Item Details

Postfeminism – for whom or by whom? Applying discourse analysis in research on the body and beauty (the case of black hair)

Issue: Vol 12 No. 2 (2018)

Journal: Gender and Language

Subject Areas: Gender Studies Linguistics

DOI: 10.1558/genl.30898

Abstract:

This article explores postfeminism in the context of beauty consumption in the Global South. Advocating a transnational feminist perspective, it construes incorporation of postfeminism into the Global South in two senses - as the reception of a globally circulated discourse and as the embodiment(s) of it in different dimensions of lived femininity. Specifically, it examines how postfeminism is interpreted by black South African women in their beauty consumption. A combined, discursive-and-embodied approach is advanced to transcend the body/discourse binary and hence reflect on the intricate relationship between postfeminist discourse and the body in which it materialises. The article concludes by discussing the discursive dynamics of arriving at the subjective understanding(s) of the Western cultural logic of postfeminism in the cultural reality of postcolonial Africa, and by suggesting the methodology of research on discourse and beauty.

 

 

Author: Ewa Glapka

View Original Web Page

References :

Ahmed, S. (2008) Open forum imaginary prohibitions: some preliminary remarks on the founding gestures of the ‘new materialism’. European Journal of Women’s Studies 15(1): 23–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506807084854

Baker, P. and Levon, E. (2016) ‘That’s what I call a man’: representations of racialised and classed masculinities in the UK print media. Gender and Language 10(1): 106–39.

Banks, I. (2000) Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women’s Consciousness. New York: New York University Press. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v10i1.25401

Beasley, C. and Bacchi, C. (2000) Citizen bodies: embodying citizens–a feminist analysis. International Feminist Journal of Politics 2(3): 337–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616740050201931

Bordo, S. (1993) Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Brooks, A. (1997) Postfeminisms: Feminism, Cultural Theory and Cultural Forms. London: Routledge.

Butler, J. (2013) For white girls only? Post-Feminism and the politics of inclusion. Feminist Formations 25(1): 35–58. https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2013.0009

Byrd, A. D. and Tharps L. (2002) Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America. New York: St Martin’s Press.

Coppock V., Haydon D. and Richter I. (1995) The Illusions of ‘Post-Feminism’: New Women, Old Myths. London: Taylor & Francis.

Dolan, D. (2014) In Africa, haircare becomes a multi-billion dollar industry. Retrieved on 16 May 2018 from http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-africa-hair-idUKKBN0G60A620140806.

Dosekun, S. (2015) For Western girls only? Feminist Media Studies 15(6): 960–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2015.1062991

Eberhardt, M. (2016) Subjects and objects: linguistic performances of sexuality in the lyrics of black female hip-hop artists. Gender and Language 10(1):106–39.

Eckert, P. and McConnell-Ginet, S. (1992) Think practically and look locally: language and gender as community-based practice. Annual Review of Anthropology 21: 461–90. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.21.100192.002333

Erasmus Z. (1997) Oe! My hare gaan huis toe: hairstyling as black cultural practice. Agenda 32: 11–16. https://doi.org/10.2307/4066147

Faludi S. (1992) Backlash: The Undedared War Against Women. London: Vintage.

Fanon F. (1967) Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press.

Frenkel, R. (2008) Feminism and contemporary culture in South Africa. African Studies 67(1): 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/00020180801943065

Gamble S. (ed.) 2006. The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism. London: Routledge.

Genz S. and ‎Brabon B. (2009) Postfeminism: Cultural Texts and Theories. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Gill, R. (2007) Postfeminist media culture: elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural Studies 10(2): 147–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549407075898

Gill R. and Scharff C. (eds) (2011) New Femininities: Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and Subjectivity. London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230294523

Glapka, E. (2014) Reading Bridal Magazines from a Critical Discursive Perspective. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Glapka, E. and Majali Z. (2017) Between society and self: the socio-cultural construction of the black female body and beauty in South Africa. Qualitative Sociology Review 13(1): 174–90. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137333582

Goldman, R. (1992) Reading Ads Socially. London: Routledge.

Gordon, D. (2013) A beleza abre portas: beauty and the racialised body among black middle-class women in Salvador, Brazil. Feminist Theory 14(2): 203–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700113483249

Gwynne, J. (2013) Japan, postfeminism and the consumption of sexual(ised) schoolgirls in male-authored contemporary manga. Feminist Theory 14(3): 325–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700113499854

Helms, J. E. (1993) Introduction: review of racial identity terminology. In J. E. Helms (ed.) Black and White Racial Identity: Theory, Research and Practice <AQ: Please provide page range.>. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Hesse-Biber S. N. (ed.) (2007) Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Hutchby, I. and Woofitt, R. (1998) Conversation Analysis: Principles, Practices and Applications. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Ilyin, N. (2000) Blonde Like Me: The Roots of the Blonde Myth in Our Culture. New York: Touchstone.

