Figure 23. From “We Were Smart.”
According to Michel Foucault, ever since the classical age, the body has always been a site to exercise power upon. The body is manipulated, shaped, trained, and it obeys, responds, becomes skillful and increases its force. It is under the control of powers that restrain it and make it docile.108 In the factories that Smart youths worked at in the 2000s, workers did their job by moving parts of their bodies repetitively to accomplish one simple act every day on conveyor belts, sometimes in a toxic environment that would make them physically ill. They had to fully concentrate on it in case it went wrong, and if a worker got a hand cut, for example, he had to work more to be able to pay for the medical treatment because the factory did not buy him insurance.109 Facing the restraints in the society, still people have the sartorial agency to rebel against social norms. Although constrained by certain social expectations when dressing, contestation and individual agency still find their way to exist.110 108 109 110
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison. New York : Vintage Books 1995. Dai, Bin. Da Gong Ci Dian (打工词典). Beijing: Ren Min Wen Xue Chu Ban She 2011. Woodward, Sophie. Why Women Wear What They Wear. 47
