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Alexandra Allan, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward
VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WT. Email: AllanA1@cardiff.ac.uk
Two further caveats need to be discussed before moving on to detail the research this paper is based upon.
Firstly, it is necessary to note that this research is based upon a study of female bodies. Very little has been
written in mainstream sociology about womens bodies and indeed Foucault has also been criticised for
failing to account for gendered bodies in his analyses (McNay 1992). It has been left to feminists to account
for the very different ways in which women experience their bodies (and indeed their clothes) in comparison
to men; they have made the personal body political (Bordo 1995). As Frost (2001) suggests, in a study of
girls it is necessary to account for the different experiences girls have of their bodies and to remain aware of
the fact that they live in specific bodies with very real, material constraints. Therefore, it is not just any
dressed bodies that this paper seeks to explore but the gendered, feminine bodies of young girls. Secondly,
these girls are also children and this has consequences for the ways in which their bodies will be perceived in
society. As James (2000) argues, childrens bodies are subjected to discourses of normality, growth and
change and any account of their bodies must appreciate the ways these temporal discourses are inscribed on
the body and the ways in which children learn to negotiate these meanings in their everyday lives.
My own research an embodied ethnography
This paper draws on research carried out with one class of twenty five girls (aged ten and eleven) in a single
sex, private girls school in the South West of Britain. The main emphasis for this research was to explore the
ways in which girls manage and negotiate their gender identities as girls with their academic identities as
pupils. However, it was recognised that a major part of this project would be concerned with the visual
re/presentation of identity through the body and clothing, this paper is concerned with that data.
My research was an ethnographic project that utilised a number of different methods. Some of these methods
were specifically chosen to access the topic of embodiment and clothing. In particular, photographs were
used to encourage the girls to re/present themselves visually and to talk about their clothing and appearance.
Some of the girls joined a lunchtime photography club that I ran in the school to get the girls to look at
photographs critically and to see how other people were visually represented. This involved looking at
photographs by various professional photographers and writing monologues and stories about the girls they
saw in these pictures. The girls were encouraged to create their own photographic diaries to portray things of
importance to them and they were also invited to take part in a one day photography workshop where they
worked alongside a professional photographer to produce a range of portrait prints that visually expressed
their various identities. But as Emmison and Smith (2000) remind us, photographs are not the only method
capable of capturing visual aspects of society. Through observation I was also able to make notes of the girls
clothing and its usage in everyday situations as I spent time with them in the classroom and on school trips.
The girls were also interviewed in their friendship groups and were asked specific questions about their
bodies, appearance and their clothing. My role as an embodied researcher was central to all of these practices
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NOTES
1. The photographs used in the photography club were produced by the professional photographers Cindy
Sherman and Sally Mann. Cindy Sherman is famous for her photos Untitled Film Stills that present women
in a variety of different roles. Sally Mann is famous for taking photographs of children and her collection of
photographs entitled At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women are supposed to show what it is like to be a
twelve year old girl on the verge of adulthood.
2. The tomboys, girly girls, Goths and Moshers were all self-identified groups that the children talked
about in group interviews.
3. Jacqueline Wilson is a well-known British childrens author who writes books that portray girls in a range
of different roles. The readers of her books are also mainly female.
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4. Cook et al (2004) suggest that Tween is a concept that has emerged since the early 1990s when clothing
makers tried to define a market space for age based goods and meanings. Tween is generally regarded to be
an ambiguous age group although it mainly accounts for children aged 9-12 and it is a predominantly
feminine category.
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