The Body as an Accumulation Strategy

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 401-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Recent Literature ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Politics ◽  
Major Focus ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
A Site ◽  
Political Economic

The body has become a major focus of attention—both theoretically and politically—over the past twenty years. In much of this literature it is presumed that the body is some kind of social construct at the same time as it is a locus and a measure of both the material and the social world we inhabit. The author situates this idea against the background of Marx's representations—too often by-passed in recent literature—in order to show how Marx's concept of variable capital contains a theory of body formation under capitalism at the same time as it lays the groundwork for understanding how political persons act as moral agents to try to change the conditions under which laboring occurs. The struggle for a living wage in Baltimore is then used as a concrete example of how this form of body politics operates under contemporary conditions, illustrating how the body that is to be the measure of all things is itself a site of political-economic contestation over the very forces that create it.

scholarly journals Body pedagogics, culture and the transactional case of Vélo worlds

2021 ◽  
pp. 136843102199664
Author(s):  
Chris Shilling
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
The Body ◽  
Knowing How ◽  
Significant Growth ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cognitive Information ◽  
Sociological Studies ◽  
Ways Of Life

During the past two decades, there has been a significant growth of sociological studies into the ‘body pedagogics’ of cultural transmission, reproduction and change. Rejecting the tendency to over-valorise cognitive information, these investigations have explored the importance of corporeal capacities, habits and techniques in the processes associated with belonging to specific ‘ways of life’. Focused on practical issues associated with ‘knowing how’ to operate within specific cultures, however, body pedagogic analyses have been less effective at accounting for the incarnation of cultural values. Addressing this limitation, with reference to the radically diverse norms involved historically and contemporarily in ‘vélo worlds’, I develop Dewey’s pragmatist transactionalism by arguing that the social, material and intellectual processes involved in learning physical techniques inevitably entail a concurrent entanglement with, and development of, values.

Images of the Female Body in Émile Zola's Novels

2021 ◽  
pp. 301-317
Author(s):  
Irina David
Keyword(s):  
Female Body ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
The Body ◽  
French Society ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
The Social ◽  
Women's Role ◽  
And Behavior

The aim of this chapter is to highlight how the female body and the social practices that it is subject to are depicted in Émile Zola's literary work as indicators of dominating perceptions in 19th century patriarchal French society with regard to social roles in general and women's role in society in particular. Rather than focusing on an anatomic, biological analysis of the body, the discussion will turn to the body as a social construct, as metaphor for the overall treatment of women as beings whose appearance and behavior have to constantly be regulated for them to no longer constitute a threat to the male-centric society they live in.

Governing Homelessness through Running

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 88-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan C Clift
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Self In Relation ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Not For Profit ◽  
Development Organizations ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
The Social ◽  
A Site

In the context of social welfare austerity and non-state actors’ interventions into social life, an urban not-for-profit organization in the United States, Back on My Feet, uses the practice of running to engage those recovering from homelessness. Promoting messages of self-sufficiency, the organization centralizes the body as a site of investment and transformation. Doing so calls to the fore the social construction of ‘the homeless body’ and ‘the running body’. Within this ethnographic inquiry, participants in recovery who ran with the organization constructed moralized senses of self in relation to volunteers, organizers, and those who do not run, while in recovery. Their experiences compel consideration of how bodily constructions and practices reproduce morally underpinned, self-oriented associations with homeless and neoliberal discourses that obfuscate systemic causes of homelessness, pose challenges for well-intentioned voluntary or development organizations, and service the relief of the state from social responsibility.

scholarly journals Care and affective relations: Social justice and sociology

2020 ◽  
pp. 003802612095274
Author(s):  
Kathleen Lynch ◽  
Manolis Kalaitzake ◽  
Margaret Crean
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Egalitarian Theory ◽  
A Site ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Status Recognition ◽  
Affective Relations

This article examines the ways in which the care-indifferent and gendered character of much political egalitarian theory has contributed to a disregard for the care-relational dimensions of social injustice within the social sciences. It demonstrates how the lack of in-depth engagement with affective relations of love, care and solidarity has contributed to an underestimation of their pivotal role in generating injustices in the production of people in their humanity. While humans are political, economic and cultural beings, they are also what Tronto has termed homines curans. Yet, care, in its multiple manifestations, is treated as a kind of ‘cultural residual’, an area of human life that the dominant culture neglects, represses and cannot even recognize for its political salience. If sociology takes the issue of relational justice as seriously as it takes issues of redistribution, recognition and political representation, this would provide an intellectual avenue for advancing scholarship that recognizes that much of life is lived, and injustices are generated, outside the market, formal politics and public culture. A new sociology of affective care relations could enhance a normatively-led sociology of inequality, that is distinguishable from, but intersecting with, a sociology of inequality based on class (redistribution), status (recognition) and power (representation). It would also help change public discourse about politics by making affective in/justices visible intellectually and politically, and in so doing, identifying ways in which they could be a site of resistance to capitalist values and processes.

scholarly journals The Sonic Intra-Face of a Noisy Feminist Social Kitchen

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana España Keller
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Social Geography ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ethical Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
A Site

