Response Paper 3 -- Group Reflection Paper

Reading the Social Body: A Shopping Mall Exercise

Several of the readings we have so far considered have discussed the relationship between economies, culture, cultural/political bodies, and the individual body. All have stressed how our bodies are, quite literally, written by ideologies of gender, class, race, nation. For your third response paper, I want you to go as a group to the Statesboro Mall and read the cultural construction of the social body in the consumer culture of Mall-America.

You should begin this exercise with a group consultation in which you discuss among yourselves what this assignment means.

• What are the things we have read about and discussed in class that apply to this project? What do you already know about shopping malls? Also, develop your plan of action.
• Which stores will you begin with? You'll need to observe department stores (JC Penney, Belk, etc.) as well as the specialty stores (shoe stores, specialty clothing, record and book stores, for example) and the food court. You SHOULD NOT divide up for this project -- it is very important that you talk with each other about what you see/read as you are observing and bounce your perceptions around with each other.
• How will you take notes, compare your readings of cultural/consumer space and the individual/social bodies, and develop the points for your paper?
• How will you accomplish the actual writing of the paper?
• Can you take photographs to illustrate your paper? If so, how will you achieve this?

Once you have decided these things, you will need to begin your observations. A few reminders:

• Pay careful attention to fashion -- what kinds of clothing is marketed, and to whom? How does the fashion industry mark gender, race, age, weight, and class in clothing (and, hence, on the skin -- Belks v. Goody's, for example? Ralph Lauren v. urban wear?)
• Pay attention to how items are displayed. Where in the store are items located? By what? What is the relation between the housewares, jewelery, perfume, and shoe displays to the rest of the store? What percentage of the store is given to youth culture (and: how would you define youth culture? 12 to 24? 11 - 17?)
• Select a few items of clothing representative of each body marker you can identify (for age, race, gender, weight, class) and look carefully at it -- what are the effects on the physical body of the item of clothing you are examining (for example, how do heels, thongs, bras, the cut of a shirt and the fit of pants, the length of a skirt, etc., produce a body, shape and constrain it?)
• Other issues to pay attention to: costs of products, fantasies/desires/fears to which products are marketed,

You will of course be discussing your readings of consumer culture's production of individual and social bodies while you are together at the mall, but you will also need to decide how you will produce your written notes and how you will come back together as a group to discuss your findings and organize your paper. This paper should be about three pages long (no more than 5 pages, total), and each of you will be responsible for writing a portion of the paper. We'll talk in class the week of the 27th about writing strategies, but, before this discussion, you need to have defined the points your paper will discuss and the conclusions your group has reached.