To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: Body and identity.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Body and identity'
Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles
Consult the top 50 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'Body and identity.'
Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.
You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.
Browse dissertations / theses on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.
1
Cohn, Susan Art College of Fine Arts UNSW. "Recoding jewellery: identity, body, survival." Publisher:University of New South Wales. Art, 2009. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/43809.
Full textAbstract:
RECODING JEWELLERY: identity, body, survival addresses a central problem facing contemporary jewellery practice: through the course of the Contemporary Jewellery Movement, the potential of the jewellery-object to mediate intricate social relationships has become constrained. This is in part due to a singular focus of ideas in the field, and in part due to the developmental trajectory of contemporary jewellery networks. Caught up in the art-craft debate, contemporary jewellery missed the potentials in theory for developing a critical voice. This was not helped by the fact that academic discourse (philosophical, social, sexual, political) has largely neglected the significances of jewellery. The aim in this thesis is to negotiate this mutual neglect - or 'double gap' - by finding connections between theory and jewellery in practice. Jewellery involves complex interactions between makers, objects, wearers and audiences within social networks. Possessing a distinct set of codes enlivened by its relationship to the body, jewellery is a way of thinking and connecting which is strongly embedded in the activities of managing identity that define cultures and epochs. In the process, the instinct for adornment becomes an integral means of survival. This thesis draws on modern and postmodern theory, as well as art and jewellery practices, to examine contemporary shifts in thinking about identity, the body and reproduction. Through the three main chapters of this thesis I endeavour to: (i) provide an informed interpretation of the internal and external pressures that have defined contemporary jewellery practice over time; (ii) introduce relevant examples of my own work, and seek ways to move beyond the limitations of my own practice; and (iii) advocate new ways of thinking about contemporary jewellery that might lead it to a different voice. Reflected in this approach are three fundamental influences to my practice: the Contemporary Jewellery Movement; non-jewellery practices such as art, architecture, street culture, technology and performance; and academic writing across a number of fields. The thesis concludes with a discussion of how these interests came together in a single show, Black Intentions. However, the span of work covered extends through my career in jewellery to provide a basis for future directions.
2
Sweetman, Paul Jon. "Marking the body : identity and identification in contemporary body modification." Thesis, University of Southampton, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.299407.
Full text
3
Winter, Leslie J. "Body, Identity, and Narrative in Titian's Paintings." Wittenberg University Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wuhonors1399284506.
Full text
4
Cole, Shaun. "Sexuality, identity and the clothed male body." Thesis, University of the Arts London, 2014. http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/6514/.
Full textAbstract:
‘Sexuality, Identity and the Clothed Male Body’ is a PhD by Published Work that draws together a collective body of work that deals specifically and significantly with the dressed male body. This thesis presents a case for the collection of publications included in the submission to be viewed as a coherent body of work which makes a contribution to knowledge in the fields of fashion studies and cultural studies, in which the works are situated. The body of work consists of two monographs - Don We Now Our Gay Apparel: Gay Men’s Dress in the Twentieth Century (Berg, 2000), and The Story of Men’s Underwear (Parkstone International Press, 2010) - and two chapters in edited books - ‘Butch Queens in Macho Drag: Gay Men, Dress and Subcultural Identity’ (2008) and ‘Hair and Male (Homo)Sexuality: Up-Top and Down Below’ (2008). Through an examination of the major themes addressed throughout the submitted body of work – sexuality, identity, subcultural formation, men’s dress and masculinities and clothes and the body - this thesis demonstrates that the published work contributes to knowledge through its two major foci. Firstly, the means by which gay men have utilised their dressed bodies as a situated and embodying practice to articulate identity, masculinity, and social and sexual interaction, and secondly an examination of men’s underwear’s specific function in the covering, exposing and representation of men’s bodies. These were, until recently, relatively neglected areas of fashion studies and dress history, and by explicitly bringing together these areas to present a comprehensive investigation this thesis serves to provide a new contribution to knowledge in these areas. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, that is common in both fashion studies and cultural studies, the specific combination of research methods that is employed throughout the body of work, has provided a unifying element that further enhances this contribution to knowledge.
5
Dorris, Kara Delene 1980. ""For the Ruined Body"." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2005. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc849739/.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation contains two parts: Part I, "Self-Elegy as Self-Creation Myth," which discusses the self-elegy, a subgenre of the contemporary American elegy; and Part II, For the Ruined Body, a collection of poems. Traditionally elegies are responses to death, but modern and contemporary self-elegies question the kinds of death, responding to metaphorical not literal deaths. One category of elegy is the self-elegy, which turns inward, focusing on loss rather than death, mourning aspects of the self that are left behind, forgotten, or aspects that never existed. Both prospective and retrospective, self-elegies allow the self to be reinvented in the face of loss; they mourn past versions of selves as transient representations of moments in time. Self-elegies pursue the knowledge that the selves we create are fleeting and flawed, like our bodies. However by acknowledging painful self-truths, speakers in self-elegies exert agency; they participate in their own creation myths, actively interpreting and incorporating experiences into their identity by performing dreamlike scenarios and sustaining an intimate, but self-critical, voice in order to: one, imagine an alternate self to create distance and investigate the evolution of self-identity, employing hindsight and self-criticism to offer advice; two, reinterpret the past and its role in creating and shaping identity, employing a tone of resignation towards the changing nature of the self. This self-awareness, not to be confused with self-acceptance, is often the only consolation found.
6
Pietrobruno, Sheenagh. "Myths of the body : performing identity in Genet." Thesis, McGill University, 1992. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=56642.
Full textAbstract:
The issue of sexual and racial identity unfolds in a paradoxical light in Genet's works. Identity as a fixed essence is both deconstructed and maintained. His enigmatic portrayal of identity is addressed from a theoretical perspective which combines seemingly contradictory positions, namely essentialism and deconstruction. Such a theoretical stand claims that although identity categories are not fixed essences and consequently can be deconstructed, they must be maintained as political categories in order to deal with oppressive systems which construct essentialist-based identities. Through Genet's presentation of identity as a body performance, race and sex are deconstructed. At the same time, he illustrates how male dominance and racism maintain identities as fixed categories.
