“She Started Wearing Men’s Clothing and Acting More Masculine"

This paper examines two examples of archival visual information with potentially transgender and non-binary representation to interrogate the descriptive challenges latent within such materials. By using gender theory and queer historiography, this paper deploys a critical case study to consider the particularities of naming gender when contextual evidence provides little to no authoritative guidance. By talking through the way gender makes itself visible within visual information, the paper guides readers through the way transgender or non-binary identity might exist within both pieces of visual information. The paper then provides suggestions on how to provide respectful and inclusive descriptive records that attend to the complexities of a still-evolving queer history. By offering both a statement on the impossibility of naming identity within intersecting forms of queer embodiment alongside reference points for methods of discussing potential gendered identities, the paper offers practical approaches to describing transgender and non-binary identities for information professionals.

Gender in Rhetorical Theory

The phrase gender in rhetorical theory refers to how gendered identities and dynamics have shaped the conceptualizing of rhetorical performances and interactions. Scholars have attended to this dimension of rhetoric by examining problems relating to gendered norms and representations as contexts, conditions, and functions for rhetoric. Despite the different aims and times of these inquiries, they share central concerns about the gendered productions and exclusions of discourses and rhetorical practices. Scholars also contribute to work in both rhetorical scholarship and gender studies by bringing diverse projects into contact to create new insights. Scholarly attention to gender in rhetorical studies has often critiqued conventional theories of rhetoric for importing simplistic accounts of gender or for failing to address its importance at all. Many crucial contributions to rhetorical studies have worked to correct this problem by drawing on interdisciplinary literature—particularly from feminist theory, intersectional analysis, queer theory, trans theory, and masculinity studies—enriching understandings of how rhetoric functions. Such research has enabled rhetorical theory to begin to account for distinct embodied encounters, material conditions, and performative agencies. Scholars have drawn on interdisciplinary literature to advance a more nuanced account of gendered experiences and representations in rhetorical theory. This research has often related sexism and misogyny to a host of other forms of bias and bigotry that are evident in some of the scholarly assumptions and abstractions guiding the discipline of rhetorical studies. These include universal and neutral standards of rhetorical efficacy, individualistic accounts of the rhetorical agent, and definitions of rhetoric as a representation of (or response to) an external reality that appeals to a preexisting audience. Rhetorical theorists have also contributed to broader conversations engaging complexities of gender by highlighting the role of discourse in the production of biological essentialisms; gender binaries; interlocking oppressions; and multiple vectors of marginalization, discrimination, erasure, exclusion, and violence.

Food and Identity in New Zealand: the Cross-Generational Transmission of Cultural and Gender Identity through Food

<p>This thesis examines the previously under-explored area of the intersection of individuals’ cultural and gender identity in relation to food within the framework of New Zealand food culture. The analysis focuses upon how the cross-generational transmission of food culture has occurred within Pakeha families in New Zealand, and how the process has affected gendered identities. The study was based on analyses of in-depth interviews and reminiscences provided by 15 individual respondents from six families about their food preferences and practices. This interview data was summarised and organised into six family case histories. Also in analysing New Zealand cookbooks, the thesis considers social changes related to the changing meaning of food and cooking in association with individuals’ gender roles. Particular attention was paid to the ‘de-gendering’ of cooking. If men are cooking more nowadays than in the past, do they invest this activity with different social meanings from women? If women spend less time on food preparation than in the past, do they depend more on convenience foods? This thesis investigates how such changes interact with the cultural and social significance of food and cooking.</p>

Food and Identity in New Zealand: the Cross-Generational Transmission of Cultural and Gender Identity through Food

<p>This thesis examines the previously under-explored area of the intersection of individuals’ cultural and gender identity in relation to food within the framework of New Zealand food culture. The analysis focuses upon how the cross-generational transmission of food culture has occurred within Pakeha families in New Zealand, and how the process has affected gendered identities. The study was based on analyses of in-depth interviews and reminiscences provided by 15 individual respondents from six families about their food preferences and practices. This interview data was summarised and organised into six family case histories. Also in analysing New Zealand cookbooks, the thesis considers social changes related to the changing meaning of food and cooking in association with individuals’ gender roles. Particular attention was paid to the ‘de-gendering’ of cooking. If men are cooking more nowadays than in the past, do they invest this activity with different social meanings from women? If women spend less time on food preparation than in the past, do they depend more on convenience foods? This thesis investigates how such changes interact with the cultural and social significance of food and cooking.</p>

Beyond University: Photovoice portraits of some Cambodian young women’s education, identities, and rights

<p>‘Educate a Girl. Change the World.’ Faith in this universalising, simple creed permeates development discourse on education and empowerment. Yet these processes are complex, embedded in specific contexts, and dependent upon many factors outside of formal schooling. This research aims to cut through the vague mists of this discourse by exploring processes of education and empowerment for six young Cambodian women. A small minority of such women graduate from university, and their negotiations with personal, professional, and political life illustrate opportunities and constraints in claiming their education and rights. This research drew from feminist epistemologies and used participatory photovoice methodology. Each participant selected 20 of her photographs which addressed aspects of education and empowerment important to her. Those photographs then guided our semi-structured interviews. This epistemology and methodology allowed women’s images and words to be strongly represented in the thesis and effectively elucidated the complexity and interconnectedness of learning and empowerment processes in the many spheres of these young women’s lives. Through participants’ images and words, this study illustrates factors that supported and challenged the young women in claiming higher education, how that education influenced the many-layered personal and professional identities they formed, and how they engaged in efforts to build women’s networks and claim public political space. These findings indicate several factors deserving greater attention and research in development: the importance of siblings to educational attainment, the utility of interweaving traditional and alternate gendered identities, the value of women’s networks for transformational learning, and the challenges in claiming public political space when elite ownership of development is tacitly accepted. These findings demonstrate that many interwoven strands influence educational outcomes and processes of empowerment above and beyond formal schooling. These effects do not manifest in a linear fashion. When the education-women’s empowerment-development nexus is better understood and grounded in women’s rights, this enhances development outcomes for young women.</p>

