The social skin: An anthropology of fashion and dress practice (course content)
Why are we here? Where are we headed?
“Man is born naked but is everywhere in clothes (or their symbolic equivalents),” anthropologist Terence Turner wrote in the article for which this course was named; “We cannot tell how this came to be, but we can say something about why it should be so and what it means” (1980: 486).
In the next five weeks[FN1], we will get to know how scientists think about, talk about, and investigate human dress practice. We will consider their questions―and propose our own. And we will borrow multiple methods (digital-visual research, participant observation, interview technique, survey design) from the social sciences while searching for our own answers and understandings
Anthropo-what?
anthropos (Greek) = man; logos (Greek) = study > ours is the study of humans, their understandings as well as their practices, through time and space.
Anthropology, argued Eric Wolf (and maybe Alfred Kroeber before him), sits at the crossroads of knowledge. He (or they?) called the field “the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities” (1964: 88). Our history like our methods distinguish us from the other academic disciplines. However, in our best works, and in this course, we borrow widely (i.e. we are always transdisciplinary) in our studies of how, and what, and why humans think, say, and do as they do. And we are equally interested in what humans mean by how they think, say, and do.
Fashion vs. dress practice
In this course, we will think about fashion as a text, dress practice as a means of communication. We will look at how we tell others about ourselves and the selves we strive to be, but also, how we tell others about power and positionality―by how we clothe and adorn our bodies. How do we challenge and/or sustain ideologies (sets of ideas that inform one’s worldview), both intentionally and unintentionally, through our dress practices?
In 2017, given the global, neoliberal political economy that structures all of our lives, an anthropology of fashion and dress practice―like an anthropology of Brazilians’ interior design preferences, or Gambians’ contraceptive decisions, or Mexican scientists’ earthquake prevention strategies―is necessarily a study of political economy. This is to say, an anthropology of fashion and dress practice is necessarily a study of capitalism.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course you will be able to:
- Trace a brief history of the science of fashion;
- Understand a variety of ways in which social scientists have theorized fashion as language;
- Develop your own research questions;
- Recognize and apply anthropological methods accurately, ethically, and effectively; and
- Assume your own, informed positions on key contemporary debates related to culture, subculture, style, and dress.
Weekly Modules
Module 1: Do You Speak Fashion? (And Other Questions You Might Ask)
Module 2: When You Live in an Info Glut (An Introduction to Digital-Visual Research)
Module 3: We Are All Ethnographers Now (Participant Observation As Your Best Friend)
Module 4: Fashion Is a Fruit Fly (And We Can Interview It)
Module 5: The “Fashion = Freedom” Debate (And How to Pick Your Side)
Remember science? (A quick refresher)
Science is a practice, and… as Montell Jordan sang in 1995, “This Is How We Do It”:
Ask
Investigate
Analyze
Find
Ask again (the same question; a new or revised question)
Investigate
Analyze
Find…
Good science never ends. Welcome to the loop.
Now let’s get asking
If the surface of the body is, as Turner and many others have argued, the frontier of the social self, how then have we, do we, and will we as human beings present those social selves? What can we learn about ourselves and others by attending to how we present those selves―and what can we learn about human beings as a whole, along with the institutions that variously free and constrain us? Equally importantly: Why might any of this matter?
This is a course intended for clothes wearers and designers alike, for producers and consumers, linguists and artists, rule breakers and rule makers.
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Who’s doing your course design?
Dawn Pankonien (MA in Anthropology). I am a Mexico-based anthropologist, forever ABD at Northwestern University and on faculty at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. This is a course I first developed and taught (live, over 16 weeks, in 2014) for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Equally important: in order to bring you this course in 2017, I am working in collaboration with Cuernavaca, Mexico-based photographers Gabriel Rozycki and Stephanie Alton, along with _________________ [FN2]. (We will be doing this again in Spanish, in just a few months, so please tell your Spanish-speaking friends.)
FN1: This is a Canvas Network free online course with a start date of January 22, 2018.
FN2: Okay, okay. Institutional affiliation is not yet confirmed. And Dr. Frenchy Lunning, cosplay and fetish fashion expert, and associate professor at MCAD, is likewise a solid maybe. Cross your fingers, and I’ll finalize collaborators before November.