7
Coogan, Thomas. "The disabled body : style, identity and life-writing." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/3958.
Full textAbstract:
The Disabled Body investigates disability life-writing and what it reveals about the experience of disability, disability studies and its attendant identity politics, and the role of embodiment in writing. It combines a comparative analysis of theoretical models with close readings of a range of inter-related primary texts in order to theorise new, literary ways of appreciating disability and embodiment. The thesis begins by focusing on the limitations of the dominant social model of disability and their impact upon approaches to disability life-writing within disability studies. Expanding upon Tom Shakespeare's assertion that the social model is a political intervention rather than a robust theoretical model, I argue that the rejection of autobiography by initial literary approaches to disbaility in the 1990s was based on the criteria of the identity politics informed by the social model, which disregards individual, personal and experiential accounts of disability as embodiment. A growing number of thinkers, such as Rose Galvin and Jim Swan, have since criticised the social model for such neglect. By combining such positions, I construct a theoretical framework through which to re-examine autobiographical writing with regard to four authors with disabilities presented as a sequence of case studies: Christy Brown, Christopher Nolan, Ruth Sienkiewicz-Mercer and Christopher Reeve. Following G. Thomas Couser's distinction between writing from 'disability experience' and writing from 'disability culture', I complement analyses of this sequence of autobiographies with an examination of several anthologies of writing by disabled authors, which are implicated in a 'disability culture' based on social model identity politics. In the course of this thesis I demonstrate how an analysis of the experiential aspect of disability life-writing can bring a new understanding of the way in which the body makes itself known in language, which is of significance not only to literary disability studies in general but also to the wider field of literary studies.
8
Kamps, Cristi L. "The relationship between identity development and body image." Honors in the Major Thesis, University of Central Florida, 2008. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETH/id/1094.
Full textAbstract:
This item is only available in print in the UCF Libraries. If this is your Honors Thesis, you can help us make it available online for use by researchers around the world by following the instructions on the distribution consent form at http://library.ucf.edu/Systems/DigitalInitiatives/DigitalCollections/InternetDistributionConsentAgreementForm.pdf You may also contact the project coordinator, Kerri Bottorff, at kerri.bottorff@ucf.edu for more information.<br>Bachelors<br>Sciences<br>Psychology
9
Higgs, Jo. "Video, memory and identity : my body, my history." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8008.
Full textAbstract:
Bibliography: leaves 45-47.<br>This explication is an inquiry into familial images of the past and the relationship of these images to history, memory and the present. Because some of these relationships are problematic, alternative ways of looking at memory and familial images through the medium of video are discussed. Particular attention is paid to the idea of a more visceral filmic language that attempts to access memory through the senses. I also discuss development of both my theoretical and practical concerns through the planning, production, post-production and completion of my final video, 'The Nanny, the Granny, the Momma and Me' (2004).
10
Armstrong, Megan Ann. "Overkill : the sexualised body in violent identity politics." Thesis, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/3106.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis seeks to understand the nature of a particular kind of sexualised, abject violence that emerges in and through identity politics. This violence is practised against or through the body. I refer to this type of violence as ‘overkill’ and contend that it performatively constitutes identity in abject and sexualised ways through the weaponisation and brutalisation of the body. The thesis is situated within the literature on ethnic identities in conflict, which tends to under-theorise how this violence emerges and what this violence accomplishes by viewing violence as the outcome of pre-existing identity divisions. To address this gap, I introduce two theoretical approaches to the examination of violent identity politics. The first of these is the concept of performativity as formulated by Judith Butler (1990), which views identity as an iterative process constitutive of political subjectivity. The second is a theory of abjection as discussed by Julia Kristeva (1980), in which she argues that the constitution of identity is an exclusionary process that requires the simultaneous production of an other. Taken together, these theoretical approaches allow for an understanding of extreme violence as constitutive of a new kind of subjectivity that renders the other abject through sexualised discourses. There are two dynamics of overkill that this thesis explores: the brutalisation and the weaponisation of the body. Using an empirical study of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, I highlight the brutalisation of the sexualised body; through a second case study of the prison protests in Northern Ireland (1976-1981), I draw out the weaponisation of the sexualised body. I conclude by demonstrating the need for an understanding of identity as contingent upon markers of difference that are sexualised through abjection to establish a better explanatory framework for examining political violence.
11
Thornburg, M. Hayden. "Possibilities of mind and body an exploration and critique of mind-body identity theory /." Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN), 2006. http://www.tren.com/search.cfm?p006-1549.
Full text
12
Chase, Michelle E. "Identity development and body image dissatisfaction in college females." Online version, 2001. http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/2001/2001chasem.pdf.
Full text
13
Gleghorn, Charlotte Elisabeth. "Body/memory/identity : contemporary Argentine and Brazilian women's film." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.511053.
Full text
14
Pun, Ngai. "Becoming Dagongmei : body, identity and transgression in reform China." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 1998. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/28575/.
Full textAbstract:
My study focuses on the working lives of Chinese women in the light of China's attempt to incorporate its socialist system into the world economy in the Reform era. My cardinal concern is the formation of a new social body - dagongmei - in contemporary China. The great transformation experienced during the reform era creates significant social changes, and the lives of dagongmei are the living embodiments of such paradoxical processes and experiences. The first part of my thesis looks at how the desire of the peasant girls - the desire of moving out of rural China to the urban industrial zones - is produced to meet the demands of industrial capitalism. The second part, based on an ethnographic study of an electronic factory in Shenzhen, studies the processes of constitution of the subject - dagongmei - in the workplace. First, I look at the disciplines and techniques of the production machine deployed over the female bodies, and see how these young and rural bodies are turned into docile and productive workers. Secondly, the politics of identity and differences is analyzed, to see how the existing social relations and local cultural practices are manipulated to craft abject subjects. Thirdly, the processes of sexualizing the abject subjects in relation to cultural discourses and language politics is unfolded. The final part examines the relation of domination and resistance inside the workplace. Dream, scream and bodily pain are seen as the actual form of struggle against the enormous power of capitalist relations in Chinese society. In short, my study explores the process, the desire, the struggle of young rural girls to become dagongmei; and in the rite of their passages, unravels how these female bodies experience the politics and tension produced by a hybrid mixture of the state socialist and capitalist relations.
