“По сто кила мъже!” Конструиране на мъжественост в едно наративно интервю
"Men of a Hundred Kilos Each!" Construction of Masculinity in a Narrative Interview

Summary/Abstract: Based on Butler’s theory of the performativity of gender, Goffman’s dramaturgical approach and Connell’s idea of the multiplicity and hierarchy of masculinities, the article adopts a discursive approach to the life-story interview of a retired miner. The focus of interest are the rhetorical resources for the construction of masculinity. The analysis aims to show the working of social conventions and gender stereotypes at the level of the personal narrative. The narrative performance of masculinity is centred around work understood as hard and risky physical labour. The topics of male solidarity in the mine, body and embodied knowledge, and operation of machines supplement the main theme of work. By contrast, family relations and fatherhood are significantly understated, presumably in conformity with the local hegemonic masculinity. At the level of the interaction, working-class masculinity is negotiated with the interlocutors (female intellectuals) by means of a rhetoric drawing on humour and (self-)irony.

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