In affluent western societies, digital communication and information technologies
increasingly reshape our social relations and identities, the way we perceive our selves
and others. Given that we are all communicative and relational bodies in complex webs
of power, the media of communication are central to the ways we are socially structured
and relate to one another. The purpose of my thesis is to sketch a framework which can
account critically for the dangers and benefits of embodying digital technologies while
rethinking the gendered body politics of the everyday world.
In this thesis, I develop a set of theoretical abstractions through which to think our
bodies. With these theories, I paint images of modern body politics and of the micro- and
macro-politics of power over life in larger socio-historical processes. M y textual analysis
of Tampax's TRoom (http://www.troom.com), a corporate website exemplifies thinking
these broader historical and social issues of embodiment. I focus on this website as a
discursive frame that calls girls as free and subjugated subjects into digital texts of
feminine protection. Thinking girl bodies through and against the 'civilizing' and
disciplinary dimension of digital and sanitary technologies provides us with both
liberating and confining images of what it may be like to be or become a girl.
In the conclusion, I present the image of cyborgs, as hybrids of human organism
and technology, to think our selves through everyday life techniques and technologies.
Tamponed cyborgs provide realities that reformulate a bodily unity, capture
contemporary issues of "girls" embodiment and incorporation of technology, and
contribute to an understanding of the possibilities for discursive remappings of girls'
social relations and selves.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/11038 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Zumsteg, Beatrix |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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