Feminist New Materialism, Girlhood, and the School Ball (Feminist Thought in Childhood Research)

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. Employing a feminist new materialist approach, Toni Ingram reveals the ways in which the school ball (or prom) can be understood as an assemblage of ?things?: material objects, practices, ideas and imaginings which contribute to the process of becoming a school prom-girl. She explores how entangled human and more-than-human relations produce what we come to understand as the school prom-girl. Building on the social theory of Barad, Bennett, Best, Deleuze and Guattari, this book offers a new perspective on girls, sexuality, gender, posthumanism and childhood while also exploring the potential of feminist new materialisms for rethinking educational practices and the human subject Cover Contents List of figures Series editors’ introduction 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