scholarly journals Identity, Consumption and Ontological Security: Trying to Live on the Edge of the Aesthetic Norm

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (92) ◽  
pp. 132-151
Author(s):  
Tânia Maria de Oliveira Almeida Gouveia ◽  
Eduardo André Teixeira Ayrosa

Abstract The body is an important element in identity management, and its transformations can, to a greater or lesser degree, be related to a reflexive project. Such identity projects are closely related to marketing stimuli, either aligning with or resisting its contents and values to keep a stable and secure identity narrative, building what Giddens (1984; 1991) calls ontological security. The aim of this study is to understand how body-related narratives and practices interact with market stimuli to produce a coherent and ontologically secure "self" that is capable of deviating from the dominant aesthetic standard. Discourse analysis of data indicated four instances that describe how such interaction happens: “struggles with self-demands”, “extreme disciplinary routines”, “self-confidence building”, and “partitions of the body”. Markets provide discursive objects that individuals use to mitigate their problems with deviating from the aesthetic norm, forming coherent narratives and ensuring their ontological security.

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-47
Author(s):  
Marlena Przewłocka-Gągała

Scars on the body can affect both the aesthetic and health aspects. They are formed during the healing of wounds, and the place where the defect is formed is replaced by fibrous connective tissue. Due to the structure, scars can be divided into: atrophic, linear, hypertrophic and keloid. The aim of the study was to present various types of scars and the possibilities of therapy in modern cosmetology and aesthetic medicine. The methods of scar reduction depend on the morphology of the lesions and may be pharmacological, mechanical or chemical. Despite the many possibilities offered by the aesthetic market, complete removal of the scar is often impossible, however, the use of combined therapies may lead to its significant reduction, flattening or discoloration. Scar reduction not only improves the external appearance, but also helps to regain psychological comfort of people as well as increase self-confidence.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 735-735
Author(s):  
Charles Hoy-Ellis ◽  
Hyun Kim ◽  
Karen Fredriksen Goldsen

Abstract LGBTQ older adults are at significantly increased risk for poor mental and physical health, likely consequential to lifelong bias. Allostatic load (AL), the net effect of “wear and tear” on the body resulting from repeated, chronic over-activation of the psychophysiological stress response system. Utilizing the Health Equity Promotion Model, the aim of this study was to test potential life course predictors of AL, including interpersonal violence, legal marriage, and identity management in a sample of LGBTQ adults 50 to 97 years of age (n=317). Results from a series of hierarchical linear regression models showed that adult physical abuse and late identity disclosure for those who had been in an opposite-sex marriage predicted higher AL in this sample of LGBTQ older adults, indicating need for increased research on bias over the life course as contributory to AL and biopsychosocial dysfunction among LGBTQ older adults.


Author(s):  
Barbara Gail Montero

Although great art frequently revers the body, bodily experience itself is traditionally excluded from the aesthetic realm. This tradition, however, is in tension with the experience of expert dancers who find intense aesthetic pleasure in the experience of their own bodily movements. How to resolve this tension is the goal of this chapter. More specifically, in contrast to the traditional view that denigrates the bodily even while elevating the body, I aim to make sense of dancers’ embodied aesthetic experience of their own movements, as well as observers’ embodied aesthetic experience of seeing bodies move.


Articult ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 19-31
Author(s):  
Leila F. Salimova ◽  
◽  

Modern scientific knowledge approaches the study of the physical and aesthetic bodies with a considerable body of texts. However, on the territory of the theater, the body is still considered exclusively from the point of view of the actor's artistic tools. Theatrical physicality and the character of physical empathy in the theater are not limited to the boundaries of the performing arts, but exist in close relationship with the visual and empirical experience of the spectator, performer, and director. The aesthetic and ethical aspect of the attitude to the body in the history of theatrical art has repeatedly changed, including under the influence of changing cultural criteria of "shameful". The culmination of the demarcation of theatrical shame, it would seem, should be an act of pure art, independent of the moral restrictions of society. However, the experiments of modern theater continue to face archaic ethical views. The article attempts to understand the cultural variability of such a phenomenon as shame in its historical and cultural extent using examples from theater art from antiquity to the present day.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 197-205
Author(s):  
Dharmalingam T.S ◽  
Balachandran P

In the modern world, the yoga plays a vital role in human life. To realise the truth and meaning of life, one has to practice yogic discipline in everyday living. The human body is made up of five elements such as akash, air, fire, water and earth. An air plays a very important role to survive by providing life energy. Everyday practice of pranayama would help in regulating respiratory system (Breathing exercise) as well as circulatory system. The physical exercises regulate the circulation of blood, heat, air in the body. The practice of asana would help in bringing flexibility in our muscular system so as to enhance the meditation process. The practice of meditation gives peace of mind and improves integirity. The practice of yoga will improve self-confidence, self-control, speaking truth, tolerance and social virtues. Each and every individual should practice yoga, asanas, meditation and do self-analysis exercises such as analysis of thoughts, moralisation of desires, nutralisation of anger and eradication of worries. This would help to bring hormoney between body and mind, habit and wisdom, self and society. Purpose and method and will and nature.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Catherine Falconer-Gray

