRODUCTION 53 LOOKING AT MORMON MASCULINITIES FROM A QUALITATIVE PERSPECTIVE 54 THE METHODS 56 READING: ‘SEARCHING’ MORMON SCRIPTURE AND DOCUMENTS 57 OBSERVING: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACH 61 Afirmación México 68 INTERVIEWING: DIALOGUES ON MORMON MASCULINITIES 72 ANALYSING THE DATA 80 2 CHAPTER 4: MORMON MASCULINITIES ON DISPLAY 84 INTRODUCTION 84 MASCULINITIES ON DISPLAY AT THE MORMON CAPILLA 86 DISPLAYING MASCULINITIES THROUGH AUTHORITY AND SPIRITUALITY 90 ‘AND, BEHOLD, AND LO, THIS IS AN ENSAMPLE UNTO ALL…’ GENERAL AUTHORITY MASCULINITY 96 MORMON MASCULINITIES IN PREDOMINANTLY NON-MORMON SPACES 103 IN THE WORLD BUT NOT OF IT: MORMON MASCULINITIES AT SCHOOL AND/OR WORK. 104 LGBT MORMON MASCULINITIES: HYBRIDISATION AND TENSIONS BETWEEN ‘SPIRITUALITY’ AND ‘LIBERATION’ 109 CONCLUSION 114 5 - ‘THE PRIESTHOOD’ AS A LINCHPIN OF MORMON MASCULINITIES 117 INTRODUCTION 117 ‘A CHOSEN GENERATION, A ROYAL PRIESTHOOD’ 119 ‘THE (MALE) PRIVILEGE OF HOLDING THE PRIESTHOOD’ 125 ‘KIND OF LIKE THAT BIT IN SPIDERMAN’ PRIESTHOOD: POWER AND RESPONSIBILITY 132 ‘CALLED TO SERVE’ 135 (NOT ALWAYS) THE BEST TWO YEARS OF A MAN’S LIFE 139 CONCLUSION 143 6 – ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS, MARRIAGE, AND FAMILY IN THE PRODUCTION AND EXPERIENCE OF MORMON MASCULINITIES 146 INTRODUCTION 146 ‘THE PROCLAMATION OF THE FAMILY’ 148 ‘THOU SHALT LIVE TOGETHER IN LOVE’: MORMON MASCULINITIES AT PLAY IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS 152 ‘IT IS NOT GOOD THAT MAN SHALL BE ALONE’: ROMANCE, COMPANIONSHIP AND PLEASURE IN MORMON MEN’S RELATIONSHIPS 153 The love that dared not speaK its name at Church 158 IN SEARCH OF ‘AN HELP MEET’: RELATIONSHIPS FRAMED BY THE PROSPECT OF MARRIAGE 162 ‘THE NEW AND EVERLASTING COVENANT’: MARRIAGE AND MASCULINITIES 165 ‘FAMILY MATTERS’: FAMILIES AND THE PRODUCTION OF MASCULINITIES 171 FAMILIES OF ORIGIN 171 CURRENT FAMILIES 176 CONCLUSION 180 7 - BECOMING MORMON / MEN 182 INTRODUCTION 182 POSITIONING MEN VERSUS ‘THE STRAIT AND NARROW PATH’ 184 ‘TALKING THE WALK’: NARRATIVES OF STAYING ON THE ‘STRAIT AND NARROW PATH’ 191 3 ‘BORN IN THE COVENANT’ 191 HAVING ‘ENTERED IN BY THE GATE’ 195 EBBING AND FLOWING 198 MEN COMING IN/OUT OF MORMONISM 204 CONCLUSION 209 CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSION, PRODUCING AND EXPERIENCING MORMON MASCULINITIES 211 RESEARCHING MASCULINITIES IN PARTICULAR EMPIRICAL CONTEXTS 211 BEYOND NORMATIVE MASCULINITY 214 ‘SEEING/THINKING DOUBLE’ 217 REFERENCES 221 APPENDICES 239 1. INFORMATION SHEET AND INFORMED CONSENT FORM FOR PARTICIPANTS 239 2. OUTLINE FOR INTERVIEW 242 3. PARTICIPANTS’ PEN PORTRAITS/VIGNETTES (EXCERPTS) 246 LIST OF IMAGES, TABLES AND FIGURES Image 1. Mormon meeting houses in Mexico City ________________________________________ 87 Image 2. The Mormon temple in Mexico City ____________________________________________ 89 Image 3. The Fist Presidency of the LDS Church _________________________________________ 97 Image 4. Laying on of hands on an LDS boy ___________________________________________ 122 Table 1. Activities attended with the group Afirmación ____________________________________ 70 Table 2. List of participants _________________________________________________________ 79 Figure 1. Composition of the sample by level of engagement with Mormonism by participants and length as LDS Church members. ______________________________________________________ 78 4 ABSTRACT This thesis explores the production and experience of masculinities among Mormon men (and women) in the contemporary context of Mexico City. It draws on a qualitative methodology, based on the analysis of texts and documents that make up the institutional normativity and discourse of Mormonism; ethnographic observations of two traditional Mormon congregations and the collective of self-identified LGBT Mormons Afirmación; and individual in-depth interviews with 25 Mormon men and 5 Mormon women. Drawing on the debates on secularisation and detraditionalisation, the thesis argues that contemporary Mormon masculinities in Mexico are neither merely current manifestations of ‘traditional’ forms of religious masculinity, nor the product of the ever increasing ‘modernisation’ and secularisation of Mexican society. Rather, they consist of nuanced and fluid processes that simultaneously display elements of long standing religious and gendered belief and practice, as well as ways of being in the world and interacting in it influenced by what can be seen as modern and post-modern discourses. Such processes are traced in four dimensions throughout the thesis, namely, the display of masculinities in different spaces configured either by Mormonism’s gender regime or other such regime(s), the particular positions assigned to masculinities in those regimes through the notion of priesthood authority, the gender relationships that such structure produces, fosters and/or hinders, and the biographical accounts that participants articulated of their becoming ‘Mormon men’. Throughout this exploration, the thesis addresses the issue of how useful or illuminating the concept of hegemonic masculinity can be in understanding religious masculinities in general and Mormon masculinities more specifically. It also seeks to illustrate the interaction between long standing forms of being and doing religious masculinities, and others sometimes characterised as ‘post-traditional’ or even ‘post-modern’. 5 DECLARATION No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. COPYRIGHT STATEMENT i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. iv. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=24420), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s regulations (see http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/about/regulations/) and in The University’s policy on Presentation of Theses 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to recognise the Mormon men and women who welcomed me in their wards, as well as the wonderful people of Afirmación: Mormones LGBT, Familias y Amigos, who took me into their safe space. I am deeply thankful for your kindness and confidence, for sharing your stories with me, and being willing to talk about very personal and meaningful experiences. I wish to express my appreciation to Professors Brian Heaphy and Bridget Byrne for their guidance in the process of this research. I am especially grateful for their support and understanding in the hardest moments of the research process, and want to thank them for reading my work, for pointing me in the right direction, for sharing their comments, knowledge, and insight, and for their encouragement and reassurance to develop my own research skills. Their help has been fundamental for the realisation of this thesis. I would also like to acknowledge my dear late father and my wonderful mother for sending me to school since I was a kid, and always encouraging me to learn and get the best grades I could, as well as my beautiful sisters for all their loving care and support ¡Gracias! Also big thanks to the friends that now I call family, too, especially Itza, Elizabeth and Rodrigo. I want to thank the
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