Managing spoiled Russian identity: geopolitical stigma, empire and masculine subject positioning during the Russia-Ukraine war
Journal: NORMA
Year: 2026

This article demonstrates that masculinity-related stigma management strategies can emerge in response to geopolitical events and among men who do not meet conventional definitions of marginalisation. I substantiate this by analysing how a diverse sample of Russian men living in Russia and abroad respond to the Western condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and to the stigma of belonging to an ‘aggressor state’. I show that geopolitical stigmatisation generates intense anxieties about stat