A Psychosocial Approach to Shame, Embarrassment & Melancholia Amongst Unemployed Young Men and Their Fathers

A Psychosocial Approach to Shame, Embarrassment & Melancholia amongst Unemployed Young Men and their Fathers

Luis Jimenez & Valerie Walkerdine

School of Social Sciences
Cardiff University

Abstract:

This paper uses a psychosocial approach to explore young unemployed men’s resistance to work they describe as ‘embarrassing’ and ‘feminine, in the context of the closure of a steelworks in a town in the South Wales valleys. In doing this, it also responds to Kenway’s et al study (2006) of rural unemployed men which claims that melancholia is a key cultural norm mediating fathers and sons responses to unemployment whilst preventing both to engage with the demands of current available work. In our interview based study, with young men as well as their mothers and (where possible) their fathers, we found a community riven with complex feelings about masculinity and femininity, projected onto the young men in such a way as to almost scapegoat them. The presence of melancholic responses is also present in our study but is not so strong as to be depicted as a “cultural norm” for all these men –as Kenway et al suggest. Instead, the experience of the young men is marked by embarrassment and shame and they feel bullied and shamed by their families, peers and others in the community for not being able to find gender-appropriate work. The implications of these findings for understandings of youth male unemployment and education are considered.

Introduction

This paper seeks to explore discussions about melancholy as the main way of coping with unemployment amongst rural men in raised by Kenway, Kraac and Hickey-Moody (2006) in the light of research carried out by the authors in south Wales. Kenway et al’s discussion of melancholy is very interesting, focussing as it does on an attempt to understand the persistence of dispositions associated with manual work among men in locations where that work has disappeared. Our own

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