Boobs and Barbie: Feminist posthuman perspectives on gender, bodies and practice

Abstract

In this chapter our aim is to look at the complex relational assemblages by which young people’s bodies are engaged in ‘gendered becomings’ to show a feminist posthuman perspective. We draw on conceptual tools from Deleuze and Guattari in combination with Barad to re-think practice. From this perspective, gendered embodiments are not simply the reproductions of dualist gender formations; rather, gender is engaged, negotiated and produced continually through affects and micro-relations. We show this by exploring the territorialisations and micro-relations involved in the practice of cosmetic surgery (breast implants), and examples of transversality in a feminist schoolbased project that aimed to produce different gendered assemblages through research practice. A focus on the ‘doings’ of gender enables the ambiguities and complexities of gender to be explored, including, the discursive, bodily, sensate, affective and material dimensions of practice. In particular, this approach can assist in developing alternative understandings of the ways the conditions of possibility for gendered embodiments and social change emerge through practice.