File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_2004/bourdieu.0401, message 103


From: "Erik Hoogcarspel" <jehms-AT-xs4all.nl>
Subject: RE: [BOU:] << an outline of an investigation of "l'affaire dufoulard" >>
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 22:09:45 +0100


 

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I would like to propose that what gets applied to "l'affaire du foulard" is
the methodology developed by Bourdieu and co-workers!

Would anyone be interested in contributing to << an outline of an
investigation of "l'affaire du foulard" >>?  I think that several
contributors to the list have tried to signal that taking this issue at face
value (so to speak) might not be the best place from which to start!

By way of a start:

1. Our own attitudes towards this issue (like other attitudes of other
people) are socially constructed and historically contingent. Hence there
should be an attempt to integrate into the investigation an analysis of the
practices and rituals surrounding the clothing (?) that is taken to be
appropriate for public spaces (?) in the societies from which we come (we
who seek to investigate this issue).

OK, here my two cents of phenomenology of clothing and veiling. I'll try to
take up the other two points later.
Clothing in public spaces
Dominated by 'the daily' (le quotidien - Lefebvre), there are mythologies
(Barthes) like the sikh, the bum , the leatherqueen, etc. The general idea
seems to be that everyone shows himself as what he is. There's a certain
innocence, you don't dress up normally for a public space, you're allways
dressed as you are. You don't dress as a group, the public space is
ambiguously politicised. Men in womens dress is OK if it's clear why they do
it. Clothing divides into social groups: male - femal, young - old, por -
rich, normal - abnormal. The public space is a meetingplace for social
contacts. Meeting people only of ones own kind creates antagonism, everybody
has to be aware of everybody. The public space is 'us'. You make friends,
you meet your future husband or wife, it the place where children play and
where old people reflect on life. "The streets of London', 'The city that
never sleeps', 'Le ciel de Paris'.
Veiling: not showing yourself, but seeing everybody else. Spying in public
spaces. The feminine is censored. The group-antagonism we - them, we don't
show them our women, our women is our secret, our women are in danger, the
purity of procreation is in danger, our procreation is in danger, we don't
want to become like them, we don't want to mix, we are sacred they are
dirty. We want to be us, so we clothe like us and this is a sacred way of
clothing, clean. They must admit it, they must hate themselves for not being
us.

2. Does the use of the term "l'affaire du foulard" restrict the
investigation to French society? I don't think so - in fact I can see all
kinds of positive features in drawing upon as wide an area as possible.

3. In seeking to investigate "l'affaire du foulard", we should be aware that
the issue, ""l'affaire", is itself a product of the social world. We should
therefore "retrace the history of the emergence" of this issue.


Best Wishes

John Evans




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