Liimakka, Re-Embodied - Young Women, the Body Quest and Agency in the Culture of Appearances

This doctoral dissertation explores young Finnish women's body experiences and possibilities for embodied agency within or despite the constraints of their given socio-cultural surroundings. By focusing on the perspective of physical appearance, the study examines young womens possibilities to transform the common experience of body dissatisfaction into a more positive body relation. In order to explore the relationships between an individual, social groups and society as manifesting in the individuals body experience, the study analysed both collectively and individually produced accounts of body experience, focus group discussions and individually written accounts.