Artifact #4 Personal Adornment
Personal Adornment
The objectives for this artifact are:
- Evaluate personal values and paradigms around body decoration and physical beauty
- Investigate how physical appearance affects definitions of identity and belonging
- Analyze values and belief systems of physical appearance across cultures, sub-cultures and generations
Reflection:
While completing this weeks discussion assignment I was really able to start to understand how physical appearance helps us evaluate personal values and paradigms that surround physical appearance. During this assignment where we had to people watch and guess the values of the people we are observing, I really began to realize how much we judge others based off of physical appearance. In C.R. Sander’s article “Introduction: Body Alteration, Artistic Production, and the Social World of Tattooing” he writes that, “People use appearance to place each other into categories” (pg. 1 Sanders). I realized that this was exactly what we were doing while completing this assignment. We were observing the appearance of others, and then placing them into categories based off our evaluation of their personal values.
While completing my personal adornment reflection I began to see how my physical appearance helps define my personal identity and belonging. While reflecting on my own personal values and beliefs I was able to see a connection to my physical appearance and how I express myself through my dress. Sander’s says that, “People construct their appearance in a wide variety of ways to control their social identities” (pg. 3 Sanders). During this week’s assignments I was able to understand how I have controlled my social identity through constructing my own personal appearance. This also made me consider how my social appearance fits in with my culture, and that other cultures have different values that are expressed through their cultures. Everyday I see people with different physical appearances and am able to recognize that they may have different values and beliefs from a different culture than I have.
Future Goals:
Reflecting on my personal adornment has made me realize how much people analyze each other based off of physical appearance. In the future I want to continue to learn how others might be expressing their personal values through their appearance. I also plan to always keep in mind that things may not always be as they appear, although personal values are sometimes expressed through appearance, I never want to jump to any conclusions about a person’s values and beliefs based on appearance.
Bibliography:
Sanders, C. R. (1989). Introduction: Body Alteration, Artistic Production, and the Social World of Tattooing. In Customizing the Body (pp. 1-35). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Artifact #4 Personal Adornment
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Artifact #6 Creative Spirituality
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Karya Bintang Abadi