"How Becoming!": Toward an Alternative Epistemology for Gender Research in Organizations

Camilla Funck Ellehave

Research output: Working paperResearch

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Abstract

`How becoming!' we say (though often with a subtle ironic twist) when someone says or does something that we find is suitable or appropriate for him- or her or the situation in which he or she is. And while it may be old-fashioned, the phrase is also used when the clothes people are wearing make them look attractive. By pronouncing: `how becoming!' we condone the appearance, the saying or the doing by making a reference to the appropriateness of somebody's attire, words and deeds. However, the appropriateness is situated in that it is based on cultural conventions of a particular time and space, and simultaneously produces culturally accepted boundaries around what denotes culturally intelligible identities or subject positions (parallel to suggesting that something is `for the likes of you/us' versus 'not for the likes of you/us' (Bourdieu, 1990:55-56)).
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationKøbenhavn
PublisherDepartment of Organization and Industrial Sociology
Number of pages30
ISBN (Electronic)x656464002
Publication statusPublished - 2004
SeriesWorking Paper / Institut for Organisation og Arbejdssociologi (IOA). Copenhagen Business School
Number2004-6

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