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 ---- 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 ********************************************************************** Contributions: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Commands: majordomo-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Requests: bourdieu-approval-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
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