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Short abstract

How can imaginations and intuitions of thin-skinned, weakly-bounded and attuned bodies provoke social transformation and impact STS research? This performative intervention teaches STS researchers to blur their body boundaries, practice attunement and feel connected.

Long abstract

In this performative intervention (multimodal guided visualizations), I propose the idea that social and environmental transformation requires a form of embodiment in which bodies are not bounded by that which is contained by the skin. Our current (social) climate asks for a different conceptualization of a body than the individual, such as a “second body” which connects an individual to each and every body on this earth, as proposed by Hildyard (2017). Worlds connect through bodies that are not whole. I propose an imagination of the body of the (STS) researcher as porous, adhering to break the one-body-one-person rule (Boll & Müller 2020) challenged, for instance, by scholars who present bodies and boundaries as leaky, permeable or dissolving (Shildrick 1997, Mol 2002, Hildyard 2017). But how does such a body feel? In this experiment, I present performative imaginations that facilitate blurring boundaries, practicing attunement and feeling connected. Provoking the idea that what social transformation needs is thin-skinned, weakly bounded, and attuned bodies, I end the session by inviting a lively debate about the transformative impact of such embodiments for STS research.

References:

Boll, T., Müller, S.M (2020). Body Boundary Work: Praxeological Thoughts on Personal Corporality. Hum Stud 43, 585–602.

Hildyard, D. (2017). The second body. London: Fitzcarraldo Editions.

Mol, A. (2002). The body multiple. Ontology in medical practice. Durham: Duke University Press.

Shildrick, M. (1997). Leaky bodies and boundaries: Feminism, postmodernism and (bio)ethics. London: Routledge.