15
Watts, Alison J. "Embodied Conflict: Women Athletes Negotiating the Body and Identity." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2011. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/111289.
Full textAbstract:
Sociology<br>Ph.D.<br>Breaking out of the traditional expectations of femininity, women participating in sports, particularly physically aggressive sports, challenge the dominant framework of a sex/gender binary. The reading of essential difference between the bodies of men and women has been central to the history of women's involvement in sports. Historically, women's bodies have been considered incommensurable with and even in danger of damage from participation within the male world of sport. In the current climate of sport, women athletes embody a peculiar dilemma as their participation is often encouraged provided that they maintain an appropriately feminine appearance. Prior research has provided a somewhat limited analysis of the dilemma that women athletes face in embodying femininity and athleticism, often reporting the experiences of a homogenous group of sporting women. To better understand the complex ways that athletes negotiate gender and the body, I focus on the experiences of a diverse group of women athletes. In particular, I pursue the following question: how do women athletes negotiate gender and the body in relation to multiple subject positions, such as those associated with gender, sexuality, race, and type of sport played? To answer this question, I conduct 5 focus group interviews using photo-interviewing and 40 in-depth interviews with athletes in basketball, soccer, and volleyball. The results indicate that women athletes' negotiations of gender and the body are highly influenced by the intersections of race, sexuality, and the type of sport played. Women athletes negotiate gender and the body in complex and ways that both reinscribe and challenge heterosexualized gender norms. While the embodied experiences of these athletes sometimes reinforce assumptions about gendered bodies, they also, at times, present the potential for more fluid and capacious understandings of gendered bodies. As such, these women athletes expose our knowledge about gendered bodies as contested and tenuous. I conclude by presenting areas of future research that arise from the findings in this study.<br>Temple University--Theses
16
Dorris, Kara Delene 1980. "For the Ruined Body." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2016. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc849739/.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation contains two parts: Part I, "Self-Elegy as Self-Creation Myth," which discusses the self-elegy, a subgenre of the contemporary American elegy; and Part II, For the Ruined Body, a collection of poems. Traditionally elegies are responses to death, but modern and contemporary self-elegies question the kinds of death, responding to metaphorical not literal deaths. One category of elegy is the self-elegy, which turns inward, focusing on loss rather than death, mourning aspects of the self that are left behind, forgotten, or aspects that never existed. Both prospective and retrospective, self-elegies allow the self to be reinvented in the face of loss; they mourn past versions of selves as transient representations of moments in time. Self-elegies pursue the knowledge that the selves we create are fleeting and flawed, like our bodies. However by acknowledging painful self-truths, speakers in self-elegies exert agency; they participate in their own creation myths, actively interpreting and incorporating experiences into their identity by performing dreamlike scenarios and sustaining an intimate, but self-critical, voice in order to: one, imagine an alternate self to create distance and investigate the evolution of self-identity, employing hindsight and self-criticism to offer advice; two, reinterpret the past and its role in creating and shaping identity, employing a tone of resignation towards the changing nature of the self. This self-awareness, not to be confused with self-acceptance, is often the only consolation found.
17
Ishii, Kotoe. "Double bind : splitting identity and the body as an object /." Connect to thesis, 2009. http://repository.unimelb.edu.au/10187/7075.
Full textAbstract:
Double Bind: Splitting identity and the body as an object is a research project consisting of studio-based practice presented mainly in video installation format. This work looks at hysterical symptoms as a performance of a body’s split identity. The project draws on the Lacanian theory of Mirror Stage which proposes that the self experienced by the subject, and the image of that self (represented in a mirror-like reflection, or an image) are different to each other, and the development of self-awareness as misrecognition of one’s self. As a conspicuous example of split body, Chapter One describes how the hysterical body, in clinical and artistic representation, is dissociated into multiple selves. In Chapter Two, I discuss some examples of contemporary performance artists who use themselves as subjects, but whose bodies become objects that do not portray the self. In the final chapter I explain how, in my video work, I objectify my own body and how I assess whether this is a mode of self-portraiture.<br>During the course of this research, I studied a wide range of medical resources and psychoanalytical literature, much of which employed visual illustration and documentation. For example, I have drawn inspiration from Jean-Martin Charcot’s photographic documents of female hysterics whom he treated as patients at the French hospital of La Salpêtrière in the late 19th century; in particular the figure of his most famous patient, known as Augustine. My research also involved studio-based investigation, such as experimentations with the performance of my own body in video format, and the contextual study of artistic and critical texts relating to contemporary media art.<br>The aim of this research is to demonstrate the ways in which my video performances split the body, creating an Other within one body that can be compared with the hysterical body of a patient, like Augustine, performing for her doctor. In this condition, I perform as the subject and the object of the gaze at the same time. My self-portrait is split in this way: it creates a body double, which I misrecognise as myself. But in doing so, I am both the director and the performer of the image. This is the double bind that my video work puts me into.
18
Bragg, Beauty Lee Woodard Helena. "The body in the text : female engagements with Black identity /." Ann Arbor, MI : UMI, 2004. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/etd/d/2004/braggbl21867/braggbl21867.pdf#page=3.
Full text
19
Alexander, Robyn Gaye. "Body/sexuality/control : female identity in four Fay Weldon novels." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20451.
