Crafting a DIY Campervan and Crafting Embodied, Gendered Identity Performances in a Hyper-masculine Environment

Stanley, Phiona

Abstract

This paper presents a multi-media textual collage that shows rather than tells the lived experiences of my conversion of a DIY campervan over several months in a diesel mechanic workshop in Sydney, Australia. This is a " small culture, " (Holliday, 1999) to which I gained limited access as I developed craft skills and the confidence to speak back to relative, milieu-specific, gendered power. I use autoethnographic textual fragments written shortly after the moment to depict the struggle to acquire skills, build confidence, and cross " small " cultures in an unusual crafting context. Grounded theoretical insights are suggested as they relate to three things. First, I examine the nature of individual, self-directed learning as engendered by the non-expert, hands-on doing of craft supported by YouTube instructional videos. Second, I consider positive and negative affective identity factors, particularly feelings of competence or incompetence and challenges to my own (female, middle-aged, injured, and non-expert) embodiment. Third, I consider the collaborative, discursive ways in which hegemonic and non-hegemonic masculinities were talked into being as contingent, relational identities against the foil of a constructed " other. "

Citation

Stanley, P. (2019). Crafting a DIY Campervan and Crafting Embodied, Gendered Identity Performances in a Hyper-masculine Environment. Art/Research International, 4(1), 351-380. https://doi.org/10.18432/ari29382

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 8, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Feb 27, 2019
• Publication Date: 2019-02
• Deposit Date: Feb 22, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 22, 2019
• Journal: Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal
• Print ISSN: 2371-3771
• Publisher: University of Alberta
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 4
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 351-380
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.18432/ari29382
• Keywords: DIY, campervan, gender, masculinity, performativity.
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1608590
• Contract Date: Feb 22, 2019