“Transnational Bachelorhood: An Ethnography of Singledom among migrant men in the European Union” and “Masculinity and suicide”
The aim with the proposed sabbatical is to write up two book projects. The projects, “Transnational Bachelorhood: An Ethnography of Singledom among migrant men in the European Union” and “Masculinity and suicide” are the outcome of investigations funded by the Swedish Research Council, and the region of Värmland. The proposal also outlines how a research cooperation between the Center for gender studies at KAU and the Women and Gender Studies Program and the department of Sociology and Anthropology at TAU will benefit from the sabbatical.
The aim of the project "Transnational Bachelorhood" has been to investigate contemporary transnational bachelorhood, within the European community. The project that stretches over the period 2019-2023, have collected 70 interviews in combination with ethnographic observation and other relevant data concerning questions around masculinity, bachelorhood, singledom, kin and family networks.
The rationale for the second book project 'Masculinity and suicide’ is to understand the gendered mechanisms of suicide. The background is the overrepresentation of men in the suicide statistics, and that a number of different factors related to masculinity, mental health and suicide are underdiagnosed. In two studies, we have interviewed 40 siblings, friends, and professionals that encounter suicide in their professional practice.
The aim with the sabbatical is also to facilitate for inter-generational knowledge exchange between KAU and TAU.
The aim of the project "Transnational Bachelorhood" has been to investigate contemporary transnational bachelorhood, within the European community. The project that stretches over the period 2019-2023, have collected 70 interviews in combination with ethnographic observation and other relevant data concerning questions around masculinity, bachelorhood, singledom, kin and family networks.
The rationale for the second book project 'Masculinity and suicide’ is to understand the gendered mechanisms of suicide. The background is the overrepresentation of men in the suicide statistics, and that a number of different factors related to masculinity, mental health and suicide are underdiagnosed. In two studies, we have interviewed 40 siblings, friends, and professionals that encounter suicide in their professional practice.
The aim with the sabbatical is also to facilitate for inter-generational knowledge exchange between KAU and TAU.
Final report
The RJ Sabbatical project “Transnational bachelorhood. An ethnography of singledom among migrant men in the European Union” (Swedish Research Council, 2018-01476) and “Masculinity and Suicide”, aimed to complete two books based on these research projects.
The project also intended to further develop an existing research collaboration between Gender Studies at Tel Aviv University and the Centre for Gender Studies at Karlstad University, involving doctoral students, senior, junior, and mid-career scholars. This collaboration included joint undergraduate and doctoral courses and exchanges of teachers and doctoral students. Unfortunately, the political situation in the Middle East, and more specifically Israel after October 7, 2023, made this collaboration impossible. Project leader Ulf Mellström had planned to spend eight months at Tel Aviv University during autumn 2024 and spring 2025, but this became politically, morally, and in terms of security, impossible. The planned stay at a foreign university therefore had to be reorganized. Instead, the research stay abroad was carried out at the Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), in the United States, with Professor Tristan Bridges as host. Professor Bridges is editor-in-chief of the journal Men & Masculinities, a sister journal to Norma: International Journal for Masculinity Studies. The latter was founded by Ulf Mellström in 2006, and Mellström served as editor-in-chief from 2006–2023; today he is senior advisory editor of the journal. The purpose of placing the RJ Sabbatical at UCSB, besides working on the planned books, was to further develop the global research field of men and masculinities in collaboration with Professor Bridges and through extended cooperation between the two leading journals in the field. Mellström spent three months at UCSB during spring 2025. During this period, a joint application was prepared for The Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio Center Convening Program to establish a global research network in men and masculinities studies, as well as an online research seminar in the field, which will begin in autumn 2026. A decision on whether the application will be granted will come in mid-December 2025.
The online seminar is based on six global geographic nodes (Australia, South America, North America, Africa, Europe, Asia), with six coordinators at different universities across these continents. Each coordinator is responsible for presenting current research from their continent in a predetermined geographic order. The network will hold four to five seminars per year. It is the first of its kind and aims to weave together research for both senior and junior scholars in the field. Professors Mellström and Bridges will be the main organisers of the seminar, in collaboration with the four other coordinators.
