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.