Everyday Strategies of Aesthetic Resistance

Abstract

The three papers of this dissertation argue that our everyday aesthetic activities and experiences can be enlisted in our resistance projects. Ordinary decisions about how we get dressed and how we attend to our bodies can, when properly considered, help enable resistance to oppressive conditions or instances. Furthermore, there are some cases when everyday aesthetic activity actually constitutes resistance, rather than merely enabling it. By taking on these roles, everyday aesthetics and body aesthetics help promote our well-being. The first paper argues that aesthetic attention to embodiment helps those experiencing sexual objectification challenge objectifying narratives. This is possible because aesthetic attention to embodiment both makes subjectivity salient and encourages us to value it. The second paper argues that respectability politics are a significantly aesthetic strategy for anti-racist work. In addition to attending to self-presentation as a part of racial uplift, respectability politics also linked personal beauty and antiracist work. The third paper argues that, although aesthetic labor is often intertwined with injustices and disparities of power, it is also an important mechanism in many kinds of liberatory struggles. Furthermore, aesthetic labor matters to our ability to live flourishing lives.