Finding the child in the woman: the post-mortem infantilisation of Diana

This paper examines the processes of infantilisation which characterise the representations of Diana, Princess of Wales, in both her life and death. I t argues that the image of 'the child' provided this vehicle through its ab ility to portray the transgressive and marginal role which she adopted as a royal princess. However, as the paper demonstrates, the empowering potenti alities of this had costs. It implicitly reproduced the gendered inequaliti es with which she struggled through its mapping onto the age-based inequali ties which separate children from the adult world.