Full textAbstract:
Bibliography: pages 154-163.<br>This thesis explores the manner in which female identity is depicted and the concept itself deployed in four novels by Fay Weldon (1931- ), a contemporary English writer. The novels examined are Puffball (1980), The President's Child (1982), The Cloning of Joanna May (1989) and Growing Rich (1992). The thesis's· theoretical focus is feminist, and it makes use of terms, arguments and insights provided by contemporary feminist literary and cultural theory. It thus in part also explores the usefulness of insights provided by recent feminist poststructuralist theory, with particular reference to psychoanalytic theory. On the whole, these insights are found to be useful, even though they do not entirely answer some of the questions generated by the possibilities which are shown to exist for female subjects within western culture. The thesis's conclusion suggests ways in which this lack of definitive answers might in its turn be interpreted. The first chapter, dealing with Puffball, examines the novel's depiction of the effects of pregnancy on a woman's body and in turn on her sense of her own identity. This is followed by a chapter on The Cloning of Joanna May, which also takes female experience of the maternal as its central focus. This chapter shows how Weldon investigates current meanings of birth, children, identity and the natural via a plot concerned with the uses and abuses of contemporary reproductive technologies. A short chapter on Weldon's prose style, which is seen to manipulate aspects of form in order to generate particular effects, follows. In it, the current reception of Weldon's work and her use of humour in her writing is commented upon. This chapter also anticipates the question of the use of narrative voice, which is crucial to the novels dealt with in the final two chapters. In the first of these, which explores Growing Rich, the manner in which masculine power is shown to impact on the bodies of the two central female characters is central. Like the final chapter on The President's Child, this chapter also deals with the narrator's use of narrative as vehicle for both the stories of the female characters which she relates and for her own story. The final chapter focuses on the increasingly open conflict which Weldon depicts between male and female power, and also explores how the public/private division central to western culture is disrupted in this novel. Throughout the thesis, an attempt is made to show how female identity is at present constructed for and by western women: via their own and others' representations of their bodies and their sexuality, and as a concept over which they have varying degrees of control. It concludes that the often contradictory fictional representations of female subjectivity in the four novels under discussion suggest the constraints and difficulties involved in attempts to create new visions of female bodies, sexualities and identities. However, these depictions of such experiences are in addition shown to suggest the possibility of new and different representations.
20
Roberts, Harri Garrod. "Embodying identity : representations of the body in Welsh writing in English." Thesis, University of South Wales, 2005. https://pure.southwales.ac.uk/en/studentthesis/embodying-identity(883d46e4-a2b7-48fc-84d7-a0cfe3b93cc9).html.
Full textAbstract:
Since the time of Freud, some of the most radical innovators within critical theory have repeatedly stressed the importance of the body and its representation to the constitution of subjectivity. This thesis explores some of the theoretical debates surrounding the body, and assesses the value of 'the body' as a critical concept, through an analysis of the body's representation in both Welsh writing in English and discourse about Wales more generally. Through combining psychoanalytic with more culturally orientated approaches to the body, I produce in this study an historically informed account of the body in Welsh writing in English, analysing its role in the construction and contestation of identity at a cultural as well as individual level. In the process, I interrogate the ideological concepts underpinning psychoanalytic discourse, positioning its postulates (and accordingly modifying them) within the context of more culturally and historically aware accounts of Welsh literary practice. Most importantly, however, this thesis offers a new and radical contribution to the rapidly expanding critical literature on Wales concerned with exploring the construction of identity in a Welsh cultural context. While the need for such work in multicultural, post-devolutionary Wales has been widely recognised, the role of the body in the formation and contestation of identity has yet to be examined with any degree of adequacy or theoretical rigour within a Welsh context. It is a primary intention of this study to begin to rectify this area of critical neglect and provide the groundwork for subsequent investigations.
21
Pickering, Phillip. "Personal identity and concern for future selves." University of Western Australia. School of Humanities, 2007. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0048.
Full textAbstract:
In this thesis I will argue that it is irrational to anticipate the future. I do not claim that the future will not exist, but rather that our current selves will never experience that future. Support for this seemingly implausible thesis begins when consider the problems posed by personal identity puzzle cases. When we consider hypothetical cases such as fission, where one existing person will divide into two future people (for example through brain transplants or teletransportation), we instinctively wonder which of the two post-fission bodies the pre-fission person would 'wake up' in. Could it be the case that our subject of experience does not in fact 'go' anywhere? I initially consider the interdependency between personal identity and the displacement of our current selves into the past or future. Ultimately, I will argue that self displacement is not based on personal identity, but rather the reverse that is, that personal identity is based on our hard-wired tendency to displace our current selves into the past or future. I then present the crux of my argument, that it is irrational to anticipate the future. I will do this by presenting cases in which it is clearly irrational to anticipate 'waking up' in a certain body and demonstrating that these cases are comparable to 'waking up' in the same physically or psychologically continuous body. Contrary to our most deeply held beliefs, it is not rational to expect that our present subject of experience will somehow be there in the future. This astonishing conclusion removes our most obvious reason for concern about future selves. I will argue that if this conclusion is correct, we have relatively weak reasons for prudential concern about the future. One of the key objectives of this thesis will therefore be to determine whether it is rational for our current self to be concerned about a future self that it will never experience being. I will show that if we are irrational to anticipate the future, then we must radically rethink the sort of prudential concern we have for our future selves. I argue that our reasons to be concerned about future selves are much weaker than (or at least very different than) those we might have originally imagined. I will also show that it is not against reason to be unconcerned about future selves, unless we believe that we are morally obliged to be concerned for all future people.
22
Waske, Marlene [Verfasser]. "The embodiment of identity : body preferences, health decisions and identity in the island of Trinidad / Marlene Waske." Hannover : Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, 2020. http://d-nb.info/1216995192/34.
Full text
23
Gooldin, Sigal. "Consuming anorexia : identity, body, and the culture of dis-ordered femininity." Thesis, Nottingham Trent University, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.247023.
