The Ponytail

Icon, Movement, and the Modern (Sports)Woman
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-3-031-20782-2
Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 222 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm, Gewicht: 311 g

Reihe: Cultural Sociology

This open access book adopts a cultural sociology of materiality to explore the hallmark of the female athlete: the ponytail. Studying a wealth of news articles about ponytails in sports and society, Broch uncovers this hairstyle’s polyvocality and argues that it is a total social phenomenon. By separating his approach from the cultural studies tradition, Broch highlights how hair is imbued with codes, narratives, and myth that allow its wearers to understand, maneuver, and criticize social gender relations in deeply personal ways. Using multiple theories about hair, bodies, myths, and icons, he creates a multidimensional method to show how icons are imitated and used. As women navigate their practical lives, health issues, and gendered expectations, the ponytail materializes their dynamic maneuvering of cultural and social environments. Sporting a ponytail—itself an embodiment of movement—is filled with a performativity of social movements: a cultural kinetics that is never apolitical.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Broch, Trygve B.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Freizeitsoziologie, Konsumsoziologie, Alltagssoziologie, Populärkultur
• Sozialwissenschaften Sport | Tourismus | Freizeit Sport Sport, Sportwissenschaft: Allgemeines
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Populärkultur
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Kultursoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Allgemeines

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Imagining the ponytail.- 2. Object.- 3. Expectations.- 4. Health.- 5. Practicalities.- 6. Movements.- 7. Experience.- 8. Charge.

Über Autor(innen)

Trygve B. Broch is an Associate Professor at the Department of Public Health and Sport Sciences, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway. He is also author of A Performative Feel for the Game (Palgrave) and a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology, Yale University, USA.