Glaring invisibility

Dressing the Body of the Female Cleaner

Bibliographic Data

ID2186651
AuthorsMaheshvari Naidu (0000-0003-0398-3834, University of KwaZulu-Natal, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume32
Issue3-4
Pages128-138
Publication date2009-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnthropology Southern Africa (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2332-3264 • E-ISSN: 2332-3256
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/23323256.2009.11499987
OpenAlexW1544848430
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited26

The paper explores how the uniform of a group of female cleaners appears to be more than an abstract object framed by the practical exegetics of work. The uniform is seen as acting as a material exercise of discretionary and disciplinary power of inscription, and as the paper shows, emerges as a mode by which the cleaners are homogenously objectified and plastically turned into ‘subjects’ (Foucault 1982). The paper shows too that while the single layered cleaners’ uniform can be seen as disciplining the body and stripping down the complex multi-layers of their personality and attempting to naturalise their status as cleaners, the women’s narratives reveal their attempts to destabilise this conscription, if only outside the spatial and organisational domain of the work space

Art · Invisibility · Narrative · Object (grammar · Optics · Physics · Power (physics · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Stripping (fiber · Computer Science · Emotional Labor in Professions · Engineering · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Gender Studies · Mechanical Engineering · Sex work and related issues

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