Author Bio

Chris Bobel is Associate Professor in the Department of Women's Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. She is the author of The Paradox of Natural Mothering and New Blood: Third-Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation.

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Samantha Kwan is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Houston. She has published in Qualitative Health Research, Sociological Inquiry, and Teaching Sociology.

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Main Description

Embodied Resistance engages the rich and complex range of society's contemporary "body outlaws"--people from many social locations who violate norms about the private, the repellent, or the forbidden. This collection ventures beyond the conventional focus on the "disciplined body" and instead, examines conformity from the perspective of resisters. By balancing accessibly written original ethnographic research with personal narratives, Embodied Resistance provides a window into the everyday lives of those who defy or violate socially constructed body rules and conventions.

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Reviews

"The book is a good start to a more nuanced understanding of the interconnections between complicity and transgression."
--Contemporary Sociology

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"This anthology captures the urgency of the body's involvement with power relations. It reminds us of the significant and sometimes high stakes of negotiating embodiment and identity, embodiment and sexuality, race, gender. Bobel and Kwan situate the wide range of articles in the most current literatures in critical scholarship, and remind us why the body has become such an important place of scholarship, why it carries so much meaning and instigates so much struggle."
--Victoria Pitts-Taylor, Director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and author of Surgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic Culture and In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification

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"Finally, here is a book about the body that is as juicy, colorful, and unpredictable as the body itself. Embodied Resistance is not only about resistance but as a collection vibrates with its own resistance, both to academic abstractions about 'the body' and to uncritical storytelling. A wonderful blend of ethnographic research and personal reflections, it toes no one theoretical line and embraces a fascinating range of practices, issues, and experiences. This is a book students will identify with, argue with, shed tears over, laugh along with, and rarest of all for a scholarly reader, enjoy curling up with."
--Susan Bordo, author of Unbearable Weight and The Male Body

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At a Glance

Ethnographies about transgressing social expectations of the body

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Table of Contents

CONTENTS



Foreword - Rose Weitz



Introduction - Chris Bobel and Samantha Kwan



Rewriting Gender Scripts


The Specter of Excess: Race, Class, and Gender in Women's Body Hair Narratives - Breanne Fahs and Denise A. Delgado


"Is That Any Way to Treat a Lady?": The Dominatrix's Dungeon - Danielle J. Lindemann


"Cruisin' for a Bruisin'": Women's Flat Track Roller Derby - Natalie M. Peluso


Becoming a Female-to-Male Transgender (FTM) in South Korea - Tari Youngjung Na and Hae Yeon Choo


Living Resistance: From Rapunzel to G.I. Jane - Samantha Binford


Living Resistance: Funnel as Phallus - Sara L. Crawley




Challenging Marginalization



"Give Me a Boa and Some Bling!": Red Hat Society Members Commanding Visibility in the Public Sphere - M. Elise Radina, Lydia K. Manning, Marybeth C. Stalp, and Annette Lynch


Fat. Hairy. Sexy: Contesting Standards of Beauty and Sexuality in the Gay Community - Nathaniel C. Pyle and Noa Logan Klein


Belly Dancing Mommas: Challenging Cultural Discourses of Maternity - Angela M. Moe


"It's Important to Show Your Colors": Counter-Heteronormativity in a Metropolitan Community Church - J. Edward Sumerau and Douglas P. Schrock


Living Resistance: An Accidental Education - Hanne Blank


Living Resistance: The Pickup - Catherine Bergart





Defying Authoritative Knowledges and Conventional Wisdom


Anorexia as a Choice: Constructing a New Community of Health and Beauty through Pro-Ana Websites - Abigail Richardson and Elizabeth Cherry


Public Mothers and Private Practices: Breastfeeding as Transgression - Jennifer A. Reich


"It's Hard to Say": Moving Beyond the Mystery of Female Genital Pain - Christine Labuski


"What I Had to Do to Survive": Self-Injurers' Bodily Emotion Work - Margaret Leaf and Douglas P. Schrock


Living Resistance: Intersex?: Not My Problem - Esther Morris Leidolf


Living Resistance: Doula-Assisted Childbirth: Helping Her Birth Her Way - Angela Horn





Negotiating Boundaries and Meanings

The Politics of the Stall: Transgender and Genderqueer Workers Negotiating "the Bathroom Question" - Catherine Connell


The Everyday Resistance of Vegetarianism - Samantha Kwan and Louise Marie Roth


Menopausal and Misbehaving: When Women "Flash" in Front of Others - Heather E. Dillaway


The Transformation of Bodily Practices among Religious Defectors - Lynn Davidman


Living Resistance: Crossing the Menstrual Line - David Linton


Living Resistance: Myself, Covered - Beverly Yuen Thompson





Afterword Barbara Katz Rothman

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