Inckle, K. (2010) Telling tales? Using ethnographic fictions to speak embodied ‘truth’. Qualitative Research 10(1): 27–47. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794109348681

Iqani, M. (2015) A new class for a new South Africa? The discursive construction of the ‘Black middle class’ in post-Apartheid media. Journal of Consumer Culture 17(1): 105–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540515586865

Lara, A. (2010) Cimarronas, ciguapas, and senoras: hair, beauty, race, and class in the Dominican Republic. In R. E. Spellers, and K. R. Moffitt (eds) Blackberries and Redbones: Critical Articulations of Black Hair/Body Politics in Africana Communities 113–27. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Lazar, M. (ed.) (2005) Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis. Basingstoke: Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230599901

Lazar, M. (2009) Entitled to consume: postfeminist femininity and a culture of post-critique. Discourse and Communication 3(4): 371–400. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481309343872

Lazar, M. (2014) Recuperating feminism, reclaiming femininity: hybrid postfeminist I-dentity in consumer advertisements, Gender and Language 8(2): 205–24. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v8i2.205

Magubane, Z. (2004) Bringing the Empire Home: Race, Class and Gender in Britain and Colonial South Africa. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

McCall, L. (2005) The complexity of intersectionality. Signs 30: 1771–1800. https://doi.org/10.1086/426800

McCracken, G. (1995) Big Hair: A Journey into the Transformation of Self. New York: Overlook Press.

McNay, L. (1992) Foucault and Feminism: Power, Gender, and the Self. Cambridge: Polity Press.

McNay, L. (1999) Gender, habitus and the field. Theory, Culture and Society 16(1): 95–117. https://doi.org/10.1177/026327699016001007

McRobbie, A. (2007) Top girls? Cultural Studies 21(4): 718–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380701279044

McRobbie, A. (2009) The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. London: Sage.

Mercer, K. (1994) Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies. London: Routledge.

Molina-Guzmán, I. (2010) Dangerous Curves: Latina Bodies in the Media. New York: New York University Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814757352.001.0001

Negra, D. (2008) What a Girl Wants: Fantasizing the Reclamation of Self in Postfeminism. London: Routledge.

Nnaemeka, O. (ed.) (1997) The Politics of (M)othering: Womanhood, Identity and Resistance in African Literature. London: Routledge.

Nyamnjoh, F. and Fuh, D. (2014) Africans consuming hair, Africans consumed by hair. Africa Insight 44(1): 52–68.

Nyamnjoh, F., Durham, D. and Fokwang, J. (2002) The domestication of hair and modernised consciousness in Cameroon: a critique in the context of globalisation. Identity, Culture and Politics 3(2): 98–124.

Parameswaran, R. (2004) Global queens, national celebrities: tales of feminine triumph in post-liberalization India. Critical Studies in Media Communication 21(4): 346–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/0739318042000245363

Patton, T. (2006) Hey girl, am I more than my hair? African American women and their struggles with beauty, body image, and hair. NWSA Journal 18(2): 24–51. https://doi.org/10.2979/NWS.2006.18.2.24

Pinho, P. (2006) Afro-aesthetics in Brazil. In S. Nuttall (ed.) Beautiful/Ugly: African and Diaspora Aesthetics 266–89. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Posel, D. (2010) Races to consume: revisiting South Africa’s history of race, consumption and the struggle for freedom. Ethnic and Racial Studies 33(2): 157–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870903428505

Potter, J. (1996) Representing Reality. Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction. London: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446222119

Tate, S. (2007) Black beauty: shade, hair and anti-racist aesthetics. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30(2): 300–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870601143992

Tate, S. (2013) The performativity of black beauty shame in Jamaica and its diaspora: problematising and transforming beauty iconicities. Feminist Theory 14(2): 219–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700113483250

Taylor, P. C. (1999) Malcolm’s Conk and Danto’s colours; or, four logical petitions concerning race, beauty, and aesthetics. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57(1): 16–20. https://doi.org/10.2307/432060

Thompson, C. (2009) Black women, beauty, and hair as a matter of being. Women’s Studies: An Inter-Disciplinary Journal 38(8): 831–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/00497870903238463

Tyler, I. and Gill, R. (2013) Postcolonial girl: migrant audibility and intimate activism. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 15(1): 78–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2013.771008

Weitz, R. (2015) Feminism, post-feminism, and young women’s reactions to Lena Dunham’s Girls. Gender Issues 33: 218–34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-015-9149-y

Wetherell, M. (1998) Positioning and interpretative repertoires: conversation analysis and post-structuralism in dialogue. Discourse and Society 9: 387–412. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926598009003005

Wetherell, M. (2008) Subjectivity or psycho-discursive practices? Investigating complex intersectional identities. Subjectivity 22: 73–81. https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2008.7

Wolf, N. (1990) The Beauty Myth. London: Vintage.

Woodward, K. (2015). Embodied Sporting Practices Regulating and Regulatory Bodies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Zeisler, A. (2008) Feminism and Pop Culture. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.