Full text
24
Nelson, Tayler L. "Biomedicine, "Body-Writing," and Identity Management: The Case of Christian Science." Thesis, Boston College, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/1835.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis advisor: Eva M. Garroutte<br>Biomedicine has become a gatekeeper to numerous social opportunities and has gained power through the ritual inscription of individual bodies. Bodies serve as intermediaries between personal identities and biomedicine; individuals can reclaim bodies as sites of "identity projects" (Giddens 1991) to resist biomedical power. This project examines the intersection of the societal preoccupations with biomedicine, bodies, and identity through the lens of the religious and healing tradition of Christian Science. Christian Science theologically rejects biomedicine in favor of spiritual healing treatment. Christian Science is an especially appropriate venue for exploring relationships between biomedicine, bodies, and identities because its teachings require not only belief in the ineffectiveness of biomedicine but also embodied resistance to it. Drawing on the work of Foucault (1977), Giddens (1991), and Frank (1995) and using information gleaned from semi-structured interviews--averaging 1.5 hours in length--with 12 Christian Scientists, I argue that Christian Scientists use religious identities to (1) evade biomedical risk society, (2) resist external authority and reclaim bodies as sites of knowledge and power, and (3) build spiritual community<br>Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2011<br>Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences<br>Discipline: Sociology
25
Bazzoni, Maria Alberica. "Writing for freedom : body, identity and power in Goliarda Sapienza's narrative." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d99db352-1203-479b-9f1c-7099e384ffe9.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis explores the theme of freedom in Goliarda Sapienza's narrative, focusing in particular on three works: Lettera aperta (1967), L'arte della gioia (1998, posthumous) and Io, Jean Gabin (2010, posthumous). The analysis concentrates on the interplay between body and power in processes of identity formation; the main aspects taken into consideration are gender, sexuality and political ideology, with specific attention to the power involved in human relationships. This thesis comprises four chapters. The first three develop a close textual analysis of individual works, each one progressing from the exploration of the internal composition of the self to the analysis of identity in its interpersonal and socio-political dimension. The fourth chapter engages with a comparative analysis of the same works’ narrative structures, accounting for the role of writing in the evolution of Sapienza’s narrative. I identify the pivotal tension of Sapienza's works in the ideal of freedom, and propose to define her narrative as Epicurean and anarchic, characteristics that place it at the intersection of post-structuralist and Marxist-feminist discourses. Overall, I argue in favour of Sapienza's originality and significance within the context of 20<sup>th</sup>-century Italian literature. I suggest an affinity between Sapienza's works and the literary legacy of Pirandello and Svevo, as well as certain tenets of postmodern fiction, but also a significant difference, concerning the presence of a tension towards agency and subjectivity, extraneous to the trajectory of the modern and postmodern subject. From a position of marginality and ex-centricity, Sapienza gives voice to a radical aspiration to individual and social transformation, in which writing and literary communication are granted a central role. Her works trace the parable of a strenuous deconstruction of oppressive norms and structures, aimed at retrieving a space of powerful bodily desire, which constitutes the foundation of the process of becoming a subject.
26
Viney, Rowena. "Everyday interaction in lesbian households : identity work, body behaviour, and action." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2015. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/16780.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis is about the resources that speakers can draw on when producing actions, both verbal and non-vocal. It considers how identity categories, gaze and touch can contribute to action in everyday interactions. The study stemmed from an interest in how lesbian identity is made relevant by lesbian speakers in everyday co-present interaction. A corpus of approximately 23.5 hours of video-recordings was gathered: households self-designated as lesbian (including couples, families, and housemates) video recorded some of their everyday interactions (including mealtimes, watching television, and playing board games). Using the tools of Conversation Analysis and working with the video recordings and transcripts of the interactions, several ways of making a lesbian identity relevant through talk were identified. As the analysis progressed, it was found that many references to sexual identity were produced fleetingly; they were not part of or integral to the ongoing talk, and were not taken up as a topic by participants. Rather, this invoking of a participant s sexual identity appears to contribute to a particular action that is being produced. It was found that invokings of other identities, for example relating to occupation, nationality, and race, worked in a similar way, and this is explored in relation to explanations and accounts. Where the first half of the thesis focuses on verbal invokings of identity in relation to action, the second half of the thesis considers some of the non-vocal resources that participants incorporate into their actions. It was found that when launching a topic related to something in the immediate environment, speakers can use gaze to ensure recipiency. Also, when producing potentially face-threatening actions such as teases, reprimands or insults, speakers can use interpersonal touch to mitigate the threat. In addition to showing how identities can be made relevant in everyday interaction, the findings of this thesis highlight the complexity of action design, and that in co-present interaction the physical resources available to participants also need to be taken into account.
27
Pilz, Karin S. "The role of facial and body motion for the recognition of identity." Berlin Logos-Verl, 2007. http://deposit.d-nb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?id=2972253&prov=M&dok_var=1&dok_ext=htm.
Full text
28
Ho, Kin-wai, and 何堅慧. "Cult of the fragmented body: establishing a feminine identity in popular cinema." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2000. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31952616.
Full text
29
Baker, S. C. "The body in graphic design : Towards a semiological theory of visual identity." Thesis, University of Kent, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.383100.
Full text
30
Nash, Linda Lorraine. "Transforming the Central Valley : body, identity, and environment in California, 1850-1970 /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/10414.
Full text
31
Ho, Kin-wai. "Cult of the fragmented body : establishing a feminine identity in popular cinema /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 2000. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B22200277.
Full text
32
Prickett, David J. "Body crisis, identity crisis homosexuality and aesthetics in Wilhelmine- and Weimar Germany /." Cincinnati, Ohio : University of Cincinnati, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=ucin1053700766.
Full text
33
Reese, Derek. "Evidence of Myself: Understanding Identity Through the Investigation of Body and Material." The Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1253654376.
Full text
34
PRICKETT, DAVID JAMES. "BODY CRISIS, IDENTITY CRISIS: HOMOSEXUALITY AND AESTHETICS IN WILHELMINE- AND WEIMAR GERMANY." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1053700766.
