Doctoral Dissertation Research: Masculinity and Fatherhood in Post-trauma and Post-conflict Contexts

关于冲突后环境中影响家庭幸福因素的社会科学研究往往忽视了青少年和年轻成年男子的照料作用。相反，研究人员更多地关注男性的缺陷，认识到男性通过他们的缺席或有害行为造成的损害，而不是他们可能在家庭中做出的任何积极贡献。这方面的知识差距是有问题的，因为它妨碍制定有效和文化上适当的冲突后和创伤后干预措施，以促进家庭福祉，提供儿童健康和复原力，并防止可能助长未来冲突的暴力代际传播。因此，耶鲁大学博士生克里斯汀·麦克莱恩将在凯瑟琳·潘特-布里克博士的指导下进行研究，以解决这个问题。研究人员选择塞拉利昂科诺区作为调查年轻男子冲突后和创伤后家庭角色的适当地点。这是一个合适的地点，因为该地区受到该国1991-2002年内战的严重破坏，也受到埃博拉疫情的影响。研究人员的首要研究问题是：极端的逆境是否会塑造年轻男性的男子气概、做父亲的经历和家庭幸福？她将使用多种人类学方法收集数据，包括：参与观察、半结构化访谈、使用标准量表评估心理健康和复原力、收集生活史叙述和分析档案材料。这项研究的结果将加深对在贫困和公共卫生危机的背景下成为一名男子意味着什么的理解，确定年轻男子在承担传统的老年人养育角色时面临的主要挑战以及他们所依赖的资源。研究结果还将推进关于男性气质、父亲身份和韧性的社会科学理论，增加关于性别、家庭福祉和父亲在儿童发展中的作用的理论辩论。

Social science research on factors that affect family well-being in post-conflict settings has tended to neglect the caregiving roles of adolescent and young adult men. Instead, researchers have attended more to male deficits, recognizing men for the damages they impart via their absence or harmful behaviors rather than for any positive contributions they might make within the family. This gap in knowledge is problematic because it impedes the development of effective and culturally appropriate post-conflict and post-trauma interventions to promote family well-being, provide for child health and resilience, and prevent the intergenerational transmission of violence that might feed future conflicts. Therefore, Yale University doctoral student Kristen McLean, under the supervision of Dr. Catherine Panter-Brick, will undertake research to address this issue.The researcher has chosen the Kono District of Sierra Leone as an appropriate site to investigate the post-conflict and post-trauma family roles of younger men. This is an appropriate site because the region was particularly devastated by the country's 1991-2002 civil war and has also been affected by the Ebola epidemic. The researcher's overarching research question is: does extreme adversity shape young men's masculinity, fatherhood experiences, and family well-being? She will gather data using a variety of anthropological methods, including: participant observation, semi-structured interviews, the administration of standard scales to assess mental health and resilience, the collection of life history narratives, and analysis of archival materials. Findings from this research will deepen understanding of what it means to be a man in a context of debilitating poverty and public health crisis, identifying key challenges young men face as well as resources they rely upon as they assume traditional older adult parenting roles. Study findings also will advance social science theory of masculinity, fatherhood, and resilience, adding to theoretical debates on gender, family well-being, and the role of fathers in child development.