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The Right Kind of Women Things: Changing Compositions of Gendered Subjectivity in New Caledonia
Author(s) -
Johnson Helen
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
the australian journal of anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1757-6547
pISSN - 1035-8811
DOI - 10.1111/j.1835-9310.1997.tb00347.x
Subject(s) - inscribed figure , subjectivity , embodied cognition , sociology , gender studies , consciousness , expression (computer science) , aesthetics , epistemology , art , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , computer science , programming language
Drawing upon life histories compiled in New Caledonia, this article examines the ways in which some women inscribed and contested their gendered subjectivities. Anchored in the perception that ‘gender’ can be recognised as historically and culturally constituted in contingent human practices, it proffers testimonies to reason that women's composition and expression of their lived experience can be understood as modes of embodied consciousness. By situating each woman's discursive strategy into the complex interplay of historical processes, structured social organisations, and the anomalies, ambiguities and contradictions revealed through their conversations, the relationships and practices which inscribed the self‐making of some Kanak and Caledonienne women are explored.