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Conspicuous conservation: The green clothing of Swedish environmentalists
Malmö högskola, Faculty of Culture and Society (KS), Department of Urban Studies (US).ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2462-1162
Rochester Inst Technol, Coll Liberal Arts, 92 Lomb Mem Dr, Rochester, NY 14623 USA; Rochester Inst Technol, Coll Liberal Arts, Sch Commun, English Commun & Cultural Studies, Rochester, NY 14623 USA.
2017 (English)In: International Journal of Fashion Studies, ISSN 2051-7106, Vol. 4, no 1, p. 7-34Article in journal (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Focusing on the notion of 'green clothing', this article shows how a sartorial aesthetic informs group cohesion for environmentalist activists. Using qualitative data gathered through open-ended questions posted on the Field Biologists's Facebook group, which is no longer active, the article explores subjects' memories and opinions on clothing and style covering the period from the late 1960s to the present. The article mixes this method with historical textual analysis of the tradition of frugality and asceticism back to nineteenth-century forerunners. This mixed method approach provides rich material on counter-consumerist aesthetics in both cultural and - political contexts within a historical framework. Theoretically, the article revises the classic notion of clothes as a cultural membrane between body and society, showing how a third element - nature - works in certain ideological frames to dissolve that membrane between body and society. In this way, clothes are worn in order to demonstrate harmony between the wearer's body and the environment. This dissolution of culture into 'nature' serves the collective pursuit of political community espoused by the Field Biologists. Through tracing a number of 'vestemes' (units of sartorial semiotics), this article decodes an identity formed around nature as opposed to culture; the old as opposed to the new; second-as opposed to first-hand; as well as around a complex relationship with gender.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Intellect Ltd., 2017. Vol. 4, no 1, p. 7-34
Keywords [en]
Field Biologists, green clothing, vestemes, environmentalism, consumption, conservation, counter-culture
National Category
Humanities and the Arts
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-14408DOI: 10.1386/infs.4.1.7_1ISI: 000405990200002Local ID: 23649OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-14408DiVA, id: diva2:1417928
Available from: 2020-03-30 Created: 2020-03-30 Last updated: 2024-06-17Bibliographically approved

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Lisberg Jensen, Ebba

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
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