The material-discursive phenomena of queer-bodies, clothing and schooling

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article draws on feminist new materialist theory to examine the relations in-between queer-bodies, clothing and the schooling environment. Working with Karen Barad’s agential realist concepts of intra-action and entanglement, queer-bodies and clothing are conceptualized as material-discursive phenomena, co-constitutive and emergent through their entangled relations. Through this approach, school uniforms, spatial environments, practices such as the school ball (prom), peers, parents, climate, and bodily sensations become integral forces in the mattering of queer-bodies and clothing. Notions of sartorial ‘choice’, agency and intelligibility are reconfigured in ways that exceed a pre-existing individual body and identity. I consider how a relational approach attends to the shifting complexities of queer-bodies and clothing in ways that avoid binary frameworks such as materiality/discourse, subject/object, dress/suit, and in turn, expands the possibilities for doing justice to the diversity of queer-bodies.