Volume 5, Issue 1 (2025)

Call for Papers

THEME: Men and Masculinities from Matricultural Perspectives

Deadline for abstract submission: 20 December 2024

Taking matriculture as a cultural system in the Geertzian sense of the term, how are men and masculinity understood and portrayed from matricultural perspectives?

The assumption that men are subservient in a society where women have prominent, if not central, cultural roles is not born out by observation; strong matricultures are not merely gendered reversals of patriarchy. Men in matricultures as varied as the Mosuo of southwestern China, the Blackfoot of the Canadian Prairies, or the Batwa (Pygmy) of central Africa report a more peaceful existence, less competition for sexual partners, and higher life satisfaction than men in patriarchal societies. As sons, brothers, uncles, and husbands, men are very involved with their matriculture, whether strong or weak, and are as important to maintaining the cultural system as women. In this issue, we would like to explore the role of men in societies with flourishing matricultures.

Societies with thriving matricultures may feature a couple - a man and a woman – as cosmological anchors for healthy social systems. The couple may be husband and wife, or in the case of the Mosuo, brother and sister. The Quechua, for example, historically may have required that both sexes participate in the administration of institutional power structures. The Inuit of Canada used to have complementary gender-based roles at the core of viable economic units in the Arctic landscape. We would like to explore the notion of complementary (rather than opposed) gender roles in this issue, as well.

We also encourage creative artworks of any media and personal reflections on this theme.

This issue of Matrix seeks to query the role and status of men in societies which have a strong matriculture. How do matricultural systems, as Geertzian cultural systems, around the world portray or understand masculinity? How do men behave in societies where there are flourishing matricultures? How do men understand, support, or undermine the matricultural system of their society? The goal of the issue is to explore the male experience of matriculture, thereby developing a more grounded and complete concept.

Proposals including but not limited to the following topics would be welcome:

The status of men in societies with flourishing matricultures, such as the Mosuo or the Mohawk
the role of men in matrilineal family relationships
mythologies of men and masculine iconography in strong matricultural religious systems
ideals of masculine sexuality in matricultural systems
ideals of male power in matricultural systems
complementary gender-linked power structures
the economic role of men in societies with strong matricultural systems
matricentric structures within patriarchal societies, such as matrilocality and/or matrifocality

Please note that Matrix plans to devote a future issue to research focused specifically on the concept of non-binary themes which manifest in language, sexuality, social structures, and other areas, and will not be considering proposals specifically on that topic for this issue.

Issue Editor: Dr. Patrick Jung (Milwaukee School of Engineering)

Submission via email to: Please submit a 200-word abstract (max) to Linnéa Rowlatt, Managing Editor, at lrowlatt@networkonculture.ca, or to the Editorial Collective of Matrix: A Journal for Matricultural Studies at info@networkonculture.ca with the Subject line ‘Matrix Vol. 5(1) Abstract Submission’.

Deadline for Abstract Submission: 20 December 2024

About Matrix

Matrix: A Journal for Matricultural Studies is an open access, peer-reviewed and refereed journal published by the International Network for Training, Education, and Research on Culture (Network on Culture), Canada. Matrix is published online through Open Journal System on a biannual basis.

For many years, scholarship has explored the expression and role of women in culture from various perspectives such as kinship, economics, ritual, etc, but so far, the idea of approaching culture as a whole, taking the female world as primary, as a cultural system in Geertz’ classical sense of the term – a matriculture – has gone unnoticed. Some cultures have a weakly defined matricultural system; others have strong matricultural systems with various ramifications that may include, but are not limited to, matrilineal kinship, matrilocality, matriarchal governance features – all of which have serious consequences relative to the socio-cultural status of women, men, children, and the entire community of humans, animals, and the environment.

The main objective of Matrix is to provide a forum for those who are working from this theoretical stance. We encourage submissions from scholars, community members, and other knowledge keepers from around the world who are ready to take a new look at the ways in which people - women and men, historically and currently - have organized themselves into meaningful relationships; the myths, customs, and laws which support these relationships; and the ways in which researchers have documented and perhaps mis-labeled the matricultures they encounter.

For more information, visit our website: https://www.networkonculture.ca/activities/matrix.