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Critical and Cultural Studies Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Critical and Cultural Studies

Doing Laundry, Megan Getter Jan 2014

Doing Laundry, Megan Getter

Megan Getter

Using Goffman’s theory on the presentational self, my study explores everyday performances in a laundromat. I take a critical interpretative approach to understand the performances of gender and class in the laundromat. I conducted ethnographic observations as a full member and include autoethnographic observations to enrich the findings. The laundromat is a unique space where gender and class are neutralized people are performing a private chore in a public space. This study fills a gap in public space and ethnographic literature devoid of laundromats.


"Having It His Way: The Construction Of Masculinity In Fast Food Tv Advertising", Carrie Freeman, Debra Merskin Jan 2012

"Having It His Way: The Construction Of Masculinity In Fast Food Tv Advertising", Carrie Freeman, Debra Merskin

Carrie P Freeman

No abstract provided.


Hands On Hips, Smiles On Lips! Gender, Race, And The Performance Of Spirit In Cheerleading, Laura Grindstaff, Emily West Apr 2010

Hands On Hips, Smiles On Lips! Gender, Race, And The Performance Of Spirit In Cheerleading, Laura Grindstaff, Emily West

Emily E. West

Cheerleading has long been synonymous with “spirit” because of its traditional sideline role in supporting school sports programs. In recent decades, however, cheerleading has become more athletic and competitive - even a sport in its own right. This paper is an ethnographic exploration of the emotional dimensions of cheerleading in light of these changes. We argue that spirit is a regulating but also flexible concept that is deployed in order to manage and uphold ideologies of emotion, and that these ideologies are central to how cheerleading reproduces racialized gender difference. On the one hand, the performance guidelines for spirit stabilize …


Doing Gender Difference Through Greeting Cards: The Construction Of A Communication Gap In Marketing And Everyday Practice., Emily West Sep 2009

Doing Gender Difference Through Greeting Cards: The Construction Of A Communication Gap In Marketing And Everyday Practice., Emily West

Emily E. West

Greeting card communication reflects the highly gendered division of both emotional and domestic labor in American culture. It’s generally thought that American men do not take as much responsibility for sending greeting cards as women, or display competence in this mode of communication, and both survey data and field work with greeting card consumers confirm this overall pattern. For many women, greeting card communication is part of a feminized habitus that includes kinship work as well as routine provisioning for the household. For men, taking an interest in greeting cards can seem like discrediting behavior for heterosexual masculinity, and so …


Acculturation, Allen Gnanam Jan 2008

Acculturation, Allen Gnanam

Allen Gnanam

Acculturation is an experience/ phenomenon that occurs when groups of individuals with different cultural backgrounds engage in on going/ continuous physical contact, which in turn causes one or more of the different cultures too experience adaptation/ a change in their original cultural practices (Berry, 1997); (Berry, 2008). Acculturation is a phenomenon that occurs at a macro level/ group level and a micro level/ individual level, and this means that an individual of a certain ethnic minority group can experience acculturation differently than their ethnic minority group (Berry, 1997). Macro level acculturation occurs when the original culture of a specific ethnic …


Cheerleading And The Gendered Politics Of Sport, Laura Grindstaff, Emily West Jan 2006

Cheerleading And The Gendered Politics Of Sport, Laura Grindstaff, Emily West

Emily E. West

Cheerleading occupies a contested space in American culture and a key point of controversy is whether it ought to be considered a sport. Drawing on interviews with college cheerleaders on coed squads as well as five years of fieldwork in various cheerleading sites, this paper examines the debate over cheerleading and sport in terms of its gender politics. The bid for sport status on the part of cheerleaders revolves around the desire for respect more than official recognition by athletic organizations; cheerleaders recognize the prestige associated with sport, a function of its historic association with hegemonic masculinity, and they claim …