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- Convenors:
-
Reda Šatūnienė
(Lithuanian University of Health Sciences)
Anna Zadrożna (Institute of Anthropology, University of Gdańsk)
Ieva Paberzyte (McGill University)
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- Formats:
- Panels
- Sessions:
- Friday 24 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
This panel addresses corporeal and/or spiritual practices, perspectives, traditions and inventions that challenge and/or expand human limits and abilities in search for a "better human" and well-being, as well as their outcomes, legal/ethical aspects, and channels of popularization.
Long Abstract:
Current, highly competitive human existence (overworking, precarity, acceleration) impacts both mind and body causing fatigue, anxiety, frustration, pain and exhaustion, or even chronic illnesses. In this context, human body has become a space of constant struggle: we witness series of individual and collective actions, targeted towards re-shaping, re-generating, and re-understanding human body and mind, both reflected in new ideologies, emerging lifestyles, and life-strategies. Practices challenging human abilities and/or expanding human limits manifest strongly as corporeal and/or spiritual: ultra-marathons, trail runnings, eclectic forms of body-mind training, breathing techniques, mindfulness, or use of entheogens are just examples of what can be seen as "biohacking", indicating self-directed DIY experiments in search for a "better human". In addition to/instead of medical consultations and interventions, Internet, popular media and social networks become the source of "know-how" regarding the use of drugs/medicaments, dieting, sports and human psychology and well-being.
We invite papers that explore:
Historical perspectives on athletics, fitness, well-being;
Contemporary self-directed body/mind practices that lead to crossing/challenging one's limits;
The quest for a "better human"; alternative understandings of body/mind, attempts to re-invent and re-think a human being;
Inventions and traditions in/beyond Europe; marginal lifestyles, subcultures, movements; body/mind practices on the peripheries;
The role of Internet, popular media and social networks in popularizing body/mind practices;
Self-directed DIY experiments with body/mind; sources of knowledge, outcomes, the questions of credibility, authority and trust;
Legal and ethical questions and issues regarding body/mind, health and well-being.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 24 July, 2020, -Paper short abstract:
Body suspensions challenge the idea of human limits offering an (almost) unexplored ethnographical case of reflection about self-making projects, the construction of contemporary human relations through painful shared procedures and the exploration of regenerative strategies to enhance the self
Paper long abstract:
Well-being and pain are concepts generally thought as opposite.
Narratives of mind-regeneration through physical pain are at the center of this proposal, focusing on body manipulations elaborated as self-enhancement projects by regular body suspension practitioners.
A body suspension is the voluntary elevation of the body through hooks inserted in the skin. Hooks are connected to ropes passing in a scaffolding: pulling them, the protagonist goes on air.
Investigating meanings associated to the practice, the on-going doctoral research shows an increasing number of practitioners in Europe, as well as projects of self-making and self-enhancement involved. By exploring suspension festivals, daily gatherings and Facebook groups, I explored the connection between body suspensions and the desire to "go beyond human limits", turning the practice into strategies to manipulate the self, its perceptive abilities, and the authenticity of social relations experienced in the body suspension community.
Suspensions are extreme body manipulations aiming to regenerate the constructed concept of personhood through processes of altered states of mind induced by painful procedures and over-stimulation of hormones'.
Finally the presentation will illustrate ethnographer's positionings and methodological difficulties: the use of hooks, blood and pain constituted an investigative challenge that required the adaptation of fieldwork's tools with experimental methodologies.
The proposal is supported by «EXCEL - The Pursuit of Excellence. Biotechnologies, enhancement and body capital in Portugal». The project received funding from the Foundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (grant nº PTDC/SOC-ANT/30572/2017), coordinated by PI Chiara Pussetti at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation explores how girls' concepts of their future adult identity are powerfully shaped by their desires for a cosmopolitan and/or fictional future.
Paper long abstract:
What must one have to be a better person? The answers vary not simply by culture and community, but also by age. I examine becoming a "better human" through children, who struggle to imagine a future life beyond that of their family, school, and routine. The concept of "desire" is paramount, as it emphasizes not what one already owns or practices, but rather what one "wants." Specifically focusing on girl cultures, I examine how desires— especially for people, places, things, and identities far away from their everyday lives—influences girls in their imaginings of that ideal future. This presentation examines two examples of girl's future desires: one from fieldwork conducted in Northern Thailand in the 1990s, and the other from current "cyber-ethnography" exploring the effect of new and emerging mediascapes (like social media sites, chat rooms, fan fiction, fan conventions, and "booktube") on Western girls. I argue that, in terms of becoming better (older, wiser, richer, prettier) humans, girls are shaped by their longings for a specific type of future, which are significantly influenced by fantasy images of faraway places. This research brings a new perspective on the world, focusing on a combination of the real and the fantastic, but I argue that this is children's experience of the world today—they are growing up with a normalized perspective of how the real and the fantasy combine to make the everyday. The new resultant identities define new important cultural factors: new kinships, new rituals, new beliefs, and new politics.