The Politics of Heroes’ Body: Ethnographying the Training of Foreign Astronauts in Russia
pdf

Keywords

Astronaut training discipline ethnography legitimate body hero human spaceflight masculinity star city soviet heritage virility

How to Cite

Patarin-Jossec, J. (2020). The Politics of Heroes’ Body: Ethnographying the Training of Foreign Astronauts in Russia. Corpus Mundi, 1(2), 14-36. https://doi.org/10.46539/cmj.v1i2.12

Abstract

If the literature in the history of the Soviet space program is extremely prolific since the 1960s, including regarding cosmonaut embodiment, a lack remains regarding the contemporary reality of human spaceflight in Russia. As this article discusses, based on interviews and a long-term ethnography of the Russian training of astronauts from Western Europe, North America, and Japan, becoming an astronaut is to develop a legitimate body fitting dominant cultural and gendered models. Three mechanisms serve the manufacture of “heroes” and masculine bodies through the astronaut training: the historical narrative of human spaceflight; the values and virility attributes embed as part of the training; and the instruments used in the daily activity of astronauts (such as spacesuits). This manufacture of a legitimate body, characterized by masculinity and discipline inherited from the past, is a heuristic field for corporality and studies of global politics as it underlines how an interweaving of gender, Soviet heritage, and cultural fantasies frames the bodies of a professional elite.

https://doi.org/10.46539/cmj.v1i2.12
pdf

References

Beasley, C. (2008). Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in a Globalizing World. Men and Masculinities, 11(1), 86-103. Doi: 10.1177/1097184X08315102

Bergman, J. (1998). Valerii Chkalov: Soviet pilot as New Soviet Man. Journal of contemporary history, 33(1), 135-152. Doi: 10.1177/003200949803300108

Boni-Le Goff, I. (2016). Corps légitimes [Legitimate bodies]. In J., Rennes (Eds). Encyclopédie critique du genre [Critical gender encyclopedia] (pp. 159-169). Paris: La Découverte. (in French)

Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London and New York: Routledge.

Clair, I. (2016). La sexualité dans la relation d’enquête. Décryptage d’un tabou méthodologique [Sexuality in the investigative relationship. Deciphering a methodological taboo]. Revue Française de Sociologie [French Review of Sociology], 1(57), 45-70. Doi: 10.3917/rfs.571.0045 (in French)

Connell, R. (2014). The study of masculinities. Qualitative Research Journal, 14(1), 5-15. Doi: 10.1108/QRJ-03-2014-0006

Connell, R. W. (2005 [1995]). Masculinities (2nd ed.). Oakland: University of California Press.

Connell, R. W. & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity: rethinking the concept. Gender & Society, 19(6), 829-859. Doi: 10.1177/0891243205278639

Connell, R. W. & Wood, J. (2005). Globalization and Business Masculinities. Men and Masculinities, 7(4), 347–364. Doi: 10.1177/1097184X03260969

Drummond, M., (2010). Understanding masculinities within the context of men, body image and eating disorders. In B., Gough &. S., Robertson (Eds.). Men, Masculinities and Health: critical perspectives (pp. 198-215). London, Palgrave MacMillan.

Edwards, T. (2008). Spectacular Pain: Masculinity, Masochism and Men in the Movies. In V., Burr & J., Hearn, Jeff (Eds.). Sex, Violence and the Body: The Erotics of Wounding (pp. 157-176). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ellison, R. (1952). Invisible Man. New York: Random House.

Foucault, M. (1988). L’incorporation de l’hôpital dans la technologie moderne [The Incorporation of the Hospital into Modern Technology]. Hermès [Hermes], 2(2), 30-40. (in French)

Foucault, M. (2017 [1975]). Surveiller et punir: naissance de la prison [Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison]. Paris: Gallimard. (in French)

Fraser, E. (2017). Yuri Gagarin and Celebrity Masculinity in Soviet Culture. In P. E., Muehlenbeck (Ed.). Gender, Sexuality, and the Cold War (pp. 270-289). Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.

Frisk, K. (2019). What makes a hero? Theorising the social structuring of heroism. Sociology, 53(1), 87-103. Doi: 10.1177/0038038518764568

Gagnon, J. (2008), Les scripts de la sexualité. Essais sur les origines culturelles du désir [Sexuality scripts. Essays on the cultural origins of desire]. Paris: Payot. (in French)

Gerovitch, S. (2015). Soviet space mythologies. Public images, private memories, and the making of a cultural identity. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press.

Haraway, D. (2007). Manifeste Cyborg et autres essais [Cyborg manifesto and other essays]. Paris: Exils Éditeur. (in French)

Higate, P. & Hopton, J. (2005). War, militarism, and masculinities. In M. S. Kimmel & al. Thousand (Eds.). Handbook of studies on men and masculinities (pp. 432-447). Oaks: Sage.

Jayasena, N. (2007). Contested masculinities: Crises in colonial male identity from Joseph Conrad to Satyajit Ray. London: Routledge.

Jenks, A. (2012). The Cosmonaut Who Couldn't Stop Smiling: The Life and Legend of Yuri Gagarin. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.

Kamanin, N. (1995-2001). Skrytyi kosmos. Moscow: Infortekst/Novosti Kosmonavtiki.

Lewis, C. (2008). The Red Stuff: A History of the Public and Material Culture of Early Human Spaceflight in the U.S.S.R.. Ph. D. dissertation, History, George Washington University.

Llinares, D. (2008). Contesting the astronaut as a masculine ideal: narratives of myth in Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff. In Z., Davy and al. (Eds.). Bound and Unbound: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Genders and Sexualities (pp. 76-92). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Llinares, D. (2009). Idealized heroes of ‘retrotopia’: history, identity, and the postmodern in Apollo 13. The Sociological Review, 57(1), 164-177. Doi: 10.1111/j.1467-954X.2009.01823.x

Llinares, D. (2011). The astronaut: cultural mythology and idealised masculinity. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Markula, P. (2003). The technologies of the self: sport, feminism, and Foucault. Sociology of Sport Journal, 20(2), 87-107. Doi: 10.1123/ssj.20.2.87

McClintock, A. (1995). Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge.

Messerschmidt, J. (2018). Hegemonic masculinity: formulation, reformulation, and amplification. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Messner, M. A. (1992). Power at play: Sports and the problem of masculinity. Boston: Beacon.

Mosse, G. L. (1999). L’image de l’homme moderne : l’invention de la virilité moderne [The image of modern man: the invention of modern manhood.]. Paris: Agora. (in French)

NASA History Office. (1976-2000). NASA Historical Data Books (SP-4012), Volume 1-6.

Patarin-Jossec, J. (2018). Le vol habité dans l’économie symbolique de la construction européeenne [Crafting Europe from outer space : human spaceflight in the symbolic economy of the European building]. Doctoral thesis. University of Bordeaux. (in French)

Segal, L. (2008). Gender, war and militarism: making and questioning the links. Feminist Review, 88, 21-35. Doi: 10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400383

Sylvester, R. (2019). “You Are Our Pride and Our Glory!” Emotions, Generation, and the Legacy of Revolution in Women's Letters to Valentina Tereshkova. The Russian Review, 78(3), 392-413. Doi: 10.1111/russ.12237

Wacquant, L. (2002). Corps et âme : Carnet ethnographique d’un apprenti boxeur [Body and soul: Ethnographic notebook of an apprentice boxer]. Paris: Agone. in French)

Wacquant, L. (2004). Body and soul: notebooks of an apprentice boxer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wallace, M. (2016 [1990]). Invisibility Blues. London: Verso.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.