Ulrika Dahl, Södertörn University

2007-2013

This interdisciplinary project in gender studies aimed to theoretically and empirically investigate the question of (queer) femininities and their relationship to feminist theory and politics. It took its playful inspiration from a seemingly resigned formulation by Sigmund Freud in his thesis on femininity from 1933 "if you want to know more about femininity, " and the ambition was to contribute to the development of femininity theory by bringing together scientific, biographical (empirical) and poetic (alternative) forms of theory. With the feminist concept of figuration as its organizing metaphor the project had three dimensions; 1) an investigation of how femininity has been been understood within canonical feminist/gender theory with an eye towards understandings of "queer" femininity as the project's skeleton, 2) an ethnographic study of queer expressions of femininity within urban western subcultural contexts that gave body to the figuration and 3) an analysis of forms of literary and visual/performative self-representations by "femmes" to give it a form. These three dimensions contributed to theoretical and methodological developments of the concept femininity by its focus on the scientific/creative, the bodily/lived and the visual/representational dimensions of femme as figuration.

The project has followed its initial plan with the exception that the ethnographic component also includes studies of and with members of the femme movement in Sydney, Australia and that the empirical analysis also focused on how community is made through specific events and virtual communities and by including email interviews. The main scientific production of the project focuses theoretical and methodological contributions to interdisciplinary and intersectional gender studies, introducing and developing queer and intersectional discussions of femininity and contributed to forming a new-ish subfield called critical femininity studies (Dahl 2012). The publications all shed light to different dimension of femme as figuration and contributes to rethinking feminine subjectivity.

The three most important results

Above all the project's extensive analysis of feminist and gender theory shows that even if there is considerable empirical work done on 'femininity' the concept itself remains fairly undertheorized. Despite its significance to feminism, there are no theoretical apparatuses, conferences, journals, etc that centrally focus femininity, which can be compared to the growing field of masculinity studies. The project's focus on initiating local, national and international discussions on this matter can thus be seen as a central result of the project.

Secondly, the ethnographic component showed strong ties between (feminist and queer) theory and politics. The project followed a subcultural phenomenon, the transnational femme movement, during an expansive and changing time. The interest in politicizing and embodying queer femininity pointed to the continued subordination and marginalization of femininity, both within the world at large and in feminist and sexual political movements. The mobilization around femininity also builds on feminist legacies of consciousness raising, skill sharing, identity affirmation and both reflect and critique contemporary feminist politics. The movement also struggles with contestations along racial, class, age and ability lines in addition to gender and sexuality, with affective encounters as a result. The question of what queers femininity is impossible to answer insofar as it is inevitably contextual and changing. The empirical investigation showed that femininity is a greater problem within white-dominated contexts, which can be tied to the fact that it is the white, bourgeois and heterosexual ideals of femininity that have been the biggest problem for feminism historically. At the same time, the hegemony of whiteness within the movements studies was a sore point. More research is needed on femininity ideals and how they are reproduced and contested in subcultural movements, as well as on more marginalized and underrepresented (queer) femininities.

The project has developed a theoretical approach that challenges an understanding of femininity through dichotomies of sex/gender or depth/surface (Dahl 2011) and that instead investigates how femininity materializes, not merely through a "doing" of gender through attributes/aesthetics coded feminine but also distinguishable from the bodily. The somatechnics tradition (Sullivan & Murray 2009), where the material/bodily is irriducibly entwined with the technological, the latter understood as both technologies of gender and aesthetics and the kinds of larger regimes through which bodies become intelligible has been central. With the concept of femmebodiment I've sought to give shape to (queer) feminine embodiment and also bring affect into the discussion of somatechnics (Dahl 2011, fortc.). Femme as figur/ation here goes beyond identity; it is a way to understand feminine subjectivity figuratively and stylistically and to bring together seemingly incongruent traditions of sexual difference, post structuralism and phenomenology.

New questions raised

The key themes raised by the project for future work are: 1) the importance of further intersectional and interdisciplinary work within critical femininity studies, 2) the need for developing theories of femininity along the lines of a somatechnical approach for understanding feminine corporeality as always already entangled with technologies of femininity and 3) the importance of continued work on the specific place of white femininity within relations of femininities. All these themes will be addressed in future collaborative projects and networks spawned from the project. Another central theme has been that of how to write/represent/manifest femme figuratively; a question that will be further explored in future writing.