Full text
35
VanLandingham, Alisa Marie. "A test of objectification theory and its relationship to feminist identity." Texas A&M University, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/4809.
Full textAbstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the validity of a sociocultural theory
of objectification with a population of older women. Specifically, the study sought to
determine if level of self-objectification influenced psychological well-being, disordered
eating, and sexual dysfunction. Additional goals of this study included determining if
older women self-objectify like their younger counterparts and if level of selfobjectification
was influenced by oneâÂÂs feminist identity. Participants were 128
randomly selected women living in a small city in the southwest recruited through a
local seniors fair and organizations. Participants completed a take-home survey which
included a demographic questionnaire, the Feminist Identity Development Scale, the
Objectified Body Consciousness Scale, the Scales of Psychological Well-Being Short
Form, the Eating Attitudes Test, and the Brief Index of Sexual Functioning for Women.
Participants returned surveys in postage pre-paid envelopes. The data was analyzed
using structural equation modeling methods and the final model fit the data well.
Results indicate that older women do self-objectify but this level of self-objectification is
not influenced by their level of feminist identity. In addition, level of self-objectification is negatively related to psychological well-being and positively related to disordered
eating; however, no relationship exists between self-objectification and sexual
dysfunction. Implications for clinical practice and further research are discussed.
36
Leung, Wai-ping, and 梁慧萍. "Fashioning bodies, transforming identities: Kafka and Cronenberg." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2002. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B4257710X.
Full text
37
Gilcrest, Mel. "The Body Salvages: A Collection of New Poems." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2019. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1313.
Full textAbstract:
The Body Salvages is a collection of contemporary post-confessional poetry. The collection explores familial trauma, grief, sex and gender identity, puberty, dysphoria, and transition. The Body Salvages blends magical realism with memoir until easy certainties are no longer an option; the poems overgrow divisions between experience and identity, fiction and reality, past and present, world and body. Gilcrest draws inspiration from a diverse array of writers, poets, and musicians, including Sharon Olds, Yrsa Daley-Ward, Allen Ginsberg, Walt Whitman, Gabriel García Márquez, Ezra Furman, and Sandro Ortega-Riek.
38
Shrubsall, Gina M. "The dancing body makes sense of place /." View thesis, 2002. http://library.uws.edu.au/adt-NUWS/public/adt-NUWS20030929.102832/index.html.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M. A.) (Hons.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2002.<br>A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillmemt of the degree of Master of Arts, UWS Nepean, School of Contemporary Arts : Dance, July 2002. Bibliography : leaves 81-84.
39
Kong, Travis Shiu-ki. "The voices in between ... : the body politics of Hong Kong gay men." Thesis, University of Essex, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.327067.
Full text
40
Cahill, James 1969. "Locating the sacred body in time : a study in hagiography and historical identity." Thesis, McGill University, 1996. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=28043.
Full textAbstract:
Hagiography occupies a central place in the history of European culture, and yet despite this centrality, its reception as a significant cultural achievement has at times been undermined by a narrow critical hermeneutic, one that focuses largely on the debilitating flaws of the genre. The goal of this critical practice can be described as at once diagnostic and prescriptive, as scholars attempt to rid the canon of specious documents through rigorous textual and contextual analyses. It is my contention, however, that this critical winnowing, rather than rescuing some hagiographic documents from disrepute, is in fact limited by its failure to adequately account for the medieval concern for representation as a re-presencing of the self within language. Understood through the criteria of contemporary biography, saints' lives are easily read as naive caricatures of holiness, archetypes of faith fitted crudely into human form. Instead, the notion of singular identity should be understood as a focal point for hagiography, one that presupposes important theological, and specifically incarnational, underpinnings. An exploration along these lines will reveal what I believe to be an important function of medieval hagiography; namely, to serve as textual bridges joining the sacred and corporeal realms in coincident moments of human transcendence and divine immanence.
41
Goldman, Joanne Beth. "Narratives of living with diabetes, an examination of self, identity, and the body." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ28789.pdf.
Full text
42
Cahill, James. "Locating the sacred body in time, a study in hagiography and historical identity." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ43841.pdf.
Full text
43
Demerson, Elizabeth. "After the pain, beauty remains, identity and aesthetics of body modification in Montreal." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2001. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp05/MQ64027.pdf.
Full text
44
Miller, John William. "Empire and the animal body : violence, ecology and identity in the imperial romance." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2009. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/810/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines representations of exotic animals in Victorian and Edwardian adventure fiction and how they produce the boundary between human and nonhuman animals. Particularly, it scrutinises how violent engagements with animals participate in the construction of masculine identities and how these reflect and contribute to imperialist conceptions of ecology. I contend that the ostensibly fundamental distinction of humans from their animal others emerges in this context as compromised and unstable: a complex interplay of kinship and difference rather than an innate, monolithic and hierarchical opposition. This argument both continues the postcolonial dismantling of empire’s logic of domination and develops the recentering of the nonhuman in environmentally focussed criticism, but, most vitally, signals the relation between these fields: the necessary interdependence of human and nonhuman interests, of environmental activism and global social justice. Chapter One begins by examining recent critical interventions in the colonial adventures of G. A Henty, John Buchan, G. M. Fenn, R. M. Ballantyne, H. Rider Haggard and Paul du Chaillu. While intimately involved with an imperialist agenda that seeks to assimilate foreign environments and their denizens into colonial order, such texts also draw on a long-standing literary tradition that relishes wilderness as the theatre of narrative excitement and heroic testing. Through analysis of Henty’s Rujub the Juggler (1895) and Buchan’s A Lodge in the Wilderness (1906), I illustrate how imperial romance simultaneously narrates the symbolically powerful domestication of animal others through depictions of hunting and warfare and embraces animal otherness through a fetishistic investment in animal bodies re-presented as a panoply of imperial trophies and trinkets. Exploring further the ambiguities of domination, Chapter Two investigates colonial natural history as a material and discursive violence that forcefully integrates animals into Western patterns of signification. Adventure fiction’s role in this, however, emerges in Henty’s By Sheer Pluck (1884) and Fenn’s Nat the Naturalist (1882) as a conflicted celebration of restraint and aggression; the masculinities that such texts aim to construct and marshal suggesting an uncomfortable intimacy of civilisation and savagery that besets imperialist racial and species hierarchies and the unitary relation of the genre to colonial power. The themes of race, species and narrative form are developed in Chapter Three through a close reading of the cultural history of gorillas in the second half of the nineteenth century in the romanticised travel writing of Paul du Chaillu and the fictions of R. M. Ballantyne. The ‘invention’ of these extraordinary animals troubles the generic boundaries between romance and natural history and raises pointed questions about what it means to be human. A rhetoric of hygiene and contamination emerges as adventure heroes consistently find themselves deprived of their upright human dignity and floundering in a series of mucks and mires. The relation of sanitation and species forms a significant element of degenerationist discourse and the starting point for Chapter Four. Metropolitan decay is recurrently implicated in a potential devolution that threatens empire with both practical and philosophical dilemmas. Paradoxically, in Haggard’s Nada the Lily (1892) and Buchan’s Lodge the cure for this malaise is figured as another form of becoming animal as the enervated urbanite recovers in the colonial wilds. Such naturalisation of colonial violence leads into a discussion of the psychological undercurrents of male aggression. While the eroticisation of hunting is crucial, the imperial romance reveals male sexualities that hinge, most notably in Ballantyne’s 1861 The Gorilla Hunters, on imaginings of vulnerability as much as on fantasies of self-empowerment. In conclusion, I posit the human/animal border as one permeable at many points and follow Val Plumwood in delineating a selfhood ultimately in relation to, rather than separated from, the other and radically divergent from dualistic, colonial conceptualisations of human identity.
