What : Call for articles > “Body images, body symbols and dress
codes: On the legitimation of exclusion and the interactions between
law, politics and labour market”
When : November 16th 2018
Who : The Vienna Chamber of Labour & the Institute for Political Science of the University of Vienna
The Vienna Chamber of Labour and the Institute for Political Science of the University of Vienna publish an anthology on the subject of body images, body symbols and dress codes as forms of the legitimization of exclusion and the interactions between law, politics and labour market.
A central concern of feminist movements was, and continues to be, that women can freely exercise control over their body, decide on their clothes and appearance and may equally participate in all hierarchical positions of the labour market.
Nowadays, these achievements are (once again) increasingly questioned. In media images, advertisements, as well as in migration and integration policy, the female body becomes a projection surface for justifying and creating a new gender order. The design of images of masculinity (in particular in the context of migration and escape) brings about a similar function and effect. Moreover, body and clothing symbols gain increasing importance for people’s creation of their identity and may therefore also lead to exclusion. This applies to religious clothing and, in particular, the clothes of Muslim women. In addition, symbols such as tattoos or gender-specific dress codes at work may result in role attributions, hierarchizations and exclusion.
This anthology is pursuing the question of how the female body is perceived, spoken about and negotiated in the political, social and economic discourse, and how it is used as a result. It should be investigated which effects these discourses have on the economic positioning and the labour market situation of women and to which forms of exclusion these debates lead.
This call for articles is aimed at researchers at universities and research institutes in Austria and abroad. The viewpoints of different disciplines shall also be portrayed in this anthology. English and French texts will be translated into German.
We kindly ask you to send your abstracts (about 300 words) until 16th November 2018 to asiye.sel@akwien.at
