Sukupuolen intensiteetit ja materiaalisuuden toiminta ulkonäkökokemuksen affektikokoumassa

Appearances and beauty are often approached with dichotomies benefit/harm and agency/structure in feminist critique. Inspired by Deleuzean feminist new materialist theories, this article develops ways to understand appearances in a way that takes into account the affective multiplicity of human and non-human actors in a process in which a body becomes and is experienced through appearances. I analyse three appearance-life-stories from data collected in the University of Turku in 2016, for a research project titled Finland as an appearance society: A population level study of values, attitudes, norms and their changes. My research method is feminist new materialist content analysis and I develop the concept of appearances-assemblage (ulkonäkökokemuksen affektikokouma) to grasp the experience of appearances as a rhizomic process. I ask how materiality and gendered intensities enable and restrict a body’s possibilities to be experienced and understood, and how this process relates to societal power dynamics and gender norms.