International connections

The project has generated much attention and relevance interationally. Concretely, it has resulted in the informal establishment of an international network for critical femininity studies with researchers from England, Australia, United States, Austria and the Nordic region, for which formal funding is now sought and in an international call for papers for a special issue of the journal Lambda Nordica for 2014. The project prompted invitation to two international research networks; Thought As Action: Gender, Democracy, Freedom, organized by professor Ellen Mortensen, University of Bergen (2009-2013) and Vulnerability: Rethinking Representation, Politics and Materialism, organized by professor Anu Koivunen, Stockholm University (2012-2014). As a result of research trips to Australia in 2009 and 2010 funded by STINT, collaboration around the concept of somatechnics has been formalized through this project and via an international workshop at Södertörn in 2012, a forthcoming one in Linköping in 2013 and several talks in Australia. Research results have been presented as keynotes at 5 international conferences, in 7 invited and accepted papers and 6 invited seminars. It has also resulted in an invitation to be visiting professor in an application to the Austrian Research council (2012, denied; resubmitted for 2013) and as a national representative in a network on European studies of sexualities. International recognition can also be seen in requests for refereeing for 4 international journals.

Two most important publications

It is hard to pick two; as they are many, diverse and used in different ways. The article on methodology (2010, reprint 2011), published in a groundbreaking and widely reviewed anthology, is frequently used in teaching and often cited as a contribution to rethinking queer methodologies and reviewers have called it 'one of the more powerful essays in the book' . The 2012 NORA article on critical femininity studies paves way for a Nordic subfield of gender studies dedicated to critical femininity studies. The 2011 article introduced a discussion on (queer) femininities as and feminist theory to a broader Swedish audience. Finally, two yet unpublished articles, one on whiteness and imperialist nostalgia (accepted for Gender, Place, and Culture) and the other on femmebodiment (in progress), explicitly seek to make significant and innovative contributions to the field of critical femininity studies and queer studies by engaging quesitons of critical whiteness, fashion, agency and temporality. The forcoming book Skamgrepp:Femme-inistiska essäer investigates the relationship between sexual, gendered, and scientific/literary style and is aimed at a broader audience and to conversations about the very form and shape of feminist knowledge.

The publication strategy of the project

Initially the project aimed to result in a monograph for international publication. Early on this was changed to a focus on articles, with the approval of the funder. The result is a mixed publication strategy that reflects the interests and competence of the researcher; consisting of peer-reviewed journal articles (4), chapters in anthologies (2), and articles in open-access journals (2). The forthcoming monograph Skamgrepp: Femme-inistiska essäer has built on the research of this project and aims at a broader audience. In addition, the project has resulted in a significant number of keynotes (6), conference papers (9) and invited talks (14) and about two dozen public presentations, interviews and public events. According to professor Ulf Mellström's evaluation, the work produced within this project has served to introduce and develop femme-inist theory in the Swedish and international context.

Publications

Sakkunniggranskade artiklar:

(kommande) ’White Gloves, Feminist Fists: Race, Nation and the Feeling of ’Vintage’ in Contemporary femme movements’ invited (accepted) article for special issue of Gender, Place and Culture, edited by Melissa Gregg and Sarah Cefai.

(2011) ’Ytspänning: Feminismer, femininiteter, femmefigurationer’ Tidskrift för Genusvetenskap. Nr 1:7-32.

(2011) ’Femme on Femme: Reflections on queer femme-inist ethnography and collaborative methods’ SQS: Journal of Queer Studies in Finland. Nr 1:1-21. (reprint of 2010)
 
(2010) ’Femme on Femme: Reflections on queer femme-inist ethnography and collaborative methods’ i Browne, K.A & Catherine Nash eds. Queer Methods: Queer Theory and Social Science Methodologies. London: Ashgate. 

(2009) ’(Re)figuring Femme Fashion’ Lambda Nordica 3-4:43-77.

Monografi:

(2014) Skamgrepp: Femme-inistiska essäer. Stockholm: Leopard förlag (februari).

Artiklar och kapitel:

(n.d.) ’Vulnerability: Notes on queer feminine shapes of vulnerability’; invited article for edited volume on ’Bodies and Sexualities’, Weinstein, Jami and Kari Jegerstedt, eds.

(2012) ’Turning like a Femme: Figuring Critical Femininity Studies’ NORA 20 (1): 57-64.

(2010a) ’Notes on Femme-inist Agency’ in Jónasdóttir, A. G., V. Bryson and K.B. Jones, eds Sexuality, Gender and Power: Intersectional and Transnational Perspectives. New York: Routledge.  

(2008) ‘Kopior utan Original: Om Femme Drag’ (Copies without originals: on femme drag). Lambda Nordica nr 1-2:89-105.

