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Body Projects

Body Projects. Technologies of the Gendered Body (Week 11). Outline. The body in late modernity Body projects / reflexive body techniques Presentation (week 15). The body in late modernity. What is late / high modernity? Giddens (1991) – a “radicalising” of modern trends

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Body Projects

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  1. Body Projects Technologies of the Gendered Body (Week 11)

  2. Outline • The body in late modernity • Body projects / reflexive body techniques • Presentation (week 15)

  3. The body in late modernity • What is late / high modernity? • Giddens (1991) – a “radicalising” of modern trends • Both “modernity” and “self” are neither redundant nor anachronistic • Late / high modernity is characterised by a process of continual questioning; reflexivity

  4. The body in late modernity • The self / identity is intimately bound up with these processes of questioning / reflexivity • Growing importance of the body as constitutive of self-identity • Body is something to be worked on

  5. The body in high modernity • But… a central body paradox: • “We now have the means to exert an unprecedented degree of control over bodies, yet we are also living in an age which has thrown into radical doubt our knowledge of what bodies are and how we should control them.” (Shilling 1993: 3)

  6. The body in high modernity • The body is becoming “increasingly a phenomenon of options and choices” (Shilling 1993: 3) • But these “choices” also produce related dilemmas re: ownership of bodies and body parts / tissues; who should be allowed to do what to and with their bodies.

  7. Body projects • Increasing investment of self-identity in our bodies • The body is increasingly viewed as an entity in the process of becoming; it can be accomplished reflexively as part of an individual’s self-identity • Appearance, size, shape, content / constitution seen as always potentially open to (re)construction in line with the desires, plans and purposes of their “owners” • Bodies are treated as malleable; moulded as a trait of personality; honed through vigilance and hard work. • A somatic ethic.

  8. Body projects • “Body projects are attempts to construct and maintain a coherent and viable sense of self-identity through attention to the body, particularly the body’s surface” (Gill et al 2005: 40)

  9. Reflexive body techniques • “body techniques whose primary purpose is to work back upon the body, so as to modify, maintain or thematize it in some way” (2006: 104) • May involve two or more embodied agents, or a single body working on itself • Each society has a repertoire of RBTs. • There is a wide variation in the distribution of RBTs

  10. Mapping RBTs (Crossley 2005) • 100% had washed hands in past 7 days • 99.7% had bathed / showered in past 7 days • 41.8% had flossed in the last 4 weeks • 41.1% had “eaten carefully” for weight loss reasons in the last 4 weeks • 36.2% had manicure in the past 4 weeks • 25.3% had used a sunbed in the last 12 months • 6.9% had 1-3 tatoos • 6.7% had a pierced belly button • 1.6% had cosmetic surgery • 0.3% had ever used steroids for body building

  11. Mapping RBTs • Incorporates the idea that we “have” a body and “are” a body. • Resists mind / body dualism (“the body I “have” is a moral, aesthetic, acting and sensuous being” (Crossley 2005: 2) • Can core zone RBTs and marginal zone RBTs be explained in the same way?

  12. Presentation • Choose up to 3 images / textual materials around a central theme • Provide a commentary on those images, drawing on the relevant literature • What assumptions of gender, technology and the body are at work in those materials? • What is the preferred reading of those materials? How have those ideas been critiqued? Is there an alternative reading? • Like an essay – make an argument. What’s your overall point?

  13. Presentation • Each presentation should last no more than 15 minutes (with 5 mins for questions); • All group members should contribute equally to the preparation and final presentation; • You will have access to Powerpoint. If you need anything further, please discuss with Katy, Mark and I well in advance. • Each group will get written feedback on your own presentation.

  14. Additional reading • Crossley, N (2005) “Mapping reflexive body techniques: on body modification and maintenance” Body and Society 11 (1): 1-35 • Shilling, C (2010) “Exploring the society-body-school nexus: theoretical and methodology issues in the study of body pedagogics”. Sport, Education and Society 15(2): 151-167

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