<p>In 1844, George French Angas, the English traveller, artist, natural historian and ethnographer spent four months travelling in New Zealand. He sought out and met many of the most influential Maori leaders of the time, sketching and recording his observations as he went. His stated intention was to provide a ‘more correct idea’ of New Zealand and the New Zealanders. In Australia and then Britain he held exhibitions of his work and in 1847 he published two works based on this time in New Zealand: a large volume of full-colour lithographs, The New Zealanders Illustrated and a travel narrative based on his journal, Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand. These exhibitions and publications comprised the nineteenth century’s largest collection of works about Maori and Maori culture. This thesis is a study of the ‘more correct idea’ that Angas sought to provide: his creation of colonial knowledge about Maori. Angas is most commonly described in New Zealand as being an unremarkable artist but as providing a window onto New Zealand in the 1840s. This thesis opens the window wider by looking at Angas’s works as a record of a cultural encounter and the formation of a colonial identity. The works were shaped by numerous ideological and intellectual currents from Britain and the empire, including humanitarianism and the aesthetic of the picturesque. Ideas about gender and the body form a central part of the colonial knowledge created in Angas’s work. Particularly notable is what this thesis terms ‘sartorial colonisation’ – a process of colonisation through discourse and expectations around clothes. Angas also travelled and worked in a dynamic middle ground in New Zealand and Maori played a vital role in the creation of his works. Angas represented Maori in a sympathetic light in many ways. Ultimately however, he believed in the superiority of the British culture, to the detriment of creating colonial knowledge that placed Maori as equal partners in the recently signed Treaty of Waitangi. This thesis also examines the ways in which Angas’s body of work has been engaged with by the New Zealand public through to the present. As a study of the products of a British traveller who spent time in other parts of the empire as well as in New Zealand, this thesis contributes to histories of New Zealand, and British imperial and transcolonial history.</p>


Author(s):  
Shubhangi Karanje

 The concept of beauty and cosmetic is as old as mankind and civilization. Cosmetic product for females like sun scream, lipsticks, facial cream, nail paints, deodorants and sindoor are very popular in the market. They are generally the combination of various chemical compounds and some of them are derived from natural sources and others from synthetic method. In females regular external application of cosmetic products to improve beauty and appearance of a person which increases the self confidence. Most of the cosmetic products contains hazardous chemicals like talcum, parabens, coal, tar dye, phthalates, fragrance, tri ethanolamine and use of some heavy metals e.g. lead, mercury etc. Peoples are not aware of adverse effect of regular use of cosmetic products it accumulates in the body can cause contact dermatitis, skin disorders, allergies, hair loss and effect on nails etc. In Ayurveda cosmetic toxicity is compare to cumulative type of toxicity, so the cumulative type of toxicity is similar to Dushi Visha describes in Ayurveda.


Children with Asperger syndrome still need to be adjusted, in regulating their emotion, to their enjoyment in an activity that will be their emotional allocation. Art is able to improve their self-ability, to strengthen their self-confidence, and also to re-shape lack of knowledge about their own identity. This is because activity of art becomes a collection of inspiration, the aspect of imagination that is closely related to the aesthetic experience. This was a qualitative research as a study intended to understand the phenomenon of something that is experienced by the subject of research. For example: behaviour, perception, motivation, and action in holistic way and described in form of words and language, in a specific-natural context and by utilizing various methods. The research findings show that ability of emotional regulation is the ability of the subject in receiving and understanding a command, and then in minimizing tantrum, so that the subject is able to achieve a treatment therapy; including the subject's ability to identify and draw an object or other objects around them, to recognize some painting tools and to answer questions orally or in writing through the image media. The therapy can be packaged through art education based on painting activity which is the advantage of an area itself. Schools present learning programs that also support character education and the creative potential of the children, so that they can live independently later.


Author(s):  
Alex C. Purves

This conclusion briefly restates the argument of the book and considers the broader implications of studying Homeric formularity and agency through embodied action. It places in juxtaposition the kinetic reflexes of the hero and the aesthetic reflexes of the poet, in an attempt to open up new ways of reading literature through and within the body. The result is a book that thinks in new terms about epic repetition and the actions of Homeric characters within the constraints of oral poetry. I end the conclusion by suggesting that gesture’s quiet capacity to act on its own accord and to exhibit its own form of autonomy leads to novel possibilities for our consideration of Homeric character and agency.


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