Keynote anföranden:

”Finn Fem(me) Fel: Reflektioner kring Feminism, femininitet, forskning och framtid i folkhemmet” Key Note at ’G12’, Nationell genusforskningskonferens, Genussekretariatet och Göteborgs universitet 29/11/2012
 
“Femmebodiment: Notes on the Queer feminine shapes of Vulnerability”, keynote at the international conference ‘Between Bodies: Sense, Emotion, Affect’, Uppsala University, 18/11/2010

”Femme as Figuration: Notes towards a (re)vision of femme-inine fashion”. Keynote at the international conference ’(Re)Figuring Sex: Somatechnical (Re)Visions. Macquarie U. Sydney, Australia, 20/11/09

”Critical Femininity Studies?”. Keynote at the international symposium ’Theory Now’, Senter For Kvinne- og Kjönnsforsknings 10th anniversary, Bergen University, Norway 18/5/09

”Towards a Queer ethnography of the familiar: A femme-inist perspective on siting, sighting, and citing”.  Keynote at the international workshop ‘Glocalising Sex & Gender: Consumption, Culture, Practice’, University of Sydney, Australia 26/2/09

“Queering Femme in Europe: Notes on Collaboration and Community Making”. Key note at the international conference ‘Queer in Europe’ University of Exeter, England. 13/9/08 (med Del LaGrace Volcano)

Konferensbidrag:

Femme as (Dis)Orientation”. Accepted paper at the international conference ‘Thought As Action: Gender, Democracy, Freedom’, University of Bergen, Norway, 17/8/2012.

“Femmebodiment: Notes on the Queer feminine shapes of Vulnerability” Invited paper at the international symposium Queer Vulnerabilities, Stockholm University 20-21/2/12

“Femmebodiment: Notes on the Queer feminine shapes of Vulnerability” Invited paper at the international conference ‘Affective tendencies: Bodies, pleasures, sexualities’, Rutgers University, New Bruinswick, USA, 7-9/9/2010

“I dress/act with intention, therefore I am (femme)? Rethinking (queer) femininities beyond the (neo)liberal paradigm” Accepted paper in the panel ‘Agency and Passivity II: The Uneasy relationship between Feminism and Passivity in the West’ (organised by Dominique Grisard, University of Basel, discussant, Professor Jack Halberstam, University of Southern California) Annual Meetings of the Social Science History Association Long Beach, USA 15/11/2009

“White gloves? Trans/national/ist femme movements, whiteness and postwar nostalgia” Accepted paper in the panel ‘Queer Movements” at the 7th European Feminist Research Conference, University of Utrecht, Netherlands 7/6/2009.

”Femme on Femme: Towards a femme-inist ethnography of the queer familiar”, Accepted paper in the stream ”Queer Methodologies, or How Do Queer Researchers Do Research?” at the international conference ”Feminist Research Methods”, Stockholm University, Sweden 5/2/09

”Femme as Figuration: Rethinking (queer) Femininities -- Notes towards an analysis of theories of femininity”, Accepted paper at the international conference “Gender, Sexuality and Global Change”, funded by GexCel, Örebro University, Sweden 22-25/05/2008

Inbjudna föreläsningar och seminarier under projekttiden:

“Kritiska femininitetsstudier? Ett femme-inistiskt perspektiv” Invited seminar Department of Gender Studies, Karlstad University, 26/09/2012  

“Turning Like a Femme: Figuring Critical Femininity Studies” Invited talk, Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Gustavus Adolphus College, MN, 7/12/2011

 “Femmes of Power: Figuring Queer Femininities”. Invited talk, Gustavus Adolphus College, MN, 15/11/2011

“White gloves, feminist fists: 1950s Vintage and the politics of race and nation in contemporary femme figurations” Invited talk, Lawrence University, WI, 3/11/2011.

“Femmebodiment: Notes on the Queer feminine shapes of Vulnerability’”, Invited talk, Department of Gender Studies, Gothenburg University, 13/12/2010

“Critical femininity studies? A femme-inist perspective” Invited talk, Department of Gender Studies, Umeå University, 28/10/2010

“(Re)figuring Femme Fashion”. Invited talk, The Centre for the History of European Discourses, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. 17/3/2010.

“Notes on Femme-inist Agency”. Invited talk, Department of Critical and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney Australia. 1/4/2010.

”Femme on femme: Reflections on collaborative methods and femme-inist ethnography”. Invited Talk, Department of Women’s Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. 12/11/09

“Femmes of Power: Exploding Queer Femininities” invited talk at the Queer Theory Seminar, Stockholm University 12/12/08 

”Femme as Figuration: New Perspectives on queer femininities” Invited talk, Higher Seminar in Gender Studies, Lund University, 12/11/08. 

”Femmes of power - Når kjolen bedrar", Invited presentation sponsored by Senter for Kjönnsforskning, Oslo Universitet (Litteraturhuset i Oslo). 6/11/08 

”Femme as Figuration: Rethinking (Queer) Femininities” Invited Talk Higher Seminar in Ethnology, Södertörn University. 28/3/08