© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI: 10.1163/187254610X526913 African Diaspora 3 (2010) 185-206 brill.nl/afdi African Diaspora Negotiating Respectable Masculinity: Gender and Recognition in the Somali Diaspora Nauja Kleist* Project senior researcher, PhD, Danish Institute for International Studies, Strandgade 56, 1401 Copenhagen K, Denmark nkl@diis.dk Abstract Following years of civil war, many Somalis are displaced in Western countries as refugees or fam- ily re-unified persons. is situation has caused multiple losses of social position and upheavals in gender relations. Although both men and women are subject to these changes, Somalis describe the situations of men as more difficult. Taking departure in multi-sited fieldwork in Copenhagen, Somaliland and London, this article explores how Somalis negotiate respectable masculinity in the Diaspora, arguing that men’s difficulties are articulated as a transfer of male authority to the welfare state, reflecting female empowerment and male misrecognition. How- ever, the focus on men’s loss can also be understood as processes of positioning and of re-institut- ing a ‘traditional’ gender baseline in which the positions of respectable versus failed masculinity are established. Finally, the article argues that Somali men negotiate and enact respectable mas- culinity through associational and community involvement, creating alternative social spaces of recognition. Keywords gender, masculinity, recognition, Somali refugees, welfare state Résumé Suite à des années de guerre civile, beaucoup de Somaliens se sont installés en Occident en tant que réfugiés ou en vertu du principe de réunification familiale. Cela a causé de multiples préju- dices en matière de position sociale et des bouleversements dans les relations inter-sexes. Bien qu’aussi bien les femmes que les hommes soient sujets à ces changements, les Somaliens décrivent la situation des hommes comme plus difficile. En partant d’une enquête de terrain * ) I thank the Somali informants for sharing their stories and thoughts with me. Names and other personal details are changed. I am grateful for valuable comments from Robin May Schott, Peter Hansen, Simon Turner, Andrew Jefferson, the participants in the ‘Gendered Agency’ panel at the 14th Migration Researcher Conference in Bergen, 14-16 November 2007, as well as two anonymous AFDI reviewers. I also thank Ane Toubro for language revision.