|
|
 |
|
Viewing report
|
|
|
|
Playing with the Discursive. Edition No. 1
VDM Publishing House, Oct 2008, Pages: 128
In this book, Dr Beals examines the discursive
subject of ‘criminal woman’ to uncover possible gaps
and silences that are buried within such gendered
constructions. Theories of punishment and
criminality are explored and then are combined with
feminist Foucauldian post-structural theory to
explore and analyse the lives of two women, Rene and
Sophia, and their experiences of imprisonment in
Aotearoa/New Zealand. Rene and Sophia both shared a
similar experience of imprisonment in which regimes
and practices attempted to degender and sexualise
them - an experience which attempted to question
their very 'selves'. These women resisted this
positioning by reasserting their femininity in very
different ways. Dr Beals argues that there is a
need to question the academic foundations of
traditional theories of deviance to provide space
for a re-interpretation of criminality and an
acknowledgement of the practices of resistance that
happen within the discursive space of the
words ‘criminal woman’.
|
|
|
|
