Abstract
This article analyzes the historical articulation of modernity with the shifting production of Maasai masculinities in Tanzania. Combining ethnographic and historical sources, I explore the shifting meanings, referents, and experience of two Maasai masculinities which refract the modern/traditional dichotomy imposed and sustained during the colonial and postcolonial periods. Probing the intersection of modernity and masculinity demonstrates that masculinities are relational, historical, produced rather than constructed, and the site of local mediations of modernity.