Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how discourse on 3D bioprinting technologies in popular science journals and newspapers targets physical functionality in humans as either individual and varying, general and normative – or rather envisions a transhuman, utopian level of enhanced functionality.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores whether and in what way pop-science and business discourse on the development of 3D bioprinting technologies, is embedded in transhuman, futuristic visions of enhanced functionality in popular science journals and newspapers. It investigates the issue of how popular discourse on these technologies talk of functionality as either individual and varying, general and normative – or rather as envisioning a transhuman, utopian level of enhanced functionality.

Taking departure from the notion in disability studies that it is the environment that disables, and not the person that is disabled - the paper wishes to understand the ways in which functionality is expressed as located either in the physical person or in its environment, in popular discourse on 3d bioprinting.

The paper further wishes to problematize the understanding of interiority contra exteriority - or person and environment in this case - if instead taking a phenomenological stance of human agency. Where may we locate physical disability if there are no clear demarcations between person and environment? What consequences may such conceptual dissonance have for disability rights discussions, as well as for the technical development of (non-organic) 3D printed aids and protheses, in contrast to 3D bioprinted devices – such as body parts or organs? The first is seemingly more easily accepted as empowering by disability rights communities; but will the latter rather be discarded as an expression of ableism and violence?

Paper short abstract:

This research project explores six genital cutting practices: Girl circumcision, boy circumcision, intersex infants, intimate cosmetic surgery, gender confirming surgery, and for aesthetics or as part of erotic activity. The presentation will present preliminary analysis of fieldwork.

Paper long abstract:

The research literature highlight several dilemmas around the above mentioned six genital cutting practices: Does the benefits outweigh the risks? Is the cutting an attempt to align social and anatomical understandings of gender and sex? Can consent separate between childhood and adulthood genital cutting practices? Who makes decisions and how are decisions made in regard to the right to genital integrity and autonomy? The research literature is, however, at theoretical level with lack of empirical study. This research project therefore seeks to gain a better understanding of actors and experiences before, during and after each cutting by using a qualitative multiple case study methodology where each genital cutting practice is defined as a case. We have interviewed or observed 3-5 persons who has experienced each genital cutting practice and actors that influence or are influenced by this person (health workers, parents, religious leaders, romantic partner, legal rulings, health guidelines etc), a total of 52 persons have participated in one or more interview(s), and informal conversation and non-participants observation has also been done. The aim is to gain a better insight into experiences, reflections, motivations and characteristics of the involved actors for each of the six practices. During data analysis we will first analyse the content of each separate genital cutting practice before analysing differences and similarities between the practice. The aim of the analysis is to gain a better understanding of the dilemmas that the current theoretical research literature emphasises.

Paper short abstract:

Body re-enhancement practices are nowadays a current practice: bionic bodies, manipulation of body parts aiming for perfection contrast with the corpus incorruptus of the popular Catholicism saints, whose capacity to defeat death and decay is transmitted to the body parts that become relics.

Paper long abstract:

In the pursuit of excellence, body enhancement and biohacking practices are nowadays a current practice. Individuals put on “body parts” (using various cosmetic- medical techniques) to create bionic bodies, perfect creatures that challenge aging and death. If we move to the religious world, and especially popular Catholicism, we can find the opposite symmetric to such bodies: the corpus incorruptus, of someone thought of as a perfect/idealized soul, that defies death, decomposition and decay. These two opposites are both composed of detached body parts: the silicone breasts or the bottom added to a living body to enhance it, according to certain perfection ideals; the body parts of a popular saint turned into relics that are spread to various destinations.

The interventions in the bionic bodies are thought to be long-term, but, in fact, they need periodic re-adjustments and they ultimately do not defeat death. On the opposite, the perfect body of a saint, when dismantled, becomes an entity that is separated to spread its holy power—the relics that protect and bring benefits to their holders. We thus face a dualism between temporality and permanence, both targeting perfection: the bionic body needs re-interventions, the relics last forever, challenging the decomposition of human tissues, and aiming immortality.

Based on the EXCEL-The Pursuit of Excellence (ICS-CPussetti) project, this paper will discuss the re-connections and disconnections between the dismembered bodies of individuals, experimental dolls and corpus incorruptus.

Paper short abstract:

Contrary to unambiguous rhetoric of rescuing others by donating blood, it seems that representations of bodies and strategies of actors to make sense of the experience are more complex. This communication focus on various considerations when giving, treating and receiving blood in Liège, Belgium.

Paper long abstract:

The rhetoric about blood donation generally insists on the irreplaceable gift of bodily fluid that saves life and heals victims. Nevertheless, is this idea of restoring/repairing the body by transfusion the only operative one in the world of blood transfusion ?

Do donors see themselves as a "repairers" of other's body ? Do they consider the donation as threat to their health ? On the opposite, is it a proof of strength and a mean of increasing their own health ? How does recipients experience the reincorporation of other people's blood into their body and how do they consider it before and after a transfusion? Do professionals of blood collections and transfusion share those concerns ?

Through ethnographic cases, I will explore different points of view on the body changed by transfer of blood. I will use my current thesis work in anthropology, which aims to retrace the “social life” of blood in its different stages between a donor and a recipient in Liège, Belgium. This approach allows to associate and compare voices of different actors dedicated to the collection, treatment and administration of blood. The focus will be on different experiences of blood donation and transfusion and its effects on the body, which can be repaired, complexified, damaged or increased.

The presentation will be based on analyses and field materials to explore how actors are making sense of the intimate and bodily experience of blood transfer in an ultra moralized and medicalized environment such as blood donation.

Paper short abstract:

Fitness is based on the idea of how the body can be transformed in a ‘natural’ way. Training represents not only the tool, but also the limit of the body’s plasticity. This presentation aims to show how the idea of the body transformation is related to bottom-up experiences of the gym participants.

Paper long abstract:

Fitness culture is based on the idea of how the body can be transformed in a ‘natural’ way. A set of kinesthetic practices called training represent not only the ‘tool’, but also the limit of the body’s plasticity. In the idea of fitness, only exercise can help improve a physical body and mark the extent to which the body could be transformed.

The aim of this presentation is to show how the idea of the transformation of human body, which is inscribed into various kinesthetic practices developing within fitness industry, is related to bottom-up experiences of the participants of these practices in the context of reshaping their bodies and keeping control over them. Research questions focus on the process of reclassifying ideals of the body, exploring predispositions and limits of one’s body, understanding the idea of ‘true’ and ‘natural’ transformation of the body and its legitimization.

This presentation is based on fieldwork conducted in fitness clubs in Poland. Different research methods include not only in-depth interviews with female fitness participants and fitness instructors, but also participant observation and personal experence of the researcher herself, as she has been working as a fitness instructor in gyms for years.