Beyond University: Photovoice portraits of some Cambodian young women’s education, identities, and rights

<p>‘Educate a Girl. Change the World.’ Faith in this universalising, simple creed permeates development discourse on education and empowerment. Yet these processes are complex, embedded in specific contexts, and dependent upon many factors outside of formal schooling. This research aims to cut through the vague mists of this discourse by exploring processes of education and empowerment for six young Cambodian women. A small minority of such women graduate from university, and their negotiations with personal, professional, and political life illustrate opportunities and constraints in claiming their education and rights. This research drew from feminist epistemologies and used participatory photovoice methodology. Each participant selected 20 of her photographs which addressed aspects of education and empowerment important to her. Those photographs then guided our semi-structured interviews. This epistemology and methodology allowed women’s images and words to be strongly represented in the thesis and effectively elucidated the complexity and interconnectedness of learning and empowerment processes in the many spheres of these young women’s lives. Through participants’ images and words, this study illustrates factors that supported and challenged the young women in claiming higher education, how that education influenced the many-layered personal and professional identities they formed, and how they engaged in efforts to build women’s networks and claim public political space. These findings indicate several factors deserving greater attention and research in development: the importance of siblings to educational attainment, the utility of interweaving traditional and alternate gendered identities, the value of women’s networks for transformational learning, and the challenges in claiming public political space when elite ownership of development is tacitly accepted. These findings demonstrate that many interwoven strands influence educational outcomes and processes of empowerment above and beyond formal schooling. These effects do not manifest in a linear fashion. When the education-women’s empowerment-development nexus is better understood and grounded in women’s rights, this enhances development outcomes for young women.</p>

By Me Shall He Be Nursed! Queer Identity and Representation in The Mahabharata

The Mahabharata is a treasure-trove of the cultural memories of the Hindus. The grand Epic has entertained and edified our society through its numerous identity-relevant narratives since time immemorial. The longevity of The Mahabharata lies in its capacity to adapt, adopt and re-fashion the account, which grants endless opportunities of initiating open-ended debate. The grand Epic has shaped our values and shared a template by which a life guided by Dharma is to be lived. The dialogic text continues to contribute to the resolution of our emotional angst and existential dilemmas. Much ahead of its times, the Epic revels in the liminality that is apparent in the narratives of the gender-queer people who are an integral part of its culture-scape. This paper seeks to study two liminal figures in the Epic narrative – Shikhandi, the trans-gender Prince of Panchala, and Yuvanashwa, the pregnant King, who swayed between gendered identities and challenged the hegemonic heteronormative sexual framework, thereby opening avenues of conversation related to marginalization, resistance and empowerment. The paper also examines the queer cases of King Sudyumna and King Bhangashwan, who questioned the symbolic binaries of gender and delineated a horizon of possibilities. The aim here is to measure the resistance of the genderqueer against the prescriptive order of subjectivities and assess the impact and the outcome. Drawing from the deconstructivist and the queer theories, the study foregrounds the trauma and the resistance of the marginal. These narratives establish The Mahabharata as one of the earliest texts to have a meaningful discourse in the queer-space.

gendering of healthy diets

Gendered identities are communicated in places as frequent and ordinary as food packaging, becoming mundane features of everyday life as they sit on supermarket shelves, in cupboards and on office desks. Multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) allows us to investigate how such identities are buried in packaging in relation to health and fitness. Despite observed broader changes in gendered representations of the body in advertising, in particular relating to the arrival of ‘power femininity’, the products analysed in this article are found to carry fairly traditional and prototypical gender representations, and products marketed at both men and women highlight the need for more precise body management. For women, however, this precision is related to managing the demands of everyday life, packaged as a moral imperative to be healthy, responsible and successful.

Barre Matters: Hybrid Formations of Ballet and Group Fitness

Employing a variety of theoretical approaches, feminist researchers have critiqued the fitness industry of its singular emphasis on the impossible, narrowly defined feminine body ideal that is likely to cause more mental (e.g., body dissatisfaction) and physical ill health (eating disorders, injuries) than improve fitness. With the focus on social construction of gendered identities, there has been less problematisation of the materiality of the fitness practices and their impact on the cultural production of the moving body. In this article, I adopt a Latourian approach to seek for a more complete account of the body in motion and how it matters in the contemporary world. A barre class as a popular group exercise class that combines ballet and exercise modalities offers a location for such an examination due to the centrality of a non-human object, the barre, that distinguishes it from other group exercise classes. I consider how exercise practices may be constituted in relation to a material object, the barre, and how the physical and material intersect, historically, with the cultural politics of fitness and dance from where the barre originates. To do this, I trace the journey of the barre from ballet training to the fitness industry to illustrate how human and non-human associations create a hybrid collective.