Bodies Flashcards
Turner (2013) quote
‘there is an obvious and prominent fact about human beings: they have bodies and they are bodies’
since when were bodies considered in research?
cultural turn
4 factors causing the body to be ignored from research:
- foundations of social sciences focused on ‘big’ changes smaller scales like body would be considered irrelevant
- cartesian thinking prioritise the consciousness over the body Descartes - ‘I think therefore I am’
- needed to separate and distinguish social science from the natural sciences
bodies understood as feminine (therefore not relevant to academics)
who led the movement to critique and consider the body
Second wave feminists
in the 1970s developed critiques of representations of the female body
Moss and Dyck (2003)
Identified 3 key areas of interest:
1) representations or social constructions of bodies
2) bodily practice in relation to particular places and issues
3) the implications of bodies - their complex materiality for understandings of society and culture
Identified 3 key areas of interest:
1) representations or social constructions of bodies
2) bodily practice in relation to particular places and issues
3) the implications of bodies - their complex materiality for understandings of society and culture
Moss and Dyck (2003)
what does representations of bodies refer to
ways that bodies are represented and socially constructed in contemporary media and discourse
representation shapes spatial and social relations
How does representation effect people
social and spatial relations:
- the way that we see ourselves and how we imagine ourselves to be seen shapes our experiences and interactions with others
- female self consciousness effects bodily practice
- pop culture is essential to the production of shared norms about the body
Lupton (1996)
food/health/beauty triplex
3 major sets of related cultural industries
produce representations in society
relationship between women and food - preparation of food in the home and own diet
Health disparities between genders (factualised apparatus such as the BMI index that categorises bodies as abnormal)
relationship with beauty standards
female body has overrepresented and underrepresented aspects making bodies complex
explain
Female sexualised body = overrepresented
Menstruation = underrepresented
what does understanding bodies in bodily practice refer to
any of the things done with bodies, to bodies between bodies and for bodies
all human geographies involve bodily practice
fundamental to major social and cultural issues
Butlers work on gender treatment in society
found that biological differences between men and women don’t account for the differences in how genders are treated in society - the difference is performative
Gender differences are only real to the extent in which they are performed
gender differences are produced through repeated acts which congeal over time to produce a ‘natural’
what does embodiment refer to?
the complex material and processual component that makes up our body
Embodiment is who we are
Young (1990)
bodily comportment
the characteristic way that we each act and hold our bodies
this is largely unconscious
bodily comportment show how bodies have been nurtured , socialised and disciplined
Donna Haraway (1991)
explores the many ways that human embodiment is mediated by non-human materials
EG, glasses and contacts extend the capabilities of some bodies to see the world more clearly
term ‘cyborgs’ to define the interactions between human embodiment and non-human materials
intersection between technology and body challenges the understandings of body as singular bounded identity
complicating understanding of bodies is technological advancement - explain?
online platforms- creation of digitalised bodies
create an idealised version of yourself - new form of embodiment that doesn’t rely on the physical body
Identity can be formed within video games using avatars that create space for an expression of self that may not be possible in the everyday world
challenges traditional notions of what it means to be human
relation between the body and the economy-
body is a commodity in existence (organ selling)
body a site of consumption
body cannot be separated from capitalist effects
Body space reciprocity quote
‘bodies both work upon and are worked on by a built space of sensuous hierarchies’
Landzelius (2004)
Bray and Colebrook (1998) quote about embodiment
embodiment is an ethics through which ‘bodies become, intersect and affirm their existence’
how does expression of body change?
dependent on various interactions
the same body can take on different meanings in different contexts
are bodies active or passive?
Both -
body is a passive receptor but als actively creative
how does knowledge of bodies effect geographical research?
- understandings of the unconsciouss communications between researcher and participant
- feminist geographers have worked to understand how masculinities effect research in the field interaction spaces reconsidered
- allows researchers to locate ppts within multiple social relations and understand how this shapes knowledge production
Merleau - Ponty understanding of Corporeality
the body is a dynamic unity that is continuously shapes and modified by its interaction with the environment
body is situated in time and space
and also shapes space and time
body’s agency can be situational and context dependent
Reflexivity of the body
the bodies relation to itself and the world is mediated by flesh, which is self reflexive and involved in continuous interaction with the world
Intercorporeality: term refers to the shared experience and perception of bodies in relation to one another
one body does not just perceive another body as an object but instead something with meaning and deserves a response
define Intercorporeality
term refers to the shared experience and perception of bodies in relation to one another
one body does not just perceive another body as an object but instead something with meaning and deserves a response
power and the body
body is ridden with power - shaped by social hierarchies, ideologies and power structures
social body and otherness
the social body is not a universal experience and and is defined by social differentiation
bodies can be included or excluded based on social factors and encounters with other bodies
Tolia-Kelly (2010)
although race is unstable it is continually reconstituted through political materiality’s and strategies
bodies at the edges of cultural geographies include those marginalised through age, language, bodily abilities and cultural difference - sometimes marked through biology and sometimes through expressive cultures of being and living
McKittrick (2000)
explores the Black Diaspora as a complex, shifting set of experiences and identities that are not static but relational
physical embodiment of black women is marked and shaped by both personal and collective histories
can embody both oppression and renewal simultaneously
racist constructions of black womanhood -
black/classed body had to be produced and put into evidence to fortify whiteness and white femininity
black bodies were invented to construct, preserve and define modernity and justify the slave system
black women are positioned as colonised bodies, static wombs and spaces - black women’s bodies have become products that continuously make and remake and articulate modernity through silence and subjugation
oppression has mobilised black displacement and the initiation of new geographies that are races and gendered
these are internally and externally lived
quote from McKittrick (2000)
’ it is on the body that the complexity and ambiguity of history, race , racism and place are inscribed’
how did feminist geographers redefine bodies?
redefined bodies as sites of social construction that are shaped by representation and practice
essentialist feminist approach to body -
start research with an understanding of a ‘real’ biological difference between bodies suggesting that material difference is a starting point for why bodies become gendered
constructionist approach feminists
suggest that gender occurs due to bodies being ‘written upon’ by cultural, historical, and political forces
Johnson (1990)
encourages an integrated understanding of how the sexed body interacts with spatial dynamics to truly understand how bodies are made meaningful and create meaning in society.
