Hair, as it is fashioned in this research project, is a lens which brings embodiment, if only
ephemerally, into a place of expressive focus. This thesis considers, as its subjects of
research, women between the ages of 20 and 30 in Victoria, BC, Canada, who
purposefully use the hair styling services of a regular stylist to negotiate social anxieties
and play with possibilities of identity through the medium of hair. I engage with the
concept of embodiment specifically in order to approach current theoretical concerns in
anthropology with how commodity culture plays out and is played upon, both materially
and ideologically, through the bodies of social actors. Hair is particularly well suited to a
theoretical concern with embodiment because it is a biological medium of cultural
pliability; it occurs at the interface of a biological entity, upon which it grows, and a
cultural being, who styles it.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/1239 |
| Date | 30 October 2008 |
| Creators | Lalonde, Angelique Maria Gabrielle |
| Contributors | Matwychuk, Margo L. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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