Thinking Through the Skin This exciting new collection engages with and extends the growing feminist litera- ture on lived and imagined embodiment. It argues for consideration of the skin as a site where bodies take form, suggesting that skin is already written upon, as well as being open to re-inscription. Divided into parts on skin encounters, skin surfaces and skin sites, the contributions in the book are informed by psycho- analytical, phenomenological and post-colonial approaches to embodiment, as well as by feminist theory. Individual contributors consider issues such as: the significance of piercing, tattooing and tanning; the assault of self-harm upon the skin; skin as the site of memory and forgetting; the relationship between human and robotic skins; skin colour; the relation between body painting and the land among the indigenous people of Australia; and the cultural economy of fur in Canada. Whether the skin is mortified or glorified, marked or scarred by ageing or disease, or stretched in enveloping the skin of another in pregnancy, it is lived as both a boundary and a point of connection. The skin is the place where one touches and is touched by others; it is both the most intimate of experiences and the most public marker of raced, sexed and national histories. This book will be essential reading for students and academics specialising in feminist and body theory. Contributors include Jennifer Biddle, Claudia Castañeda, Steven Connor, Penelope Deutscher, Jane Kilby, Chantal Nadeau, Elspeth Probyn, Jay Prosser, Renata Salecl, Margrit Shildrick, Tina Takemoto, Shirley Tate and Imogen Tyler. Sara Ahmed is Senior Lecturer in the Institute for Women’s Studies at Lancaster University. Jackie Stacey is Reader in Sociology and Women’s Studies in the Department of Sociology, Lancaster University. They are currently Co-Directors of the Institute for Women’s Studies at Lancaster University. Transformations: Thinking Through Feminism Edited by: Maureen McNeil Institute of Women’s Studies, Lancaster University Lynne Pearce Department of English, Lancaster University Beverley Skeggs Department of Sociology, Manchester University Advisory editorial board: Sara Ahmed, Lancaster University, UK; Linda Anderson, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK; Lauren Berlant, University of Chicago, USA; Rosemary Betterton, Lancaster University, UK; Christine Bold, Guelph University, Canada; Avtar Brah, University of London, UK; Tess Cosslett, Lancaster University, UK; Barbara Creed, University of Melbourne, Australia; Laura Doan, State University of New York at Geneseo, USA; Mary Evans, University of Canterbury at Kent, UK; Sneja Gunew, University of British Columbia, Canada; Donna Haraway, University of California at Santa Cruz, USA; Joanna Hodge, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK; Christina Hughes, University of Warwick, UK; Grace Jantzen, Manchester University, UK; Maria Jarvela, Oulu University, Finland; Annette Kuhn, Lancaster University, UK; Celia Lury, Goldsmiths College, London, UK; Gail Low, Dundee University, Scotland; Marcia Pointon, Manchester University, UK; Jenny Popay, University of Salford, UK; Elspeth Probyn, University of Sydney, Australia; Kay Schaffer, Adelaide University, Australia; Jackie Stacey, Lancaster University, UK; Penny Summerfield, Manchester University, UK; Jane Sunderland, Lancaster University, UK; Carol Thomas, Lancaster University, UK; Gill Valentine, University of Sheffield, UK; Lorna Weir, York University, Canada; Sue Wise, Lancaster University, UK; Alison Young, University of Melbourne, Australia. Other books in the series include: Transformations: Thinking Through Feminism Edited by Sara Ahmed, Jane Kilby, Celia Lury, Maureen McNeil and Beverley Skeggs Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality Sara Ahmed Feminism and Autobiography: Texts, Theories, Methods Edited by Tess Cosslett, Celia Lury and Penny Summerfield Advertising and Consumer Citizenship: Gender, Images and Rights Anne M. Cronin Mothering the Self: Mothers, Daughters, Subjects Stephanie Lawler Thinking Through the Skin Edited by Sara Ahmed and Jackie Stacey London and New York First published 2001 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2001 selection and editorial material, Sara Ahmed and Jackie Stacey; individual chapters, the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Thinking through the skin/edited by Sara Ahmed and Jackie Stacey. p. cm. – (Transformations) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Skin – Social aspects. 