Isaac Dery (PhD) | The University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica (original) (raw)

Papers by Isaac Dery (PhD)

Armed Forces and Society, 2024

Studies on conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) emphasize the need for the integration of a vi... more Studies on conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) emphasize the need for the integration of a victim-centered lens into Feminist International Relations (IR) frameworks on sexual violence victimization in conflict or war. However, our understanding of the perpetrator-centered lens is limited. Drawing from ethnographic accounts of Nigerian security agents, male victims of CRSV, and aid workers, we analyze moral injury as a framework for discussing CRSV. In Nigeria, counterterrorism operations can lead to morally detrimental circumstances due to the government's poor management of counterterrorism operations, resulting in the loss of lives and subsequent feelings of betrayal, anger, and guilt by security agents. Some security agents often display these emotions through violent acts to others, such as CRSV against men and boys suspected of terrorism, thereby exacerbating moral injury. The guilt-based moral injury arises when security agents witness CRSV against men and boys by colleagues and fail to seek justice for victims, as this contradicts social and institutional norms. Our article broadens the concept

Gender, Place and Culture, 2024

There have been growing concerns among feminists and masculinity theorists on how particular cons... more There have been growing concerns among feminists and
masculinity theorists on how particular constructions of
masculinities may tend to limit options available for men to
explore. Drawing on qualitative in-depth interviews conducted with fifteen men aged 30-35, findings revealed that
young men are active agents who do not only passively
embrace particular normative gender norms and practices,
but that young men also have the capacity to deconstruct
and challenge what is normatively presented to them. It is
particularly essential to note the ways in which problematic
constructions of gender were not only enacted and reproduced, but how particular constructions of masculinity were
challenged simultaneously. We argue that such contestations
should be read within the broader historical and sociocultural contexts in which young men make sense of their masculine identities in relations to prevailing gender discourses.
This is an important finding as it highlights the complex and
contradictory processes through which young men may situationally make sense of their normative gender identities in
order to merit acceptance and status validity among their
peers. Findings from this study have important implications
for how gender equitable subjectivities can be nurtured and
promoted among young men.

In this article, our aim is to foreground men's discourses on gender-based violence as linked to ... more In this article, our aim is to foreground men's discourses on gender-based violence as linked to gendered hierarchies, power struggles, and social respectability in Ghana. Situated within decolonial feminist theories and drawing on interviews, we argue that men's interpretations of masculinity and the possibility of perpetrating violence against women is significantly mediated by such intersectional factors as sociocultural background, education, and broader societal normative requirements. The findings deepen the understanding of the ambiguities and contradictions that characterize men's talk of violence. The article discusses how these ambiguities and contradictions serve as important domains for engendering critical attitudes toward violence against women.

International Affairs, 2021

While there is a growing interest in conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) against men, concept... more While there is a growing interest in conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) against men, conceptual understanding and empirical knowledge are still inadequate. The notion of spiritual security is introduced in this article as an explanatory variable in CRSV, using survivors' discursive views of sexual violence victimizations in Nigeria's north-eastern region. The CRSV of males, it is argued, may also be understood as a ritual or spiritual activity carried out for bodily protection, financial prosperity, or socio-political ascendency. The survivors' impressions of CRSV's spiritual undertones are not unrelated to the heteronormative and collectively homophobic culture in their society, in which violent same-sex relations are considered so perverse and meaningful only if they are conceived as ‘evil or devilish practices’. Spiritual beliefs and practices, on the other hand, determine much of the social reality of many people in various parts of the world, and they are regarded as potent on security issues ranging from physical protection to wealth creation and socio-political advancement. This study adds to the continuing discussion on the reasons behind CRSV against men.

Journal of the British Academy,, 2022

Dominant peacebuilding scholarship and praxis tends to focus on African men's adherence to violen... more Dominant peacebuilding scholarship and praxis tends to focus on African men's adherence to violent fragile masculinities in conflict prone-societies, and African masculinities are often approached, analysed, measured and theorised through externally derived standards and concepts. This article, by contrast, investigates the extent to which men can contribute to everyday peacekeeping. It does so by drawing on ethnographic interviews with men in northwestern Ghana. It illuminates how discourses and practices of male headship and breadwinner, as everyday masculine subjectivities, may contribute to creating fruitful possibilities for everyday peacebuilding subjectivities of men at the micro-levels. The article argues that approaching African masculinities through externally designed frameworks risks impoverishing critical understanding of the tensions, ambiguities, resistances and contestations of multiple configurations of masculinities beyond liberal, western-centric conceptualisations of masculinities. It further highlights that critical intervention seeking to address the systems and structures that may legitimise, and re/produce violence and social disorder must invest in carefully rethinking the everyday struggles of men within their locatedness. Peacebuilding scholars should invest in broadening discourses and representations of masculinities by offering nuanced understandings of how men can and are embracing peaceful and nonviolent masculinities in their everyday meaning-making.

Gender, Place & Culture A Journal of Feminist Geography

The main objective of this article is to contribute to a more critical, African-situated understa... more The main objective of this article is to contribute to a more critical, African-situated understanding of the complexities, emotional vulnerability, and multidimensional positionality that a male researcher is likely to face in conducting fieldwork in a native country. Drawing on my own experiences in conducting fieldwork in northwestern Ghana, the article demonstrates how a male researcher conducting interviews with his fellow countrymen could be constructed within hierarchies of masculinities; where he is simultaneously positioned as a powerless native subject and a powerful researcher. I problematise how my negotiation of fieldwork as a Ghanaian male researcher and my ideological baggage as a gender scholar could be read within the larger politics of gender and geography, as well as feminist intersectional theories. Drawing on these theories as useful analytical guides to foreground my fieldwork experiences and how I interpret my data, allow for critical understanding on the range of cultural norms, taboos, gendered subjectivities, and contested meanings which perpetuate multiple masculinities in fieldwork. My reflection from a postcolonial context contributes to growing global concerns to rethink and decolonise how we approach fieldwork.

Gender, Place and Culture, 2020

Feminism provides a key analytical space for theory-building and re-centring historically margina... more Feminism provides a key analytical space for theory-building and re-centring historically marginalised narratives and epistemologies. However, the preponderance of women in feminist scholarship has been construed by some as meaning that feminism excludes the interest of men. Situated within a critical discourse analysis and drawing on interviews with men and key informant interviews with women, this essay investigates people’s attitudes towards feminism in Ghana (with the concomitant discourses around what is African and what is Western). Feminism was largely perceived by most men and women as a dangerously feminising and Western construct, capable of destabilising the cultural exceptionalism of Ghanaian society. However, a few men appear to have embodied ‘progressive’ thinking about feminism and alternative constructions of masculinity. For such participants, embracing feminism comes at no cost to men and their manhood. They admit that men have benefited from a patriarchal system, which comes with opportunities and privileges; hence, the struggle for a better and gender equitable society continues. They propose the use and adoption of feminism as an important tool to precipitate shifts in how men approach both their relationships with women, and their own masculine identities.

Crisis, 2019

Background: Suicide and attempted suicide are a serious but under-explored public health problem ... more Background: Suicide and attempted suicide are a serious but under-explored public health problem in Bangladesh. Survey estimates suggest that Jhenaidah District, one of the 64 districts that make up Bangladesh, is one of the highest suicide-prone regions in Bangladesh. Relatively little is known about the magnitude of suicide attempts in the district. Aims: This article describes the incidence of suicide and suicide attempts for Jhenaidah, Bangladesh for the period 2010-2018. Method: Primary descriptive analysis was performed on routine data collected by a Bangladesh-based nongovernment organization (NGO): Societies for Voluntary Activities (SOVA). Results: A total of 22,675 suicide attempts and 3,152 suicides occurred in the district. The rate of suicide attempts was found to be 136.35/100,000 and the suicide rate was found to be 20.6/100,000 in Jhenaidah. The subdistrict Sadar had the highest incidence of suicide attempt (38.09%) and suicide (33.47%). Poisoning was the most common method of suicide attempt for both males (77.07%) and females (77%). Limitations: Many cases of suicide attempts and suicide are unreported in Bangladesh owing to stigmatization; only reported cases form part of this investigation. Conclusion: Jhenaidah has very high rates of suicide and suicide attempts that surpass the global and Bangladesh averages. Although females demonstrate higher suicide rates, male suicide rates have gradually increased over the study period. Future studies are called for to better understand the local patterns and dynamics of fatal and nonfatal suicidal behaviors. Developing a sub-district-, district-, and national-level suicide prevention strategy ought to be considered a priority.

