Sociology of the Body

Krpic, T. 2012. Book review of Schillmeier, Michael W. J.: Rethinking Disability: Bodies, Senses, and Things. New York, London: Routledge, 2010. Body & Society 18 (2): 156-161.

by Tomaž Krpič

Configuring maternal, preborn and infant embodiment

by Deborah Lupton

An increasing literature on the biopolitics of contemporary maternity and on risk society, individualisation and... more An increasing literature on the biopolitics of contemporary maternity and on risk society, individualisation and parenting has demonstrated the increasing emphasis that has been placed upon pregnant women and mothers to take responsibility for the health and welfare of their children. The ideal female ‘reproductive citizen’ is expected to place her children’s health and wellbeing above her own needs and desires. Here the subject positions of the ‘good mother’ and the ‘responsible citizen’ as they are produced through the discourses and practices of neoliberalism intertwine. This paper looks at the convergence of various influential discourses, images, practices and technologies in configuring maternal, preborn and infant bodies in certain ways in the context of neoliberalism. These include such factors as the growing importance of the concept of risk in relation to preborn and infant wellbeing, the extension of infant identity back into preborn bodies, the emergence of the concepts of the foetal and embryonic (and even the preconceived embryonic) citizen, the precious child and intensive parenting and the symbolic concepts of permeability, purity and danger and Self and Other as they relate to maternal, infant and preborn embodiment.

Off-grid Mobilities: Incorporating a Way of Life

by Phillip Vannini

Published in Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies

Drawing from sensory ethnography, the present multimodal writing—accompanied by photography and digital... more Drawing from sensory ethnography, the present multimodal writing—accompanied by photography and digital video—documents and interprets the mobilities of off-grid living on Lasqueti Island, British Columbia, Canada. The data presentation focuses in particular on the embodied experience of off-grid inhabitation, highlighting the sensory and kinetic experiences and practices of everyday life in a community disconnected from the North American electrical grid and highway network. The mobilities of fuel and energy are presented in unison with ethnographic attention to the taskscape of everyday activities and movements in which off-grid islanders routinely engage. The analysis, based on Tim Ingold's non-representational theory on place, movement, and inhabitation, focuses on how the material and corporeal mobilities of off-grid life body forth a unique sense of place.

“Beauty and Concepts of the Ideal,” in A Cultural History of the Human Body, Vol. 6: A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Modern Age, Ivan Crozier, ed. (London: Berg, 2010), 127-45. Uncorrected page proofs.

by Christopher E. Forth

Fat Women: the Role of the Mother-Daughter Relationship Revisited

by Maya Maor

Maor, M. (2012). Fat Women: The Role of Mother-Daughter Relationships Revisited. Women's Studies International Forum. 35 (2): 97–108.

Fat Acceptance in Israel's Lesbian-Queer Communities

by Maya Maor

Maor, M. (2012). The Body that Does Not Diminish Itself: Fat Acceptance in Israel's Lesbian Queer Communities. Journal of Lesbian Studies,16 (2): 177-198.

The Performative Body: Symbolic Interactionism, Dramaturgy, Affect, and the Sociology of the Body

by Phillip Vannini

Co-authored with Dennis Waskul, forthcoming in the Handbook of Dramaturgy, edited by Charles Edgley (Ashgate, 2013)

Krpič, T. 2010. Your Body, My Pain: Marginal Auto-reflexive Body Techniques and Construction of Feelings in Body Art Performance. Družboslovne razprave 26 (63): 49-62.

by Tomaž Krpič

Abstract

Nick Crossley’s concept of marginal reflexive body techniques is used to develop the concept of... more Abstract

Nick Crossley’s concept of marginal reflexive body techniques is used to develop the concept of auto-reflexive body techniques, whose primary purpose is to work back upon the body of an acting individual, so as to modify, maintain, or thematise the body of the actor in some way, yet nevertheless with the intention to induce certain emotions, feelings, thoughts and agencies, in another individual. The author defines the body art performance as an artistic, social, cultural and political phenomenon where body art performers produce an event on their own body by using different repulsive marginal auto-reflexive body techniques as an investment of (unpleasant) feelings and emotions in the bodies of spectators. Body art performance additionally serves as a vehicle for the expression of private concerns about common matters in public.


Key words

marginal reflexive body techniques, auto-reflexive body techniques, pain, emotions, body art performance, audience, Nick Crossley.

Self-injury as Embodied Emotion Work: Managing Rationality, Emotions and Bodies

by Amy Chandler

Published in Sociology. Available online ahead of print.

Drawing on narrative research conducted in the UK about self-injury and embodiment, this article presents a novel... more Drawing on narrative research conducted in the UK about self-injury and embodiment, this article presents a novel sociological analysis of self-injury, utilizing the concept of emotion work. By focusing explicitly on embodied methods of ‘doing’ emotion work, the article highlights the under-recognized importance of examining the practical, corporeal practices that can be involved in emotion work. I reflect on the sociological and theoretical significance of examining self-injury as embodied emotion work – both as an analytic concept and as a narrative resource.