2. Body, Human – Social aspects. 3. Feminist theory. I. Ahmed, Sara. II. Stacey, Jackie. III. Series. GT498.S56 T55 2000 306.4 – dc21 2001019140 ISBN 0-203-16570-5 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-26027-9 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–22355–5 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–22356–3 (pbk) Contents List of plates vii Notes on contributors ix Series editors’ preface xiii Acknowledgements xiv Introduction: dermographies 1 SARA AHMED AND JACKIE STACEY PART I Skin surfaces 19 1 Cut in the body: from clitoridectomy to body art 21 RENATA SALECL 2 Mortification 36 STEVEN CONNOR 3 Skin memories 52 JAY PROSSER 4 Skin-tight: celebrity, pregnancy and subjectivity 69 IMOGEN TYLER PART II Skin encounters 85 5 Eating skin 87 ELSPETH PROBYN vi Contents 6 Open wounds 104 TINA TAKEMOTO 7 Carved in skin: bearing witness to self-harm 124 JANE KILBY 8 Three touches to the skin and one look: Sartre and Beauvoir on desire and embodiment 143 PENELOPE DEUTSCHER 9 ‘You are there, like my skin’: reconfiguring relational economies 160 MARGRIT SHILDRICK PART III Skin sites 175 10 Inscribing identity: skin as country in the Central Desert 177 JENNIFER BIDDLE 11 ‘My furladies’: the fabric of a nation 194 CHANTAL NADEAU 12 ‘That is my Star of David’: skin, abjection and hybridity 209 SHIRLEY TATE 13 Robotic skin: the future of touch? 223 CLAUDIA CASTAÑEDA Index 237 Plates 4.1 Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair, August 1991 70 6.1 Misfit attire (A.E. hostess snowball leg) 106 Angela Ellsworth and Tina Takemoto 6.2 Misfit attire (T.T. chopstick dress) 107 Angela Ellsworth and Tina Takemoto 6.3 Neck marks (A.E. with biopsy scar) 109 Angela Ellsworth and Tina Takemoto 6.4 Neck marks ii (T.T. worrydoll w/scotch tape) 110 Angela Ellsworth and Tina Takemoto 6.5 Blown veins (A.E. chemotherapy) 111 Angela Ellsworth and Tina Takemoto 6.6 Arm burn (T.T. w/matches) 113 Angela Ellsworth and Tina Takemoto 6.7 Three on a match, detail, 1998 121 Tina Takemoto 6.8 Arm’s length 122 Tina Takemoto 7.1 Professional Thought Disorder Part I (The staff nurse seriously overestimates her intellect) 132 Louise Roxanne Pembroke 7.2 Professional Thought Disorder Part II (This is a round hole – you will be a round peg) 133 Louise Roxanne Pembroke 7.3 Professional Thought Disorder Part III (Normalist fascism) 134 Louise Roxanne Pembroke 7.4 Professional Thought Disorder Part IV (‘You should trust us’) 135 Louise Roxanne Pembroke 7.5 Professional Thought Disorder Part V (Respecting a person’s distress) 138 Louise Roxanne Pembroke 7.6 Professional Thought Disorder Part VI (‘I hear you’) 140 Louise Roxanne Pembroke 10.1 Kirda and Kurdungurlu prepared for Purlapa-Wiri Yawulyu, Circular Quay, Sydney, September 1997 181 viii List of plates 11.1 ‘Natural beaver’, Choisy campaign, Arpin & Gendron Limited, 1950 197 11.2 My Fur Lady poster, Fringe Festival, Stratford Theatre Festival, Stratford, Ontario, 22 July 1957 200 Notes on contributors Sara Ahmed is Senior Lecturer in Women’s Studies at Lancaster University. She is currently co-director, with Jackie Stacey, of the Institute for Women’s Studies. Her first book, Differences that Matter: Feminist Theory and Postmodernism, was published in 1998. She has since published two books in the Routledge Transformations series, Strange Encounters: Embodied Others and Postcoloniality (2000) and (co-edited with Jane Kilby, Celia Lury, Maureen McNeil and Beverley Skeggs) Transformations: Thinking Through Feminism (2000). Jennifer Biddle lectures in Anthropology at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. She has worked with Warlpiri Aboriginal Women since 1989, and writes on art, literacy, affect and embodiment in relation to cultural difference. Claudia Castañeda is Lecturer in the Centre for Science Studies and Institute for Women’s Studies at Lancaster University. Her work lies in the area of the cultural and feminist studies of science and technology. Her publications include Figurations: Child, Bodies, Worlds (2002, forthcoming) and ‘Child Organ Stealing Stories: Risk, Rumour and Reproductive Technologies’ in Barbara Adam and Joost van Loon (eds) Risks, Technologies, Futures (2000). Steven Connor is Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, London. He is the author of numerous works on literature and cul- tural theory, including books on Dickens, Beckett, Joyce and contemporary fiction, as well as Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to