Maxwell, Claire;
Aggleton, Peter;
(2012)
Bodies and agentic practice in young women’s sexual and intimate relationships.
Sociology
, 46
(2)
306– 321.
10.1177/0038038511419192.
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Abstract
This paper contributes to theorisations of agency through a focus on how understandings of power within young women’s sexual and intimate relationships connect with their descriptions of feeling, reacting and sensuous bodies, to suggest why and how agentic practice takes place. Drawing on the narratives of 54 young women aged 16-18 years in one secondary school in England, findings concur with other literature which suggests that sensations experienced on or within the body can instigate (agentic) practice. Significantly, however, both physical and verbal practices are drawn on during agentic moments. Young women who discursively position themselves as ‘powerful’ integrate their bodies within such an understanding, using this integration to shore up the possibilities for agentic practice. Moving away from an understanding of practice as ‘accommodating’ and/or ‘resisting’ norms and inequalities, this paper identifies four strategies described by the young women (assertive, refusing, proactive and interrogative) for facilitating more sustained agency.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Bodies and agentic practice in young women’s sexual and intimate relationships |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/0038038511419192 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | The paper seeks to contribute to international discussions within sociology by considering, through the use of empirical data, how affect and the body is central to theorising agency. The authors suggest four strategies which might offer the potential for more sustained agentic practice - an issue few colleagues to date have focused on. |
| Keywords: | agency, power, sex, the body, young women, Health and wellbeing, Society |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10011315 |
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