Beirut Looks - Racial Capital, National Aesthetics, and the Female Body

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This study investigates fashion and commercial models' embodiment of racial and linguistic capital within Beirut's fashion modelling industry. Taking the example of Beirut as the fashion metropolis of the Middle East, this study explores the impact of conflicting hegemonic neocolonial narratives of racialized and nationalized aesthetics on female Lebanese models as aesthetic labourers. Rooted in Lebanon's colonial history and ethno-religious diversity Beirut's fashion industry is strongly marked by conflicting racial and national aesthetic ideals, mirrored by the diverse bodily appearances of Lebanese models. This research asks how models, as active labourers and in charge of their bodily transformations, possess agency to either reproduce, but moreover resist and disrupt hegemonic aesthetic ideals, and thus challenge overarching racial and national hierarchies within the Lebanese fashion industry. It will shed light on the techniques with which models volitionally consume, manage, and employ bodily and linguistic symbols imbued with racial meaning as essential parts of their self-commodification and self-presentation.The proposed methodology consists of a mixture of participant observation, as a way to conceive embodied knowledge and as a base for subsequent interview questions. Visual ethnography, i.e. models' video diaries, will help to interpret the very practical visual constructions of models' 'selves'. Structured and semi-structure interviews with models and agents will help gain a deep understanding of models' bodily practices, and linguistic patterns. The use of language(s), namely Arabic, English and French, by models within their work space, during interviews, and video recordings will be unpacked through conversation analysis to understand the verbal (re)productions of racial, national and personal model identities in talk-in-interaction.This project is motivated by prior ethnographic research on modelling practices in the fashion industry of Amman, and research about national identity and dress, and racial capital in Cairo. Further, it is informed by extensive writing and researching about fashion, the body, and aesthetic labour. Through years of living in the Middle East and being multilingual myself, I have developed high sensitivity to the strategic use of visual and linguistic metaphors employed by fashion professionals to express racial and national background and ideological orientation. In addition, my work as a fitness instructor in Amman has revealed crucial shifts in bodily female beauty standards in the Arab world, symbolizing the disruption of imperialist aesthetics promoted by 'Western' fashion industries.Embedded in a Bourdieusian approach to fashion as a field of cultural production, this study builds on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's works on embodiment to dissect the discursive nature and transformative power of bodily practices. Further it draws on literature on the female body as a representative medium of racial and national identity.This project will contribute to knowledge about the underexplored domain of aesthetic labour in the Middle East and it's racial and linguistic implications.Key LiteratureBernard, H. (2006) Research Methods in Anthropology. Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Lanham: Alta Mira Press.Bourdieu, P. (1993 [1984]) Sociology in Question. London: Sage.Entwistle, J. and Wissinger, E. (2012) Fashioning Models: Image, Text and Industry. London et al.: Berg. Mallat, S. (2011) More Than Just Another Pretty Face? Understanding Motivations for Plastic Surgery Among Lebanese Female Youth. Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Beirut, American University of Beirut, Master of Arts.Merleau-Ponty, M. (1981) The Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London.Sidnell, J. (2009) Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.