The bonds of brotherhood: Humanity, caregiving and emotions among African men in Athens

This article examines how diverse groups of displaced African men in Athens, Greece, navigate racialised abandonment, homelessness, and violence through practices of solidarity and caregiving. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, the paper highlights how men's caregiving responds not only to their need material assistance—addressed through their hosting and cohabitation arrangements—but also their need for emotional connectedness with others—addressed through the bonds of “brotherhood” they nurture. These modes of emotional exchange enable positive feelings to circulate. Such feelings are an important resource because they contest the politics of death that otherwise governs men's material and emotional lives. Situating these practices within a decolonial lens of “non-masculinity”, African men's caregiving and emotional intimacy are read as part of longer struggles against dehumanisation. This reading draws attention African men's aspirations for freedom from oppression (as opposed to the masculine desire to oppress). It also highlights the ways these practices of collective care connect with other struggles and mobilisations across borders and generations, unsettling Eurocentric assumptions about gender, emotionality, and care.