‘We’re stuck in the corner’: Young women, embodiment and drinking in the countryside

Abstract

In this paper I extend our understanding of the ways in which young women in rural areas produce, negotiate and experience identity through an exploration of their drinking practices. Through a close ethnography of three groups of young women in the rural south west of England this paper shows how pubs, clubs, bedrooms and other informal spaces such as ‘in the park’ provide arenas of performance in which identities are constructed, negotiated and reproduced. In particular this paper explores the significance given by rural young women to their discursive drinking practices and the extent to which these practices lead to inclusionary and/or exclusionary experiences. Eschewing conventional notions of the body, by recognizing the body as malleable, porous and an unfinished product, subject to socially produced alteration, this paper teases apart the different lived experiences of rural young women by arguing that much of their behaviour in pub(lic) and private space(s) can be seen in terms of acts of spectacle, compliance and challenges to disciplinary frameworks. To illustrate this point I discuss how rural young women employ various embodied strategies to move between spaces to experiment with alcohol and alternative femininities and ‘do’ gender, thereby contesting acceptable rural gender roles and expectations. Through shedding light on drinking practices, I reveal how this experimentation affects their sense of their body, femininity and belonging in the countryside.