Vernacular perceptions of masculinity and fatherhood among Newfoundland offshore workers and their families

Hartmann, Nicholas Andrew (2015) Vernacular perceptions of masculinity and fatherhood among Newfoundland offshore workers and their families. Doctoral (PhD) thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

My thesis is an ethnographic study of how offshore workers of Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as their families, express and reflect upon traditional Newfoundland constructs of fatherhood and masculinity through narrative and ritual. With a schedule that often involves a constant shift between home and away, offshore workers in the province take part in high-risk professions in order to provide for their families back home. These professions, and their associated lifestyles, involve the incorporation of routine strategies that allows family culture to maintain itself. At the same time, these professions largely carry on a tradition of hegemonically masculine practices, albeit in a newer context. Drawing on a blend of literary and ethnographic research based on the Avalon Peninsula, I utilize examples of current Newfoundland culture to describe how nostalgic memoirs of outport Newfoundland create models of hegemonically masculine fatherhood in the province. I go on to explain how those models manifest themselves in the experiences of current offshore workers, and how they affect their spouses and children. Furthermore, through examining how young adults with offshore-working parents describe their experiences of their fathers, it is possible to see how the effects of local hegemonic masculinities are manifested through narratives about fathers who worked away from home.

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