Critical studies on men and masculinities have gained significant momentum in feminist scholarshi... more Critical studies on men and masculinities have gained significant momentum in feminist scholarship in the past decades. The growing interest in feminist scholarship has focused broadly on how male-bodied people construct, negotiate, and express masculine identities. Despite this growing interest, insufficient attention has explored how rurally based Ghanaian men construct and negotiate their masculinities in intimate relationships. Situated within critical discursive psychology and drawing on 16 semi-structured in-depth interviews and 6 focus group discussions with adult men in northwestern Ghana, the results show that dominant notions of masculinity provide a broad context through which participants' narratives, negotiations, and experiences on intimate partner violence could be understood. Findings suggest that various cultural narratives and metaphors were deployed to support men's controlling behaviors and/or intimate violence against women. The implications of how harmful masculine ideologies could frustrate efforts that target the development and promotion of a socially just and less oppressive society are presented and discussed.

Masculinities and Social Change, 2019

How might an African based knowledge critically cast doubt upon globally hegemonic notions and tr... more How might an African based knowledge critically cast doubt upon globally hegemonic notions and traditions in understanding and theorizing men and masculinities? This essay examines this question through a critical reading of what it may mean to be ‘an emerging adult man’. The essay privileged a critical understanding of how poverty, poor crop yields, and climate volatility shape constructions of ‘emergent adulthood’. Drawing on interviews with men from northwestern Ghana, findings suggest that emerging adult men are committed to their cultural obligations as heteronormative breadwinners, yet ‘emergent adulthood’ is complicated by status insecurity, vulnerabilities, and powerlessness. To negotiate emergent adulthood, informants combine migrating to Techiman and joining ‘boys boys’ to achieve social respect and recognition. To understand the meanings of emergent adulthood, I argue for analytical sophistication on multiple issues and daily struggles that encapsulate rural life.

Journal of Men's Studies, 2019

This article focuses broadly on how young men construct, negotiate, and express masculine identit... more This article focuses broadly on how young men construct, negotiate, and express masculine identities in northwestern Ghana. Situated within discourses of ruling masculinity, and drawing on qualitative interviews, this article provides locally grounded insights about how young men articulate and make themselves visible by negotiating and renegotiating the interplay of complex struggles and realities to maintain dominance over peers. Findings suggest that dominant norms on the meanings of being a young Dagaaba man entail ambivalences, status insecurity, contradictory desires, and an investment to always act in satisfaction of the observer's gaze. The danger of being looked down on emerges as an important organizing framework that shapes participants' engagement in discursive and exaggerated behaviors and violence. Consequently, young men engage in dramatic performances and public displays to further authenticate their manhood, which provokes and authorizes young men to mask their feelings of vulnerability. The implications of these findings are discussed.

This article examines contextually-grounded perspectives on the socio-political significance of m... more This article examines contextually-grounded perspectives on the socio-political significance of marriage in contemporary Ghanaian society. Drawing on qualitative interviews among men and women in northwestern Ghana, this article argues that, beyond historicizing the institution of monogamous marriage, women’s agency in desiring, and navigating marriages are performatively agentic and tied to attaining a myriad of socio-cultural, economic and political capital. Situated within the constrained articulations of participants, our findings alert us to complex negotiations and manoeuvres through which men and women aspire for specific forms of masculinities and femininities within the larger gender hierarchies.

Men's involvement in maternal and child healthcare especially in patriarchal societies such as Gh... more Men's involvement in maternal and child healthcare especially in patriarchal societies such as Ghana is increasingly being advocated. While a number of studies have been conducted to explore men's views on their involvement, few studies have examined the perspectives of childbearing women. Based on qualitative focus group discussions that were conducted between January and August 2014 with a total of 125 adult women in seven communities in the Upper West Region of Ghana, this paper examines women's perspectives on men's involvement in maternal and child healthcare. Findings suggest that although many women recognised the benefits of men's involvement, few actually supported greater male involvement. The majority of women expressed negative attitudes and opinions on the involvement of men. These negative attitudes and opinions were framed by three broad factors: perceptions that pregnancy and child care should be a female role while men should be bread winners; women's desire to avoid negative stereotyping; and fears that men's involvement may turn hitherto secure social spaces for women into insecure ones. These narrative accounts largely challenge current programmatic efforts that seek to promote men's involvement in maternal and child healthcare, and suggest that such male involvement programmes are less likely to succeed if the views and concerns of childbearing women are not taken into account.

