Looking Different(ly): Staring and Performativity in the Construction of Adolescent Embodied Outsiderhood Based on Scars Like Wings by Erin Stewart

Anne Klomberg

doi:10.32798/dlk.1505

Published: 2024-12-31

Vol. 6 No. 2 (2024)

Looking Different(ly): Staring and Performativity in the Construction of Adolescent Embodied Outsiderhood Based on Scars Like Wings by Erin Stewart

Anne Klomberg

Dzieciństwo. Literatura i Kultura

Section: Studies

https://doi.org/10.32798/dlk.1505

Abstract

This article explores how staring informs the textual construction of adolescents’ embodied outsiderhood, that is, the position of being perceived as outside the centre of particular norms. Since staring is an automatic response to an unexpected sight, the act can reveal which embodiments are deemed to diverge from presupposed norms. These norms are conceptualised as dwellings or circles – spaces that can either be inhabited or not – to illustrate the spatial implications of being considered an outsider. An analysis of Erin Stewart’s young adult novel Scars Like Wings (2019) demonstrates the stigmatising effects of staring on the protagonist’s embodied experience and how this shapes her sense of belonging. Examining the specific normative ideas underlying these acts of staring reveals how the protagonist’s age, gender, and (dis)ability intersect to establish her outsiderhood. Reflecting on the performativity of the norms may shed light on their constructed nature, opening up space for a more diversified perspective on embodied performances of adolescence.

Keywords:

adolescence, embodiment, normativity, outsiderhood, performativity, Scars like Wings, staring

Similar Articles

1 2 > >>

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.

Download files

PDF

Citation rules

Klomberg, A. (2024). Looking Different(ly): Staring and Performativity in the Construction of Adolescent Embodied Outsiderhood Based on Scars Like Wings by Erin Stewart. Dzieciństwo. Literatura I Kultura, 6(2), 37–52. https://doi.org/10.32798/dlk.1505

Cited by / Share

References

Ahmed, S. (2000). Strange encounters: Embodied others in post-coloniality. Routledge.
Google Scholar

Ahmed, S. (2017). Living a feminist life. Duke University Press.
Google Scholar

Althusser, L. (1970). Lenin and philosophy and other essays (Ben Brewster, Trans.). Monthly Review. (Original work published 1968).
Google Scholar

Bunch, M. (2013). The unbecoming subject of sex: Performativity, interpellation, and the politics of queer theory. Feminist Theory, 14(1), 39 –55. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700112468569.
Google Scholar

Butler, J. (1999). Gender Trouble. Routledge. (Original work published 1990).
Google Scholar

Butler, J. (2011). Bodies that matter. Routledge (Original work published 1993).
Google Scholar

Coleman Brown, L. (2013). Stigma: An enigma demystified. In Lennard J. Davis (Ed.), The disability studies reader (pp. 147–160). Routledge.
Google Scholar

Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1(8), 139–167.
Google Scholar

Elder-Vass, D. (2012). Norm circles. In D. Elder-Vass (Ed.), The reality of social construction (pp. 15–34). Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar

Garland-Thomson, R. (1997). Extraordinary bodies: Figuring physical disability in American culture and literature. Columbia University Press.
Google Scholar

Garland-Thomson, R. (2009). Staring: How we look. Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar

Godden, R. H., & Mittman, A. S. (2019). Embodied difference: Monstrosity, disability, and the posthuman. In R. H. Godden & A. S. Mittman (Eds.), Monstrosity, disability, and the posthuman in the medieval and early modern world (pp. 3–31). Palgrave MacMillan.
Google Scholar

Jackson, A. (2019). Staring at the Other: Seeing defects in recent Australian poems. Critical Disability Discourses, 9, 2–24.
Google Scholar

McCallum, R. (1999). Ideologies of identity in adolescent fiction: The dialogic construction of subjectivity. Garland.
Google Scholar

Meyer, A. (2022). From wallflowers to bulletproof families. University Press of Mississippi.
Google Scholar

Nikolajeva, M. (2010). Power, voice and subjectivity in literature for young readers. Routledge.
Google Scholar

Norm. (n.d.). In Cambridge Dictionary. Retrieved August 8, 2024, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/norm.
Google Scholar

Stewart, E. (2019). Scars like wings. Simon and Schuster.
Google Scholar

Seelinger Trites, R. (2000). Disturbing the universe: Power and repression in adolescent literature. University of Iowa Press.
Google Scholar

Seelinger Trites, R. (2014). Literary conceptualizations of growth: Metaphor and cognition in adolescent literature. John Benjamins.
Google Scholar

Seelinger Trites, R. (2018). Twenty-first-century feminisms in children’s and adolescent literature. University Press of Mississippi.
Google Scholar

Szorenyi, A. (2022, October 19). Judith Butler: Their philosophy of gender explained. The Conversation. Retrieved May 7, 2024, from https://theconversation.com/judith-butler-their-philosophy-of-gender-explained-192166.
Google Scholar

Waller, A. (2009). Constructing adolescence in fantastic realism. Routledge.
Google Scholar