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Weaving relational webs: Theorizing cultural difference and embodied practice.

Pedwell, Carolyn (2008) Weaving relational webs: Theorizing cultural difference and embodied practice. Feminist Theory, 9 (1). pp. 87-107. ISSN 1464-7001. E-ISSN 1741-2773. (doi:10.1177/1464700107086365) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:42872)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1464700107086365

Abstract

Through illustrating the similarities between embodied practices rooted in different cultural contexts (such as `African' female genital cutting and `Western' cosmetic surgery), feminist theorists seek to reveal the instability of essentialist binaries which distinguish various groups as culturally, ethnically and morally `different'. They also aim to query how the term `culture' is employed differentially on the basis of embodied axes such as race and nation. However, in emphasizing overarching commonalities between practices, feminist cross-cultural comparisons risk collapsing into economies of sameness that elide the complex relations of power through which such practices have been constituted. They can also fix the imagined subjects of these practices in troubling ways. Using the ubiquitous `African' female genital cutting and `Western' cosmetic surgery binary as an example, this article explores the difference it might make to address culturally essentialist constructions of embodied practice with a focus on relationality rather than commonality. As a means to reorient feminist cross-cultural approaches which depend on assertions of similarity or sameness, it argues for the theoretical and pedagogical utility of thinking through relational webs.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1177/1464700107086365
Uncontrolled keywords: cosmetic surgery cross-cultural comparison cultural essentialism female genital cutting relationality
Subjects: H Social Sciences
H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Women > HQ1236 Women and the state. Women's rights. Women's political activity
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Depositing User: Carolyn Pedwell
Date Deposited: 09 Sep 2014 15:23 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:17 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/42872 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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