Basic Girls and Rihanna-wannabes: How Racial identity Impacts Body Modification and Adornment Among Collegiate Women

• In Event: 577 - Section on Body and Embodiment Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 02. Embodiment, Identity, and Representation

Abstract

The relative insignificance of fashion to the discipline of sociology, as well as academia writ large, has led to a substantial paucity of theory and scholarship about people dressing their bodies. Despite Aspers and Godart’s 2013 plea in the Annual Review of Sociology article to change the tide and seriously examine of the sociology of fashion, the area remains largely devoid of sociological analysis. This is particularly true of the intersection of race and fashion. Even Aspers and Godart’s description of current state of fashion studies and plea for sociological reform lacks any mention of race, either as a tool of stratification or identity. The few sociological studies that even mention dress and/or fashion and race are geared toward beauty privilege associated with particular phenotypes (Anderson et al 2010) and, to a lesser degree, body modifications and bodywork employed to achieve those phenotypes (Gimlin 2007). In this study, I establish new pathways for sociological inquiry into fashion, dress and race though an exploration of how racially diverse collegiate women employ clothing to modify their bodies. I used a “talking while walking” methodology wherein I conducted interviews while combing through wardrobes of 40 African American, White and Latina women. I found that both racial identity and racially specific concerns about self-presentation guided their clothing choices. By focusing on fashion, this groundbreaking study adds a new dimension into our understanding of how race impacts every day lived reality.

Author

• Angela Nurse