a forward from a colleague:
>Hi folks - I had the pleasure of being on Corey Johnson's dissertation
>committee. He just sent a pdf file of his dissertation (see abstract below),
>and a bound copy is on the way. If anyone is interested I can send the pdf
>file or loan the bound copy. Corey did a great job of immersing himself in
>this particular bar culture (I know, every researcher's dream) and creating
>a fascinating narrative that includes some of his experiences as a gay man
>in very compelling flash-back vignettes interspersed strategically.
>
>³GONE COUNTRY²: NEGOTIATING MASCULINITY IN A COUNRTY-WESTERN GAY BAR
>by COREY W. JOHNSON (Under the direction of Diane M. Samdahl), Recreation
>and Leisure Studies, University of Georgia
>
>ABSTRACT Scholars in leisure studies have advocated extending our research
>on marginalized populations beyond the examination of individual identities,
>toward the macro-structures that perpetuate and foster inequality. Gay bars,
>specifically designed to wall out straights, remain a central social
>institution and leisure context for a number of gay men. Informed by
>feminist theory and critiques of masculinity, this ethnography focuses on
>how gay men come to understand and negotiate the meaning of masculinity in a
>country-western gay bar and is driven by the following questions: 1) How
>does this gay bar serve as a leisure context for its gay male patrons? 2)
>How do gay men in this bar negotiate hegemonic and counter-hegemonic
>gendered practices? 3) What structures exist to facilitate and/or prohibit
>gendered practices in this gay bar? Using participant observation as my
>primary method of data collection I spent over 140 hours in the site. In
>addition, I conducted semi-structured and ethnographic interviews and
>analyzed artifacts collected during my time in the site. To understand
>Saddlebags as a leisure context, I thoroughly documented the bar¹s
>relationship to the community, its physical location, design, décor and
>ambiance, its inhabitants, its historical existence, and how it varies
>according to different nights of the week. Moving beyond this description I
>conducted a more intensive analysis to identify social practices that reveal
>how gay men negotiate their masculinity in Saddlebags. Dancing (specifically
>two-stepping), dress and migratory patterns, and a competing discourse about
>Lesbian Night are those social practices I identified as most salient to my
>research. A discussion around these themes elucidates how organized social
>space can allow non-heterosexuals to resist compulsory heterosexuality and
>hegemonic gender ideologies. Since the reproduction and enforcement of the
>heterosexuality in everyday life often causes gay identity to be suppressed,
>or at least monitored, in the spaces and places of leisure, gay bars like
>Saddlebags provide a necessary separation from the straight community
>whereby a more ³normal² social context for gay men is created. However, my
>data also reveal how Saddlebags patrons also use their leisure to reinforce
>dominant ideologies about gender and sexuality. INDEX WORDS: Leisure,
>Masculinity, Gay, Lesbian, Queer, Ethnography, Bars
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