Abstract
<jats:p>This chapter presents the findings of a qualitative study aimed at understanding how young men construct their gender identities within contexts shaped by heteropatriarchal traditions and contemporary sociocultural transformations. Based on the analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with adolescents from the state of Michoacán, the text explores tensions between inherited masculine mandates and emerging forms of identity resignification. Grounded in social constructivism, the sociology of everyday life, and gender performativity theory, masculinity is conceived as a dynamic, relational, and narrative process. The life stories analyzed reveal how family, community, peers, media, and affective experiences participate in the production of meanings around “being a man,” showing both continuities with tradition and significant ruptures. Among instituted elements, ideals linked to work, economic provision, social recognition, and the nuclear family persist. However, instituting components emerge, pointing toward more affective masculinities, co-responsible in caregiving, critical of violence, and open to gender equity. These configurations are shaped by inequality, social violence, and precarity, which influence youth life projects. It concludes that adolescent masculinities are neither homogeneous nor static but complex fabrics where tradition and innovation coexist, revealing a field of symbolic dispute in dialogue with contemporary cultural change.</jats:p>