Land, God, and guns : Settler colonialism and masculinity in the American heartland

This book is an antidote to the forms of American nationalism, masculinity, exceptionalism, and self-anointed prowess that are currently being flexed on the global stage. Through a fascinating combination of ethnographic research across seven US states and the application of postcolonial, anti-racist, feminist and poststructuralist theories, __Land, God, and Guns__ reveals how time-honoured rites of passage associated with taken-for-granted notions of manhood in the American Heartland are constitutive of a constellation of colonial worldviews, capitalist logics, gender essentialisms, ethnocentric religious beliefs, jingoistic populism, racial animus, and embodied violence. A constellation that, within the US, upholds a heteropatriarchal and racist ordering of life that both privileges and ultimately damages its main proliferators – white settler men. This is a detailed work that at once unravels rural white settler masculinity and the US state at their roots, whilst demonstrating why any analysis of the cultural production and social practice of masculinity in the United States must take into account the country's historical trajectories of imperialism, land dispossession, nation-state building, enslavement, extractive accumulation and valorisation of masculinist assertions of dominance. Front Cover 1 Half Title 2 About the Author 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 1: There’s No Place Like Home ... 12 Introduction 12 Positionality and Context 18 Methods and Fieldwork 31 Aims and Rationale 35 Organization 42 2: Settler Colonialism, Empire, Borders 47 God Shed His Grace on Thee ... 47 Settler Colonialism and Dispossession 49 Deracination and Genocide 51 Racial Capitalism and the State 54 The Twenty-First-Century Color-Line? 59 Border Imperialism 63 Migration and (non)Belonging 70 3: Masculinity, Place, Intersectionality 77 Just the Way It Is ’Round Here ... 77 Geography and Hegemonic Masculinity 79 Gender and the Body 83 Embodiment, Dis/Ability, and Representation 86 Race, Whiteness, and “Othering” 91 Sexuality and Heteronormativity 96 4: Kansas, Bled: Land, History, Violence 102 What’s the Matter with Kansas? 102 Space, Law, and Borders 105 Religion and Sexuality 110 Enclosure, Elimination, and Nation-Building 115 Gender, Race, and Hierarchy 119 Emotion, Paradox, and Monster 127 “Safe” Communities, Authoritarian Populism 130 Denial, Disavowal, and Disaffiliation 136 5: Frontier, Family, Nation 139 Don’t Tread on Me ... 139 Frontier Masculinity: Protectors and Providers 142 Ideology: Liberal, Capitalist, Colonial 147 God, Fathering, and Nationalism 150 Good Guys versus Bad Guys 157 The Banal Weaponization of the Rural 160 Violence and Criminalization 165 Complicity and the Status Quo 168 6: Capitalism, Work, Respect 170 Take Me Home, Country Roads ... 170 Capitalism and Masculinity 171 (Neo)Liberal Self-Making 173 Work Ethic and Pulling Your Weight 177 Rurality, Religion, and Heteronormativity 181 Competition, Pride, and Tradition 185 Emotion and Relationships 193 Social Reproduction and Consumption 197 7: Looking Back, Going Forward ... 203 Looking Back 203 Going Forward 206 Notes 212 Bibliography 214 Index 240 "This book is an antidote to the forms of American nationalism, masculinity, exceptionalism, and self-anointed prowess that are currently being flexed on the global stage. Through a fascinating combination of ethnographic research across seven US states and the application of postcolonial, anti-racist, feminist and poststructuralist theories, Land, God, and Guns reveals how time-honoured rites of passage associated with taken-for-granted notions of manhood in the American Heartland are constitutive of a constellation of colonial worldviews, capitalist logics, gender essentialisms, ethnocentric religious beliefs, jingoistic populism, racial animus, and embodied violence. A constellation that, within the US, upholds a heteropatriarchal and racist ordering of life that both privileges and ultimately damages its main proliferators ? white settler men. This is a detailed work that at once unravels rural white settler masculinity and the US state at their roots, whilst demonstrating why any analysis of the cultural production and social practice of masculinity in the United States must take into account the country's historical trajectories of imperialism, land dispossession, nation-state building, enslavement, extractive accumulation and valorisation of masculinist assertions of dominance."-- Provided by publisher This book is an antidote to the forms of American nationalism, masculinity, exceptionalism, and self-anointed prowess that are currently being flexed on the global stage. Through a fascinating combination of ethnographic research across seven US states and application of postcolonial, anti-racist, feminist and poststructuralist theories, Land, God, and Guns reveals how time-honoured rites of passage associated with taken-for-granted notions of manhood in the American Heartland are constitutive of a constellation of colonial worldviews, capitalist logics, gender essentialisms, ethnocentric religious beliefs, jingoistic populism, racial animus, and embodied violence. A constellation that, within the US, upholds a heteropatriarchal and racist ordering of life that both privileges and ultimately damages its main proliferators - white settler men. This is a detailed work that at once unravels rural white settler masculinity and the US state at their roots, whilst demonstrating why any analysis of the cultural production and social practice of masculinity in the United States must take into account the country's historical trajectories of imperialism, land dispossesion, nation-state building, enslavement, extractive accumulation and valorisaton of masculinist assertions of dominance.--back cover This book is an antidote to the ideas of American white hetero-settler masculinity, prowess, and exceptionalism that are currently being flexed on the global stage. Through a fascinating combination of ethnographic research across six US states and an application of anti-colonial, feminist, and poststructuralist theories, Land, God and Guns reveals how time-honored rationalities and rites of passage associated with manhood in the American Heartland are constitutive of colonial worldviews, capitalist logics, essentialist gender binaries, ethnocentric religious conservatism, jingoistic nationalism, racial superiority, and embodied violence. A violence that both privileges and ultimately damages its main proliferators, white settler men. A detailed work that unravels how white constructions of and claims to land, history, and manhood are manufactured frontier myths that uphold a racist and heteropatriarchal ordering of life, and argues for a reconceiving of taken-for-granted notions such as respect, pride, property, and production. How rationalities and rites of passage associated with manhood in the white American Heartland are constitutive of racist and heteropatriarchal violence