Bodies, clothing, technology

Into and Out of the Closet: Discovering the Lifeworlds of Disabled Women through their Clothing

Kathryn Church PhD - Principal Investigator

Project Description

Since the mid-1980s, I have been engaged in a series of research projects that investigate the productive activities of people who are socially devalued. My primary focus has been the lives of people with disabilities, paying particular attention to the involvement of psychiatric survivors (the “mentally ill”) in policy-making and local economic development. I have a strong parallel interest in the unrecognized work of women as evidenced by an eight-year study of domestic sewing. Overall, my project has been to discover, analyze and celebrate (these) invisible histories. I have conducted this work from/across a variety of sites. Since 2002, it has been attached to a university-based research institute and increasingly influenced by an explosion of writing in the emerging field of Critical Disability Studies.

My publication record demonstrates a multiplicity of scholarly commitments and skills. My doctoral dissertation and subsequent book incorporated illness narratives into a feminist-sociological analysis of policy development. Its most innovative aspect was the “critical autobiography” that made me visible in the text, not just as a researcher but as a woman struggling with my own body/mind. As a community-based researcher, I created products that directly reflected the needs and capacities of study participants. Thus, I am the author of a dozen plain language documents written specifically for psychiatric survivor organizations in order to document and strengthen their practice. My other concern has been to create research products that are accessible to the general public. This led me into partnerships for video/film/DVD production as well as exhibition. Most significant here is the museum exhibit that I curated over five years: twenty-three custom-made wedding dresses stitched into an autobiographical account of dressmaking through the use of personal narratives. Clearly, my fascination is not just with content but with (alternative) form.

The current project is a direct outgrowth of this scholarship. I propose a three-year study of disabled women’s clothing practice/s that begins with “wardrobe moments.” During in-depth interviews in their homes, participants will be asked to open the doors of their closets and narrate the contents. What kinds of garments hang there? How were those choices made? What do the selections say about the way disabled women constitute their identities at the junctures of sexuality, race, class and age. What do their selections reveal about the place(s) and space(s) of disabled women in contemporary society? The study will engage these questions and then use an “analytic fashion show” to disseminate results. The latter will feature significant clothing/outfits encountered during interviews, supported by a (social) commentary drawn from study data. It is intended for the general public with extensive accommodation for people with disabilities. Final academic product will be a book drawn from both interview material and public responses to the fashion show.

Whether in Body, Dress, Disability or Women’s Studies, never before have researchers engaged disabled women in conversation about the social significance of their clothing. The research is also an innovative fusion of (institutional) ethnographic and arts-informed methods, two approaches that are not often combined. The outcome will be an exciting hybrid form: rigorous, highly expressive and dedicated to enhancing the social/political outcome of disability pride.