Sebastien Prud'Homme Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies E-Portfolio

In this post, I wanted to clarify why I chose the community studies angle to address the masculinity crisis.

Why is this focus area interesting for me?

Because we need to reflect and take actions locally on how, as a society, we could address positively and durably the needs of Gen Z men that have mutated. For one year, masculinity’s situation has shifted towards the far right, radicalization, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and critical thinking deficits.

How might it connect to my experience, work, life, and interests?

During my social work studies, I had integrated numerous progressivist sociological concepts. However, there is the young men’s crisis that must be addressed in terms of education, technological transparency, mental health, and social connections.

During the last year, I realized the distress and frustration of young men around me about their own life goals and the lack of customized services for them. Because of my background in science, I realized the damages of their lack of critical thinking with the proliferation of fake news and conspiracy theories. This master’s degree is a meaningful way to use my interests in sociology, mental health, and sciences to act. During my internship, I interviewed a community worker of the social program Bien dans mes baskets [Well in my sneakers], which guided teenage males in Montreal to improve their mental health, school involvement, and sense of belonging through the practice of team sports. When I was a community organizer for the nonprofit CRIC [Intercultural Resource Hub] in Montreal, I saw the benefits of building an immigrant men’s peer mentorship program, Hommes-Relais [Men-liaisons], by creating social connections and using horizontal-level relationships. I noticed the advantages of this kind of program on the immigrant women’s side, Femmes-Relais [Women-liaisons].

What main questions does the focus area ask, and what are two key concepts that I think are important for the focus area?

1. How could community development practices become useful to people around the nonprofit sector?
2. What are the solutions on how we could mobilize Gen Z men and other actors around these questions?
3. How could these young men auto-transform themselves?
4. How could they learn and build, with their own language, a positive masculinity in the field?

Key concept 1: I will be investigating the possible improvements of our current social systems and the top-down effects we could prevent.

Key concept 2: I will create the social transformation by mobilizing and developing alternative learnings.

What concepts from my MAIS 601 course (Making Sense of Theory in the Humanities and Social Sciences) readings/discussions are relevant to this focus area?

In The Community Development Around the World—Campfens (1999):

The cycle of alienation (e.g., the digital revolution) means social groups must work on the community development. I believe that young men must create a community alternative to the manosphere.

In The Community Development Around the World—Campfens (1999):

Algorithms act as the new “institutionalists” to serve powerful capitalist organizations, leading them in an isolation loop, and the current institutions do not respond adequately to their alienation. In the meantime, influencers use the radicalization funnel, the Alinsky tactic, to monetize rage through radicalization. This is why I would like to focus on men’s mutual aid and their conscientization, a concept developed by Paulo Freire.

Don’t Act. Just Think, Big Think-Slavoj Žiźek:

Young men must debate publicly with other individuals from different perspectives to start thinking about important issues.

The Practice of Interdisciplinarity: Complex Conditions and the Potential of Interdisciplinary Theory—Jack Meek:

This masculinity crisis necessitates the concept of self-organizing communities because institutions can no longer adequately address Gen Z men’s issues (disconjunctive state concept), and there is a decline of trust.

What (inter)disciplines can I identify in this focus area?

1. Community psychology: Reflections on peer-led mutual aid, inclusive masculinities, intersectionality, and men’s marginalities.
2. Socio-economy: Reflections on a “Masculinity Provider Concept” reform.
3. Heterodox economics: Reflections on a post-meritocratic identity.
4. Religion: Reflections on the prosocial traditionalism
5. Digital sociology.
6. Education: Reflections on alternative credentialing
7. Applied sciences: Shifting the “hegemonic masculine physicality” concept towards a dynamic and evolving body model not embodied in a rigid biological determinism.

How does this focus area orient toward theory or “making sense of” theory?

There is a sense of theory in my focus area when we collectively perform a retrospection by speaking and organizing for the goal of preparing the community. We identify specific elements in our chaotic environment to build a map for shifting our anxiety to actions (Weick et al., 2005).

What questions may have arisen for me that I didn’t yet ask in the course?

• How could we react to the systematic rejection of our university research from certain men to improve our society?
• How would we start discussions with Gen Z men with a more powerful artificial intelligence that will attain the singularity soon?

Are there other insights of my own that I’d like to share?

I think everyone would win by focusing on this community development because we will reach a social stability.

References

Big Think. (2009, July 27). Slavoj Žižek: Don’t act. Just think. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgR6uaVqWsQ

Campfens, H. (Ed.). (1999). Section from Part II: International review of community development: Theory and practice . In Community development around the world: Practice, theory, research, training (pp. 25–40). University of Toronto Press.

CREMIS. (n.d.). Qu’est-ce que Bien dans mes baskets? [What is “Well in my sneakers”?]. Bien dans mes baskets: où en sommes-nous? https://cremis.ca/publications-et- outils/dossiers/bien-dans-mes-baskets-ou-en-sommes-nous/quest-ce-que-bien-dans-mes- baskets

CRIC Centre-Sud. (n.d.). Hommes-relais [Men-liaisons]. https://criccentresud.org/projets/hommes-relais

Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking.