Man as subject and object: politics of masculinities in contemporary Brazil
gender; masculinities; fatherhoods; government politics; NGOs.
This thesis investigates the repertoires of action and the local-global interaction flows
of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that aim to resignify masculinities in Brazil. These
institutions are understood through the lens of the "politics of masculinities" concept, proposed by
Anglo-Saxon sociologists Michael Messner and Raewyn Connell. From this perspective, the study
attempts to critically re-read this idea for the Brazilian context, considering the need to account for the
unique characteristics of its colonial-modern, patriarchal, and racist formation, which participates in the
configurations of masculinity and related interventions. Furthermore, it is argued that the vacuum
created by the absence of the male subject in public policies – even if certain situations of vulnerability
can be considered by governmental measures – emphasizes the prominence of the non-state sector when
the topic is reforms for gender equality. For the empirical research, three institutions representative of
distinct moments in the evolution of the debate on masculinities in Brazil were selected: Promundo,
Instituto PDH, and Projeto MEMOH, all of which operate with their own methodologies. During
fieldwork, four in-person and virtual semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives
from these institutions. Subsequently, a semiotic analysis was developed for posts published on the
official Instagram profiles of these organizations, with an emphasis on content related to fatherhood and
intersectionalities. The investigative journey yielded the following main results regarding the actions
and content disseminated by these institutions: (i) the identification of the centrality of the group format
as a key intervention technology, regardless of the broader methodology applied for collective work; (ii)
the presence of hybrid financial and technical cooperation matrices within the organizations, with the
private sector playing a leading role; (iii) attention directed towards Black and heterosexual men in
images depicting success and well-being within the nuclear family; and (iv) the focus on the
correspondence between the "new father" and the new man as a privileged pathway for participant
transformation.