Re/Producing 'Normalcy': Bodies, Everyday Social Practices and Photography

Abstract

As the white, female, able-body(ies) comes to the written and visual fore in mainstream academic, political, social and cultural circles in Euro-North-America, it is crucial at this particular historical moment to attend to how the fore needs that which it excludes, how the fore becomes normalized on an everyday basis. By tracing various social processes/practices that normalize and disavow particular bodies and practices, what begins to unfold is an understanding of how our everyday social practices may both re/produce and interrupt normalizing practices. Through an interweaving of visual and textual theories, of photography and written words, I attempt to make sense out of how bodies become re-presented and theorized, normalized and marginalized, and how bodies may disrupt and offer new and alternative possibilities through photography and written words.