Grahovac, P. G. (2012). An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the lived masculine experiences of North America self-identified Indigenous traditional men (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University).

Abstract

While contemporary scholarship is burgeoning with literature on masculinities, little is known about North America self-identified indigenous traditional men. The problem derives from United States governmental legislative assimilation efforts to impose drastic strategies to radically alter North America indigenous worldviews, cultural ways, and ultimately collective and individual core identities. Two research questions guided this
interpretative phenomenological analysis through an examination: how a purposive sample of 5 North America self-identified indigenous traditional men perceived and interpreted their lived experiences as men, and how these men made sense of their masculine selves in relation to the dominant culture’s masculine gender role socialization norms. Semistructured interview data were organized into emergent themes and subsequently clustered into superordinate themes. Themes included spiritual immersion,
transcending disrespectful lifeways, honoring respectful lifeways, awareness of traditional cultural evolution, mindfulness of identities, and attention to the individualism of the dominant culture’s competitive materialism. Recommendations included North America indigenous traditional men serving as role models, North America indigenous masculinities becoming a point of emphasis in men’s studies programs, integrating indigenous cultural education into human services multicultural curricula, and honoring an indigenous research paradigm. This study contributes to positive social change by illustrating contemporary indigenous efforts to embrace some form or expression of traditional or pre-European contact identities, offering Native and nonnative men consideration of their masculine identities, and emphasizing the need for human services professionals to develop indigenous cultural competencies.