45
May, Alistair Scott. "The body for the Lord : sex and identity in 1st Corinthians 5-7." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2001. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2751/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis attempts to contribute to the study of identity formation in early Christianity by exploring the part played in this by sexual ethics. To this end it focuses on 1Corinthians 5-7, as the longest discussion of sex in the New Testament. Unlike many previous studies, this study sets out to consider these chapters as a unified discourse, and to consider them in the wider context of the epistle as a whole. The study engages in a close reading of the discourse, paying attention to how Paul's ethical instructions themselves, and his rhetoric (used to describe and evaluate insiders and outsiders), contribute to establishing Christian identity. It examines how convictions about Christian ethics and identity govern relations with outsiders, internal regulation, and reactions to social institutions. Particular attention is paid to Paul's 'body language' and what it might reveal about the relations of individual, Christian group and wider society in Paul's thought. Chapter one explores the concept of identity. It argues that identity is largely dependent on the subjective perception and evaluation of difference. The work of anthropologist Frederik Barth and social psychologist Henri Tajfel are used to reflect upon how social identities interact, both at the psychological level of the individual and at the sociological level of the group, and to provide resources for the study of 1Cor. It is noted that social groups require to establish a positive social identity for their members, and that this is always comparative in nature. How such comparisons operate, how they generate group stereotypes, and how the language of ingroup/outgroup comparison can be used to control the activity of ingroup members, are also explored. Chapter two examines the lessons learned with a brief consideration of the discourses of some Roman writers. It investigates how they used sexual ethics and rhetoric in the maintenance of group identity and the process of group control. Chapter three then takes an overview of 1Cor, considering the context into which Paul writes and the objectives he has in writing. In particular it explores Paul's rhetoric in 1Cor 1-4, and how his description and evaluation of insider and outsider serves to construct identity and control behaviour. The remaining chapters scrutinise 1Cor 5-7 in depth.
46
Russell, Katrina Marie. "Women's participation motivation in rugby, cricket and netball : body satisfaction and self-identity." Thesis, Coventry University, 2002. http://curve.coventry.ac.uk/open/items/42cf2a98-088e-404f-9ffb-f81911bbc086/1.
Full textAbstract:
The main reasons behind women's participation in sport have been identified as team membership, cooperation and friendship. This is seen in contrast to competition, status and possible career opportunities found in relation to men's participation in sport. Research also suggests that participation in physical activity and sport increases women's sense of well- being and acceptance of body size and shape. This thesis set out to explore the sporting experiences of women within rugby, cricket and netball. The first aim of the research was to investigate the participation motivation of women within three sports that differ in their levels of acceptability and required physical contact. The second and third aims were to examine how that participation might affect the development of self-esteem and body satisfaction. The fmal aim of the thesis addressed the issue of sporting identity development through exploring how participants in physical/non-physical, 'feminine'/'masculine' sports reflect on their sporting experiences. In addition the thesis considered how distinct parts of sporting participation such as clothing, team dynamics, physical contact and perceptions of sexuality synthesise to form the sporting identity of women rugby players, cricketers and netballers. The research was based on Constructivist/Interpretivist principles and combined both quantitative and qualitative methods. Initially, three questionnaires were used to assess participation motives (Participation Motivation Questionnaire), body image (Multi dimensional Body Self-Relations Questionnaire) and self-esteem (Multidimensional Self-Esteem Inventory). The questionnaires were sent to rugby players, cricketers and netballers through their organising bodies. Following the questionnaire stage of the thesis, 30 interviews were conducted to further explore the relationship between participation in sport, perceptions of femininity and the function the body took in developing body satisfaction. Key to the investigation was how sport participation impacted on identity development and the strategies used to maintain that image. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to analyse the interview accounts, focusing on the meanings given to sport by the individuals themselves. Social constructionism was used as a framework for interpreting the data. This produced a rich account of sporting experience highlighting how body satisfaction and perceptions of femininity are constructed and reconstructed by sportswomen. Findings from the questionnaires indicated that all sports rated team membership as the most important reason to participate in sport. Key fmdings demonstrated that satisfaction with physical appearance was strongly related to body areas satisfaction and global self-esteem for all sports. There was also no difference between sports on perceptions of physical attractiveness and all sports demonstrated significant relationships between satisfaction with physical appearance and body functioning. Following Stage One of the research process an interview schedule was developed that combined the key fmdings from each questionnaire and questions raised from the literature. The main findings from Stage Two highlighted how important sport is to these women, indicating a variety of techniques used to sustain an athletic image. It was also found that perceptions of femininity focused on the association of physical activity and sexuality. The assumption being that regardless of sport choice women were perceived as lesbian. Other key findings highlighted the transiency of body satisfaction. This refers to increases in body satisfaction through playing sport not being sustained once the athlete has transferred herself to a social context. Other findings relate to the use of the body in sport and the enjoyment of overpowering an opponent. School experiences of sport are identified as key to the development of gender stereotypes and why being regarded as a 'sporty' person is so important. The research on which this thesis is based suggests that sport comes to play an integral part in these women's lives and an activity that guided overall identity development. The thesis also highlights the transiency of body satisfaction and the inevitability of the lesbian stereotype due to participation in sport. The social constructionist interpretation of the data suggests how the shared vocabularies of body idioms that individuals embrace and use to judge other people determine the way in which we value physical behaviours and define physical attractiveness. The respondents demonstrated that regardless of prejudice and poor funding they still want to and enjoy the experience of sport participation. Potential research opportunities are also identified.
