Peer-reviewed Proceedings of the 8th Annual Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand (PopCAANZ) Conference (pp. 138-146). PopCAANZ. https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE35346381
ABSTRACT
“From its inception, the subcultural movement known as Gothic and Lolita has displayed an exchange of ideas between Japan and Euro-American cultures. More recently, however, the subculture has shifted, not only regarding traditional meanings, and the way that it operates, but also geographically, into communities on the periphery of its original sites of major interest. In the past few years, Latin-American nations, particularly Mexico, have become conspicuous hotspots for participation in the movement.
This transition raises questions about differing socio-politics and cultural understandings, particularly associated with gender. As a girls’ subculture, Gothic and Lolita broke with historical, stereotypical frameworks that positioned subcultural movements from a male-dominated perspective. In Japan, it also demonstrated a resistance to established roles for, and expectations of, women. As such, it can be argued that the original Japanese Gothic and Lolita movement represented a new type of feminism. Over time, as the subculture transmigrated into other sites, especially the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and North-Western Europe, this context became less pertinent.
However, the relatively recent growth of Gothic and Lolita communities in Mexico exhibits a new phase of the movement, which shakes up past meanings and understandings, yet again, especially in terms of gender politics.
How is gender understood within the Gothic and Lolita movement in a Mexican environment? Why is this movement becoming prevalent in Mexico? How does it operate? And, how is it transformed from its Japanese origins?
As both an ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ researcher of the Gothic and Lolita subcultural movement, this paper reveals some of the outcomes to these questions via a critical analysis of ethnographic studies undertaken with members of the movement in Mexico.”
Kathryn A. Hardy Bernal 