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Engaging with feminist new materialism, Toni Ingram reveals the ways in which the school ball (or prom) can be understood as an assemblage of material objects, spaces, practices, ideas and imaginings which contribute to the process of becoming school ball-girl. The ball-girl is not a fixed identity or subject but is an intra-active becoming - a dynamic, shifting process where bodies, sexuality and femininities are relationally produced. (Re)conceptualising the school ball-girl as emergent phenomena provides openings for thinking about girls and this schooling practice beyond popular cultural narratives. Building on the social theory of Barad, Bennett, Best, Deleuze and Guattari, this book offers a new perspective on girls, sexuality, gender and schooling, while also exploring the potential of feminist new materialisms for rethinking educational practices and the human subject.
List of contents
Series Editors’ Foreword
Acknowledgements
1. Becoming School Ball-Girl
2. Entanglements that Matter
3. School Ball-Girl Matter(ings)
4. Once Upon a Space and Time
5. Becoming Ball-Girl-Bodies
6. Ball-Girl-Date Affections
7. Ever After … An Ending of Sorts
References
Index
About the author
Toni Ingram is Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Summary
Engaging with feminist new materialism, Toni Ingram reveals the ways in which the school ball (or prom) can be understood as an assemblage of material objects, spaces, practices, ideas and imaginings which contribute to the process of becoming school ball-girl. The ball-girl is not a fixed identity or subject but is an intra-active becoming – a dynamic, shifting process where bodies, sexuality and femininities are relationally produced. (Re)conceptualising the school ball-girl as emergent phenomena provides openings for thinking about girls and this schooling practice beyond popular cultural narratives. Building on the social theory of Barad, Bennett, Best, Deleuze and Guattari, this book offers a new perspective on girls, sexuality, gender and schooling, while also exploring the potential of feminist new materialisms for rethinking educational practices and the human subject.
Foreword
Applies feminist new materialist ideas to the study of girlhood and the school ball, building on the social theory of Barad, Bennett, Best, Deleuze and Guattari.
Additional text
This is a remarkable book. It puts new feminist materialist thought to work in expanding our thinking of gender, sexuality and schooling. By examining the school ball-girl, the book charts new directions in thinking about what comes to matter in the material-affective production of bodies, spaces, ideas, feelings, imaginations and much more. Toni Ingram provides an insightful account of the ongoing entanglements of the human and more-than-human forces in understanding the school ball-girl and does so in a highly engaging way that is a delight to read.