47
Loewy, Monika. "Body integrity identity disorder and the phantom limb : reflections on the bodily text." Thesis, Goldsmiths College (University of London), 2017. http://research.gold.ac.uk/19805/.
Full textAbstract:
Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) describes a condition in which a person desires to self-amputate in order to feel whole, and the phantom limb syndrome (PLS) occurs when an individual feels (typically painful) sensations in a non-existent limb. These conditions have been predominantly researched through biomedical models that struggle to find comprehensive reasons or cures, while a psychological model is lacking. Thus, these conditions insist that we debate them from a more nuanced view, which I approach through literature, cultural works, and psychoanalysis. In order to do this, we must attend to what is central to both phenomena: a feeling of rupture that contrasts a desire for wholeness. This theme will be elaborated through a discussion of the mirror-box, which is a therapeutic device that alleviates phantom limb pain by superimposing a mirror image of the existent limb onto the absent one, to create an illusion of bodily unity. I use this example to illuminate how texts and psychoanalysis involve reflections of self that can lead to a symbolic reconstitution. What this dialogue illuminates is how theoretical and psychical notions are intertwined with physical experience. I begin by surveying BIID and PLS, which is followed by two case studies that convey personal experiences of living with the syndromes. Chapter Two examines how BIID and PLS bring out an affinity between psychoanalysis and literature. The third chapter uses examples to fortify these links by tracing the theme of the double. The question of recuperation is raised in Chapter Four through the work of D.W. Winnicott, and Chapter Five investigates a novel by Georges Perec, which ties together those themes in discussion. Reading BIID and PLS through these works ultimately raises questions concerning what we can discover about how we are constituted through signs, and how this affects our sense of self.
48
Taylor, Aimee N. "Fat Cyborgs: Body Positive Activism, Shifting Rhetorics and Identity Politics in the Fatosphere." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1479311506093833.
Full text
49
Plumpton, Max W. "Selling the American Body: The Construction of American Identity Through the Slave Trade." Scholar Commons, 2016. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6356.
Full textAbstract:
In this thesis I argue that the early conceptualization of American identity was achieved through the dehumanization of blacks at slave auctions, and that the subjugation of this group informed more areas of the collective, normalized, American identity than just race. I contend that blacks were deprived of qualities that are considered inherently human (and American) and reduced to the facts of their bodies. To do this, I analyze newspaper advertisements for slave auctions, abolitionist editorials, and postings for runaway slaves. I also look at primary accounts of slave auctions that speak to the performative nature of the setting. I analyze the former set of texts to see how black bodies, in the context of their sale at auction, are discursively constructed in print media. In regard to the latter set of texts I discuss how slaves auctions mimicked theatrical settings, and how this staging and spectacularization of black bodies influenced the creation of a collective national identity. I argue that the emphasis on the slave’s body in newspapers and the spectacle of it on the auction block function to dehumanize blacks in such a significant manner that they become distinct from their free, white counterparts in ways that go beyond racial difference. This thesis expands on scholarship that considers the influence the institution of slavery had the normalizing of whiteness in America by positing that characteristics fundamental to American identity, such as individualism and creativity, were also established through the dehumanization of the blacks.
50
Yazdanian, Shenin Nadia. "Body-Image-Text: Exploring Female Adolescents on Facebook and Concurrent Identity Formation (CIF)." Thesis, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/33420.
Full textAbstract:
Using a uniquely developed research methodology called ‘feminist virtual ethnography’ this thesis explores female adolescent subculture on the social network site Facebook, looking specifically at a group of four girls who are ‘Facebook friends’ with each other as well as friends at the same high school in a large metropolitan city in south-western Ontario in Canada. The thesis is guided by research questions that focus on how these girls virtually-represent their bodies on Facebook, and develops a theory of concurrent identity formation (CIF) as a way to understand the translatability and conversion between the ‘real’ and the ‘virtual.’
Built as a collaborative inquiry between the researcher and research participants, I invited the girls to analyze screenshots of their own (and each other’s) virtual self-representations during a series of virtual conversations and to express their understandings of femininity and beauty as they problematize their identities on Facebook and in ‘real’ contexts such as at school and at home. Overall, findings reveal an interplay of body, image, and text within the girls’ systems of imagery and language. I suggest that the female adolescent body is virtually self-represented in negotiated as well as discursive ways, and that the girls’ identities are always in flux. While CIF provides a good basis for understanding these girls’ identities as ‘in flux,’ further investigation into virtual representation and CIF is needed to understand how and why adolescents display their bodies and articulate their identities in certain ways. Pedagogical implications are also discussed in my concluding chapter, where I call for a reconceptualization of literacies and methodologies, especially when dealing with girls on/and Facebook.