Navigating Conversion: An Arts-based Inquiry into the Clothed Body and Identity

Abstract

Rooted in habitus, clothing reflects a sense of self through visual identification with gender, religion, culture, and ethnic identity. The clothed body is a mediator of social and physical capital. In this case study presented via arts-based forms, I focus on challenges and agency experienced through the habitus of attire in the lived experiences of a Christian Caribbean sportswoman, aesthetician, and trophy wife living in Canada, who, after divorce and re-marriage, converted to Islam. The malleability of habitus in shifting identities through life changing events such as marriage, re-marriage, and religious conversion is wrought with seemingly ironclad societal aversion that cloaks offspring as well as self.