The Body in Anthropology

 Summary of Important Theoretical Perspectives (in History)

summary video

Marcel Mauss: "Techniques of the Body"

• there is no such thing as "natural" behavior, the body is controlled by culture
• Individuals learn to move their bodies in certain ways through the techniques espoused by culture. (the body is culturally controlled)
• The resulting ways of using the body are called habits (Bourdieu)
• every kind of action carries the imprint of this learning-feeding, washing, repose, movement, and above all SEX(and morality)
• habitus is learned through a system of education (imitation, direct instruction) always from a person who is considered expert and has authority
• a technique is an action which is effective and traditional 
• the body is man's first and most natural instrument

Mary Douglas: "The Two Bodies" (1978)

• There are two bodies: the physical and the social
• the body is always treated as an image of society-there is no natural way of considering the body, that does not involve at the same time the social dimension.
• bodily control is an expression of social control. abandonment of bodily control in ritual responds therefore, to the requirements of the social experience. (style responds to message)
• strong social control demands strong bodily control
• they mirror the physical into the social and cause the physical to be experienced in social terms.

Erving Goffman: "Embodied Information in Face to Face Interaction"

•  In face to face interactions, individuals can read each other through their "naked senses" and make adjustments to their presentation. Communication is about constant negotiation and readjustment.
• There are cultural rules for face to face interaction
• personal front is the way one presents their body in a public encounter: clothing, makeup, hairdo and other surface decorations.
• body disciplines: men, no reception, fly buttoned; women, limb discipline (legs crossed)-physical signs of sexual capacities must be concealed. 
• others: control of facial expressions.

Michel Foucault: "The Political Investment in the Body"

• docile bodies are produced by culture: a body that is controlled, but also behaves as the culture wishes (techniques).
• it is through various acts of discipline, that culture creates docile bodies

Nancy Schepper-Hughes and Margaret Locke: "The Mindful Body"

• the body is a natural symbol with which to think about nature, society and culture
• The individual body is the domain of the “lived” or embodied experiences people have of their bodies. 
• The social body, in contrast, relates to the ways the body (including its products: blood, milk, etc.) operates as a natural symbol, as a tool at hand to think and represent social relationships such as gender, kinship, and mode of production 
• the body politic is the human body as tool or weapon of domestication and discipline and of identification, subjectification, and resistance. 
• These three bodies also constitute three levels of experience and analysis. What mediates between them are emotions.

Thomas Csordas: "Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology"

• the body is essential to anthropological study, because it is not an object to be studied in relation to culture, but is to be considered as the subject of culture, or in other words, as the existential ground of culture.
• the body is malleable. In all cultures, the body is never left "as-is," but is manipulated in ways which the culture deems normative.
• manipulation of the body can be temporary or permanent 
• manipulations of the body have strong cultural meaning

Judith Butler: "Bodies That Matter"/"Gender Trouble"

• Sex differences are often described in purely physical/biological terms, but this is a fallacy
• Sex demarcation and definition is part of the normative system of culture, or what Foucault has called the regulatory ideal.
• These norms are based on the heterosexual imperative, the needs of heterosexual pairing, sex, and reproduction.
• Bodies are compelled to try to meet the norms of binary sex, even though they always fall short
• Gender is a performance which is created and reproduced through its enactment.
• Outside of performativity, there is no subjective gendered self.

SUMMARY: How the body is understood in the course:

• there is no clear distinction between mind and body (Cartesian dualism)
• the body is natural, but also always manipulated by culture
• bodily manipulations (form) carry strong cultural meaning
• sex and gender are not easily distinguished (traditional feminist analysis) 
• both sex and gender are culturally defined (and in Western cultures based on the heteronormative imperative
• The body is also manipulated in terms of its functioning (techniques)
• much of the comportment and behavior which results is unconscious (habitus)
• bodies are made docile so that they may used both politically and economically
• an important area of political and economic control is in reproduction (sex, gender and sexuality).

Anthropological Studies of Human Appearance

• cataloging the diversity of human appearance, modifications of appearance, and adornments of human appearance
• understanding why particular appearances are valued and how appearance relates to social structure
• descriptive diversity of human appearance
• cultural elaboration of particular appearances through body adornment or modification
• description and interpretation of beauty ideals
• human appearance as indicative of group membership (voluntary/involuntary)
• Diversity of Global Human Appearance
• there is great diversity of human body size, shape and other characteristics
• Cultural Elaboration and Appearance
• differences in physical appearance are culturally minimized or elaborated
• social structures interact with physical appearance
• Gender example
• in cultures with pronounced initiation rituals, demarcation of gender on the body may only begin at the time of initiation into adulthood (grooming practices, scarification, adornment, circumcision, etc.)
• in cultures which lack initiation (like the USA) demarcation may begin at birth. Ear piercing, dress, etc. which express gender
• Plastic Surgery example
• Brazil: widespread and available to everyone. For women this is intertwined with sexual desirability and capitalism.
• modernization brings along with it the belief that bodies can be changed and worked upon with diet, exercise or plastic surgery
• Beauty Ideals
• beauty pageants reflect idealized gendered appearances, signaling political and cultural dynamics 
• today: shifts toward international standards of beauty (cultural change)
• Appearance as Group Membership
• can be voluntary or involuntary
• scarification among the Mende of Sierra Leone transitions youth as it marks them for adulthood (mandatory)
• voluntary youth driven body modification
• piercing, tattooing, 
• grooming, to indicate group membership (hipsters)
• racial marking
• deracializing-skin bleaching, plastic surgery, hair straightening, etc. to cope with discrimination 
• Disease status
• AIDS and fat/sarcomas/etc.
• Studies of Body Image
• Cross-cultural conceptions of the body
• individualistic societies see the body as as an independent entity, with individual rights and responsibilities
• socio-centric societies have similar understandings of the body, where multiple people are responsible fore each individual body
• robust bodies indicate that a person is well cared for.
• Television (Western) has impacted body image in nonwestern societies
• expansion of Western ideals of beauty have coincided with body image dissatisfaction, and body image and eating disorders
• Anorexia (Crazy Like Us)-studies show that eating disorders are spreading from western to nonwestern countries-Lee study in China
• Belize: seem indifferent to western beauty standards