This paper asks what is the value of transforming the kitchen into a sonic performative work and public site for art and social practice. A Public Kitchen is formed by recreating the private and domestic space of a kitchen into a public space through a sonic performance artwork. The kitchen table is a platform for exploring, repositioning and amplifying kitchen tools as material phenomena through electronic and manual manipulation into an immersive sonic performance installation. This platform becomes a collaborative social space, where somatic movement and sensory, sonic power of the repositioned kitchen tools are built on a relational architecture of iterative sound performances that position the art historical and the sociopolitical, transforming disciplinary interpretations of the body and technology as something that is not specifically exclusively human but post-human. A Public Kitchen represents a pedagogical strategy for organizing and responding collectively to the local, operating as an independent nomadic event that speaks through a creative practice that is an unfolding process. (Re)imagining the social in a Public Kitchen produces noisy affects in a sonic intra-face that can contribute to transforming our social imaginations, forming daring dissonant narratives that feed post-human ethical practices and feminist genealogies. This paper reveals what matters—a feminist struggle invaluable in channeling the intra-personal; through the entanglement of the self, where language, meaning and subjectivity are relational to human difference and to what is felt from the social, what informs from a multi-cultural nomadic existence and diffractive perspective. The labored body is entangled with post-human contingencies of food preparation, family and social history, ritual, tradition, social geography, local politics, and women’s oppression; and is resonant and communicates as a site where new sonic techniques of existence are created and experiences shared.

Postmodern Body Techniques: Some Anthropological Considerations on Natural and Postnatural Bodies

1996 ◽  
Vol 18 (s1) ◽  
pp. S95-S106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Steroid Use ◽  
Body Building ◽  
The Past ◽  
Body Techniques ◽  
A Site

Debates concerning “the body,” embodiment, and corporeality have become increasingly central to cultural theory in the past decade. This article addresses the question of the “natural body” from the point of view of both traditional social theory (Marcel Mauss) and more recent arguments about the body as a site of enculturation. Why is the natural body preserved as a moral value within the realm of sport, while its limits are also pushed to “unnatural” extremes? By contrasting body building as sport (where anabolic steroid use is condemned) with reproductive body building (pregnancy, where steroid use is increasingly central), the paradoxical dimensions of the “(post)natural” body in sport are examined.

Texts Don't have Ideologies

1995 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Fowl
Keyword(s):  
Social Practices ◽  
Ideological Criticism ◽  
Competing Interests ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Accepted Practice ◽  
A Site

AbstractOver the past fifteen years "ideological criticism" of the Bible has grown to become an accepted practice within the academy. It has provided a site where feminists, Marxists, liberation theologians and other interested parties have been able to engage in discussion aimed largely at displaying the wide variety of competing interests operating in both the production and interpretation of the Bible. Unfortunately, it is common among ideological critics of the Bible to speak of biblical texts as having ideologies. The thrust of this article is to claim that this way of thinking confuses a wide range of issues concerning the relationships between texts and the social practices which both generated those texts and are sustained by interpretations of particular texts. This position is defended by an examination of the various ways in which the Abraham story was read from Genesis through Philo, Paul, and Justin Martyr.

Conceptualizing the body and the logics of performing

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-371
Author(s):  
Deryk Stec
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Art Music ◽  
The Body ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Excessive Heat ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Performance Teams

Purpose This paper aims to examine how residues of ancient images have influenced one’s perspectives on management. Increased attention has been given to the absence of bodies within discussions of organisations; however, far less attention has been given to the interplay between organisations and images of one’s body. Design/methodology/approach By comparing the perceived benefits of studying sport (e.g. passion, embodiment and action) with the tensions that existed between athletic performances and an ancient image of the body, this paper draws attention to residuals that exist within discussions of organisations. Findings In a context where an image of the body encouraged moderation, the appropriate levels of heat, and the development of an immaterial and eternal soul, athletic performances, which were physical, extreme, focused on the body and generated excessive heat, were often problematic. These problems are then examined within the literature discussing current issues in management. Research limitations/implications Sport has the potential to facilitate one’s understanding of issues that management, consistent with ancient images of the body, has traditionally neglected (i.e. extremes, passion) and the possibilities of using embodied cognition to enhance our understandings of performance, teams and leading are discussed. Social implications As scientists become increasingly concerned about the long-term consequences of the reduced opportunities for cultural programs (sport, art, music, etc.), revisiting one’s assumptions is increasingly important, especially as athletics and philosophy once shared the same physical space. Originality/value By describing how residues from historical images of the body have influenced the thinking about organizing, this paper highlights the connection between the social and the biological and demonstrates how vestiges from the past influence contemporary discussions.

scholarly journals Líkami drengsins sem aldrei var til

Ritið ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-126
Author(s):  
Kristín María Kristinsdóttir
Keyword(s):  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
The Body ◽  
Direct Link ◽  
The Social ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Spanish Flu ◽  
Cultural Construct ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
A Site

Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was (Mánasteinn: Drengurinn sem aldrei var til, 2013) by Sjón tells of three eventful months in the life of Máni Steinn in the fall of 1918. In this short period the volcano Katla erupts, the Spanish flu rages and Iceland regains its sovereignty from Denmark. Building on Judith Butler’s, Mary Douglas’s and Michel Foucault’s theories regarding the body as a cultural construct, this article focuses on body discourse as presented in Moonstone. According to Douglas there is a direct link between boundaries of the body and boundaries of society. Everything that endangers the stability of society’s boundaries is considered social pollution. Foucault’s theory on panopticism likewise identifies surveillance and discipline of citizens’ bodies as means of maintaining society’s social structure. Because Máni Steinn is queer, his body is considered abnormal according to the period’s definitions on what constitutes a healthy and stable body. Aberrations from the „healthy“, heterosexual body creates divergence within society's fabric. To regain the appearance of a „pure“ society Máni needs to be hidden or banished from it. Yet the arrival of the Spanish flu to Reykjavík deconstructs conventional definition of the body and unravels the social hierarchy. The distinction between the healthy and the infected is obliterated, as the body becomes a site where irreconcilable opposites merge. During the turmoil of the Spanish flu boundaries of the body become as unstable as society's boundaries become fluent.

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