The research work on the originally planned two volumes has progressed as intended thanks to the RJ Sabbatical, but has taken a different publishing form during 2024–2025. The initially planned volumes were based on two research projects: “Transnational Bachelorhood” and “Masculinity and Suicide.” In brief, the first project studied four groups of male migrants in Sweden and Italy: Polish and Syrian men in Sweden, and men from Bangladesh and Romania in Italy. The project’s researchers conducted 70 interviews with unmarried and single men. These four groups of men have different backgrounds and reasons for migrating, but they all share the fact that they are single.
The starting point for the project “Masculinity and Suicide” is men’s overrepresentation in suicide statistics (about 70%), and the fact that many related factors behind masculinity, mental illness, and suicide remain unexplored from a focus on men and masculinity. Forty interviews were conducted with friends, and relatives who have had the experience of suicide in their family or circle of friends. A number of professionals who come in contact with suicide in their professional practice, has also been interviewed.
The results of the project “Masculinity and Suicide” have been published as a report by Region Värmland and will also be published as a shorter book in Swedish (see publication list). The report, and later the book, focuses on seven central themes that emerged in the interviews. These themes overlap and the causal relationships are complex, but based on our material, we observe seven areas as most significant:
• Socioeconomic vulnerability and over-indebtedness
• Loneliness, relationships, and separations
• Gender identity and sexuality
• Social media
• Healthcare providers – contact and resources
• Drugs and substance abuse
• The Värmland hierarchy and place identity
In addition to these seven themes, we also identified other areas that need closer investigation: gambling addiction, the situation of unaccompanied minors, chronic pain, and physical and cognitive disabilities. Our conclusions align well with previous suicide research, including clinical experimental studies as well as behavioral and social science studies. Above all, recurring themes include socioeconomic vulnerability, loneliness, lack of close relationships for many men, life crises related to divorce and separation from partners and children, inability to communicate emotions, emotional and medical conditions such as depression and anxiety, masculine performance demands, and norms within the framework of a heterosexual couple norm. Some factors and dimensions are more prominent, and the most prominent from our perspective is socioeconomic vulnerability in relation to masculinity. In the majority of the stories and life experiences we encountered, this is a fundamental cause. Poverty combined with loss of integrity and personal dignity is the breeding ground and the single most important basis for suicide.
Understanding suicidal processes requires an interdisciplinary holistic perspective that includes the individual, group, and society. Even biologically based depression and mental illness must be understood in a holistic perspective. In our studies, we investigated norms, values, and societal conditions with a focus on masculinity, and with such a focus there is a constant interaction between the personal and the societal. Masculinity is something men, women, and non-binary people relate to both bodily and socially—or in scientific terms, between the embodied and the discursive. It is therefore of utmost importance that suicidology strives toward interdisciplinary approaches where researchers from different disciplines collaborate.
Alongside the journal articles, the work on the book “Transnational Bachelorhood” has been reshaped into a book about men, masculinity, and masculinity studies more generally. The theme of singlehood and masculinity is included as a chapter in a book that draws on personal experiences and the research Ulf Mellström has conducted during a long career in the field of masculinity studies. The manuscript is written in a less strictly academic form with the aim of readability and reaching a wider public audience. The book provides an overview of current research in men and masculinity studies. It outlines the history of the field and its central developments. It addresses the themes of singlehood, suicide, and mental illness in two chapters, but also offers a broader picture of the now extensive research field of men and masculinity studies. The book is written in Swedish and will be published in 2026.
The project also intended to further develop an existing research collaboration between Gender Studies at Tel Aviv University and the Centre for Gender Studies at Karlstad University, involving doctoral students, senior, junior, and mid-career scholars. This collaboration included joint undergraduate and doctoral courses and exchanges of teachers and doctoral students. Unfortunately, the political situation in the Middle East, and more specifically Israel after October 7, 2023, made this collaboration impossible. Project leader Ulf Mellström had planned to spend eight months at Tel Aviv University during autumn 2024 and spring 2025, but this became politically, morally, and in terms of security, impossible. The planned stay at a foreign university therefore had to be reorganized. Instead, the research stay abroad was carried out at the Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), in the United States, with Professor Tristan Bridges as host. Professor Bridges is editor-in-chief of the journal Men & Masculinities, a sister journal to Norma: International Journal for Masculinity Studies. The latter was founded by Ulf Mellström in 2006, and Mellström served as editor-in-chief from 2006–2023; today he is senior advisory editor of the journal. The purpose of placing the RJ Sabbatical at UCSB, besides working on the planned books, was to further develop the global research field of men and masculinities in collaboration with Professor Bridges and through extended cooperation between the two leading journals in the field. Mellström spent three months at UCSB during spring 2025. During this period, a joint application was prepared for The Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio Center Convening Program to establish a global research network in men and masculinities studies, as well as an online research seminar in the field, which will begin in autumn 2026. A decision on whether the application will be granted will come in mid-December 2025.
