The Material-Discursive Phenomena of Queer-Bodies, Clothing and Schooling

Date
2024-04-23
Authors
Ingram, Toni
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Taylor and Francis Group
Abstract

This article draws on feminist new materialist theory to examine the relations in-between queer-bodies, clothing and the schooling environment. Working with Karen Barad’s agential realist concepts of intra-action and entanglement, queer-bodies and clothing are conceptualized as material-discursive phenomena, co-constitutive and emergent through their entangled relations. Through this approach, school uniforms, spatial environments, practices such as the school ball (prom), peers, parents, climate, and bodily sensations become integral forces in the mattering of queer-bodies and clothing. Notions of sartorial ‘choice’, agency and intelligibility are reconfigured in ways that exceed a pre- existing individual body and identity. I consider how a relational approach attends to the shifting complexities of queer-bodies and clothing in ways that avoid binary frameworks such as materiality/discourse, subject/object, dress/suit, and in turn, expands the possibilities for doing justice to the diversity of queer-bodies.

Description
Keywords
13 Education , 16 Studies in Human Society , Education , 39 Education , 44 Human society
Source
Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, ISSN: 0159-6306 (Print); 0159-6306 (Online), Taylor and Francis Group.
DOI
Rights statement
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.