Women's access to and control over productive resources, including land, have increasingly been r... more Women's access to and control over productive resources, including land, have increasingly been recognised in global discussions as a key factor in reducing poverty, ensuring food security and promoting gender equality. Indeed, this argument has been widely accepted by both feminists and development theorists since the 1980s. Based on qualitative research with 50 purposively selected men and women in Ghana's Upper West region, this study explored the complexity of women's access to and control over land within a specific relationship of contestations, negotiations, and manipulations with men. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. While theoretically, participants showed that women's [secure] access to and control over land have beneficial consequences for women themselves, households and the community at large, in principle, women's access and control status was premised in the traditional framework, which largely deprives women of equal access and/or control over the land. The article indicates that even though land is the most revered resource and indeed, the dominant source of income for the rural poor, especially women,

Background: The importance of men's involvement in facilitating women’s access to skilled materna... more Background: The importance of men's involvement in facilitating women’s access to skilled maternal healthcare
in patriarchal societies such as Ghana is increasingly being recognised. However, few studies have been
conducted to examine men’s involvement in issues of maternal healthcare, the barriers to men’s involvement,
and how best to actively involve men. The purpose of this paper is to explore the barriers to and opportunities
for men’s involvement in maternal healthcare in the Upper West Region of Ghana.
Methods: Qualitative focus group discussions, in-depth interviews and key informant interviews were conducted
with adult men and women aged 20–50 in a total of seven communities in two geographic districts and across
urban and rural areas in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Attride-Stirling’s thematic network analysis framework
was used to analyse and present the qualitative data.
Results: Findings suggest that although many men recognise the importance of skilled care during pregnancy
and childbirth, and the benefits of their involvement, most did not actively involve themselves in issues of
maternal healthcare unless complications set in during pregnancy or labour. Less than a quarter of male participants
had ever accompanied their wives for antenatal care or postnatal care in a health facility. Four main barriers to men’s
involvement were identified: perceptions that pregnancy care is a female role while men are family providers; negative
cultural beliefs such as the belief that men who accompany their wives to receive ANC services are being dominated
by their wives; health services factors such as unfavourable opening hours of services, poor attitudes of healthcare
providers such as maltreatment of women and their spouses and lack of space to accommodate male partners in
health facilities; and the high cost associated with accompanying women to seek maternity care. Suggestions for
addressing these barriers include community mobilisation programmes to promote greater male involvement,
health education, effective leadership, and respectful and patient-centred care training for healthcare providers.
Conclusions: The findings in this paper highlight the need to address the barriers to men’s involvement, engage
men and women on issues of maternal health, and improve the healthcare systems – both in terms of facilities
and attitudes of health staff - so that couples who wish to be together when accessing care can truly do so

This paper explored the link between the practice of bride price and domestic violence in Nandom ... more This paper explored the link between the practice of bride price and domestic violence in Nandom District, Ghana.
Bride price is used to cement and validate marriages in many sub-Saharan African countries including Ghana. Based
on qualitative focus group discussions, In-depth interviews and key informant interviews with men and women aged
18-50, this study aimed to gain useful insights into the knowledge, practice and attitude related to bride price and its
connection with domestic violence. It was revealed that bride price is a deep-rooted cultural practice with almost all
participants supporting its continuity. However, recent commercialization has changed the practice and its cultural
relevance is less clear in present time. Although bride price provides protection, respect, and acknowledgement of
women within marriages, the paper argues that the practice rather prescribes the role of women in marriages and
further subordinates women to men. This study highlights the need to engage with communities/traditional leaders
on possible mitigation of the negative impacts of bride price on women, men and community development at large.
Keywords: Bride price; Domestic violence; Ghana; Cultural practice; Impact

Millions of families in Africa depend on agriculture for their livelihood and poverty reduction... more Millions of families in Africa depend on agriculture for their livelihood and poverty reduction. Women who are the majority and poorer in Africa and particularly those at Chansa in Ghana are engaged in farming and they contribute immensely to agricultural production in their capacity as farm owners, farm partners and farm labourers. What is not known, which the study is interested in finding out, is whether their role as farm owners’ enables them have access to productive farm lands and the returns from farming contributes to the reduction of poverty among them. It is a case study and we employed qualitative methods such as interviews and focused group discussion in gathering data. The study revealed that land is a key factor of production in the community and contributes significantly to livelihood assets. However, the lack of ownership, control and full access to land by women in the Chansa community makes it difficult for them to cultivate food crops and invest in other projects that could reduce their poverty levels significantly. The study concludes that there is the need for customary land reform to modify customary laws on access to land and inheritance, which do not support the course of women.
Keywords: Land access, Poverty reduction, Women in Chansa