Krpič, T. 2009. Joint Reviews of Alan Petersen's 'The Body in Question: A SocioCultural Approach' and Chris Shilling's 'The Body in Culture,Technology and Society'. Sociology 43 (1): 186-188.

by Tomaž Krpič

Blurring the boundaries: breastfeeding and maternal subjectivity

by Deborah Lupton

The Embodied Computer/User

by Deborah Lupton

M-health and health promotion: the digital cyborg and surveillance society

by Deborah Lupton

This is a preprint of an article that has been submitted for publication. It may be cited.

Precious, pure, uncivilised, vulnerable: infant embodiment in the popular media

by Deborah Lupton

This article is a preprint which has been submitted for publication. It may be cited.

Paradoxen van lichamelijke kwetsbaarheid. Wanneer 'hebben' 'zijn' wordt: angst, medelijden en 'bewondering' voor mensen met een zichtbare, aangeboren motorische handicap in Nederland.

by Karen Mogendorff

Published in 'Medische Antropologie' in the theme issue 'lichamelijke kwetsbaarheid' in 2003

This Dutch paper explores a paradox in bodily experience of disabled informants: the body as normal and abnormal at... more This Dutch paper explores a paradox in bodily experience of disabled informants: the body as normal and abnormal at the same time. Fieldwork shows that informants deem acceptance by society more important here than physical independence.

Notas sobre la corporalidad del Antiguo Egipto en la literatura del Imperio Nuevo. // Notes of representations of Ancient Egyptian body in New Kingdom Literature

by Francisco Villarroel

if you want to translate this paper, please send me a message.

En la cultura egipcia existe una importante área de estudio que corresponde al del cuerpo: sus representaciones,... more En la cultura egipcia existe una importante área de estudio que corresponde al del cuerpo: sus representaciones, prácticas corporales y significados, los cuales permean en todo tipo de literatura, arte y restos materiales que se han encontrado y examinado. Éste trabajo tiene por objetivos aportar al debate del uso de la literatura en el estudio de la cultura Egipcia arguyendo que sí es posible recopilar información sin ir en desmedro del carácter estético y estilístico de la misma; además de ello, también se tiene por objetivo la muestra que el estudio de la corporalidad egipcia nos da pistas y rastros de comportamientos que otras áreas no han podido dar, aunque ellas requieran de mayor profundidad en su análisis.


English Abstract

In Egyptian culture there is an important area of study that corresponds to the body: its representations, meanings and embodied practices, which are present in all kinds of literature, art and material remains have been found and examined. This paper has two objectives: to contribute to the discussion of the use of literature in the study of Egyptian culture, arguing that it is possible to collect information without going to the detriment of the aesthetic and stylistic thereof; in addition, also aims to study shows that the Egyptian corporeality gives us clues and traces of behaviors that other areas have not been able to, although they require more depth in their analysis

Risk and the ontology of pregnant embodiment.

by Deborah Lupton

In Lupton, D. (ed), Risk and Sociocultural Theory: New Directions and Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 59--85.

The study of social representation systems: relationships involving representations on aging, AIDS and the body

by João Wachelke

Camargo, B.V. & Wachelke, J. (2010). The study of social representation systems: relationships involving representations on aging, AIDS and the body. Papers on Social Representations, 19(2), 21.1-21.21.

Past studies have pointed out that social representations on AIDS, aging and the body might be connected. The present... more Past studies have pointed out that social representations on AIDS, aging and the body might be connected. The present paper reports an exploratory study that aims at characterizing their relationships. The sample was composed of 1118 secondary school and university undergraduate students, who completed a questionnaire about one of the three objects. The main task was to choose 3 of 12 words extracted from the literature that were more strongly related with the object in question, and then justify their choices. Data analysis consisted of descriptive statistics, correspondence analysis and typical vocabulary analysis. The results from correspondence analysis suggested that the representations on AIDS and the body are associated with the element young, whereas the representations on the body and old age intersect on elements 'health' and 'life'. It is concluded that there is empirical evidence of interaction zones involving the mentioned representations, and the reference to thêmata and recent developments from the structural approach might provide the guidelines to the underlying logic of a representational system.

Sociology of the body, sociology of the senses, symbolic interactionism

by Phillip Vannini

First chapter of the book: The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture."

2009, « Habitus, Freedom and Reflexivity », in Theory and Psychology Volume 19, no. 6, pp. 728-755.

by Mathieu Hilgers

The question of freedom is recurrent in the theory of habitus. In this paper I propose that the notion of freedom is... more The question of freedom is recurrent in the theory of habitus. In this paper I propose that the notion of freedom is an essential and necessary component for the coherence of the analyses which mobilize habitus both in terms of their theoretical articulation and in terms of their grounding in empirical reality. This argument can seem surprising considering that the theory of habitus has often been accused of being deterministic. Yet I show that, from an epistemological point of view, habitus theory is not deterministic. Bourdieu’s treatment of this concept implies at least three principles that exclude determinism: (1) the production of an infinite number of behaviors from a limited number of principles, (2) permanent mutation, and (3) the intensive and extensive limits of sociological understanding. After identifying and describing these principles, I show the reason for their incompatibility with a deterministic perspective and consider their implications for the corresponding model of action. I illustrate this analysis by a discussion of Loïc Wacquant’s carnal sociology of the pugilistic universe which reveals why it is essential to understand and explain the relation between habitus and freedom.