Marked Bodies in Marginalized Places: Understanding rationalities in global discourses

Abstract

Yvonne Underhill-Sem looks at how the markings of women's bodies speak of conflicting rationalities in global discourses, particularly those embedded in family groups and those in the nation-state. Working with understandings of the body as simultaneously a site of inscription and struggle but also as socially constructed and known by how it ‘performs’, Yvonne argues for the need to examine the complex reasoning that makes marked bodies legible and sustainable. Focusing on the Pacific situation, she looks at how to theorize the embodiment of globalization from a feminist reading of culture, politics, sexuality, and gender relations.