The online seminar is based on six global geographic nodes (Australia, South America, North America, Africa, Europe, Asia), with six coordinators at different universities across these continents. Each coordinator is responsible for presenting current research from their continent in a predetermined geographic order. The network will hold four to five seminars per year. It is the first of its kind and aims to weave together research for both senior and junior scholars in the field. Professors Mellström and Bridges will be the main organisers of the seminar, in collaboration with the four other coordinators.
The research work on the originally planned two volumes has progressed as intended thanks to the RJ Sabbatical, but has taken a different publishing form during 2024–2025. The initially planned volumes were based on two research projects: “Transnational Bachelorhood” and “Masculinity and Suicide.” In brief, the first project studied four groups of male migrants in Sweden and Italy: Polish and Syrian men in Sweden, and men from Bangladesh and Romania in Italy. The project’s researchers conducted 70 interviews with unmarried and single men. These four groups of men have different backgrounds and reasons for migrating, but they all share the fact that they are single.
The starting point for the project “Masculinity and Suicide” is men’s overrepresentation in suicide statistics (about 70%), and the fact that many related factors behind masculinity, mental illness, and suicide remain unexplored from a focus on men and masculinity. Forty interviews were conducted with friends, and relatives who have had the experience of suicide in their family or circle of friends. A number of professionals who come in contact with suicide in their professional practice, has also been interviewed.
The results of the project “Masculinity and Suicide” have been published as a report by Region Värmland and will also be published as a shorter book in Swedish (see publication list). The report, and later the book, focuses on seven central themes that emerged in the interviews. These themes overlap and the causal relationships are complex, but based on our material, we observe seven areas as most significant:
• Socioeconomic vulnerability and over-indebtedness
• Loneliness, relationships, and separations
• Gender identity and sexuality
• Social media
• Healthcare providers – contact and resources
• Drugs and substance abuse
• The Värmland hierarchy and place identity
In addition to these seven themes, we also identified other areas that need closer investigation: gambling addiction, the situation of unaccompanied minors, chronic pain, and physical and cognitive disabilities. Our conclusions align well with previous suicide research, including clinical experimental studies as well as behavioral and social science studies. Above all, recurring themes include socioeconomic vulnerability, loneliness, lack of close relationships for many men, life crises related to divorce and separation from partners and children, inability to communicate emotions, emotional and medical conditions such as depression and anxiety, masculine performance demands, and norms within the framework of a heterosexual couple norm. Some factors and dimensions are more prominent, and the most prominent from our perspective is socioeconomic vulnerability in relation to masculinity. In the majority of the stories and life experiences we encountered, this is a fundamental cause. Poverty combined with loss of integrity and personal dignity is the breeding ground and the single most important basis for suicide.
Understanding suicidal processes requires an interdisciplinary holistic perspective that includes the individual, group, and society. Even biologically based depression and mental illness must be understood in a holistic perspective. In our studies, we investigated norms, values, and societal conditions with a focus on masculinity, and with such a focus there is a constant interaction between the personal and the societal. Masculinity is something men, women, and non-binary people relate to both bodily and socially—or in scientific terms, between the embodied and the discursive. It is therefore of utmost importance that suicidology strives toward interdisciplinary approaches where researchers from different disciplines collaborate.
Alongside the journal articles, the work on the book “Transnational Bachelorhood” has been reshaped into a book about men, masculinity, and masculinity studies more generally. The theme of singlehood and masculinity is included as a chapter in a book that draws on personal experiences and the research Ulf Mellström has conducted during a long career in the field of masculinity studies. The manuscript is written in a less strictly academic form with the aim of readability and reaching a wider public audience. The book provides an overview of current research in men and masculinity studies. It outlines the history of the field and its central developments. It addresses the themes of singlehood, suicide, and mental illness in two chapters, but also offers a broader picture of the now extensive research field of men and masculinity studies. The book is written in Swedish and will be published in 2026.