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- Convenors:
-
Tatiana Bužeková
(Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava)
Marta Botikova (Comenius University in Bratislava)
- Discussant:
-
Marta Botikova
(Comenius University in Bratislava)
- Stream:
- Body/Embodiment
- Location:
- A214
Short Abstract:
The panel is supposed to present results of ethnographic research on the body in different stages of life as it is reflected in social norms and conventions, narratives, and multiply visions of the globalized world.
Long Abstract:
Conceptions of the body are central to anthropological and ethnological research, where they affect both theory and methodology; they are also important to folklore studies, where the body appears as a significant aspect of folklore expressions and various forms of tradition. In the recent decades social scholars tend to consider the body as a physical as well as symbolic artefact, as both naturally and culturally conceived, and as a product of particular historical situation. Thus the body in different phases of life is linked to times past and present, as well as to materialization of utopian imaginations. It is a central issue in expressive culture and everyday practices in numerous spheres: the body invariably appears in social norms and social structure, rituals, religious beliefs, people's motivations, emotional experience, political context, gender stratification, marriage and partnership, mass media representations, and many other aspects of culture. We would like to invite scholars from the fields of anthropology, ethnology, folkloristics, and related disciplines to present their research results on the body and age, as they are reflected in three main areas: social norms and conventions, narratives, and multiply visions of the globalized world.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Marija Geiger Zeman (Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar) Zdenko Zeman (Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar)
Paper short abstract:
Presentation is based on an analysis of focus groups on gender aspects and standards of ageing, interpretations of subjective experience of personal physical ageing as well as reflections on cosmetic interventions from a perspective of older persons.
Paper long abstract:
The body is a central topos of our existence and getting old is a process which inevitably transforms a body (and a face) as time passes by. The body and its condition are interrelated in complex ways. Ageing is a multi-layered process which includes not only physiological, but also psychological remodeling (Fortunati, 2001) at individual level, where a special scientific emphasis lies on subjective interpretations and individual creating of meaning of these "remodeling" processes. Given the fact that we do not age in socio-cultural vacuum, it is extremely important that the analysis of interpretations of subjective experiences includes both a person's biography and his/her broader living context. Ageing and old age can be interpreted and coded in different (compatible but also diametrically opposed) ways. If the gender aspect is included in the analysis of complex processes of ageing, multidimensional insights about double gender standards and self-evaluations become clearly visible. These double standards are connected with the internalized gender asymmetry in the society/culture. This presentation is based on the analysis of focus groups held in four homes for older and infirm people in Croatian cities of Zagreb and Split, with the participation of its users. The analysis is focused on interpretations of subjective experiences of personal physical ageing, gendered experiences of ageing as well as detailed explanations of attitudes towards plastic surgery and practices of physical and facial beautification or masking someone's real age, thus understanding ageing and old age in a broader socio-cultural context.
Lubica Volanska (Slovak Academy of Sciences)
Paper short abstract:
The paper deals with the narratives about old age in the autobiographies of elderly people in Bratislava and Vienna at the turn of the 21. Century, with the ambivalent perception of old age in various discourses juxtaposed to the old age as experienced by elderly people themselves.
Paper long abstract:
The paper deals with the narratives about old age in the autobiographies of elderly people in Bratislava and Vienna at the end of the turn of the 21. Century. It examines the ambivalent perception of old age in both public and academic discourses juxtaposed to the old age as experienced by elderly people themselves (through the giving voice perspective), especially in relation to their body.
For example, the perception of the body presents one possible borderline of old age, although this topic does not occur very often in the narratives - in connection with the concept of "silenced bodies" by Gabriele Rosenthal. When it occurs, it is connected for example to the loss of physical attractiveness perceived mostly by female authors or in connection to the medicalization of old age through geriatric medicine or gerontology by both genders. Whether the encounter with the borders of an own old age means a biographical turn, depends on personal life experiences and the roles prescribed to the individuals by the society. For instance: men - retirement, women - physical attractiveness.
In the narratives several formulations related to the perception of the body could be also connected to the concept of "ageless self" by Sharon Kaufman or "mask of age" by Michael Hepworth: the elderly perceive the meaning not in the aging itself, but in being themselves in old age.
Anne Leonora Blaakilde (Roskilde University)
Paper short abstract:
A study about bodily intra-actions with radio as materialisation, sound and the structured rythms of daily life. The study is based on interviews with people 70+ about their life-long interactions with radio. The analysis is based on a life course perspective with specific interest in later life.
Paper long abstract:
Since the beginning of the 20th century radiobroadcasting and the radio apparatus have travelled in time and technological maturing, which means that radio as a media and radio-listening as a human activity incorporate several aspects relevant to the study of ageing and experiences of ageing. In this study I am interested in the bodily intra-actions with radio as materialisation, sound and rythms of daily life.
This study of radio-listening is based empirically on a current fieldwork among Danish people above 70 years who are interviewed about their radio-listening and -practices in a life course perspective.
Initially, the analysis is of temporal character; applying a life-course perspective including:
-Individual aspects: Taste and practice, identification, emotionality and daily routines,
-Social aspects: Sociability, joint experiences of listening, (in real or in imaged
communities), feelings of community
-Cultural aspects: Historical and generationally specific experiences and memories.
The study is applying socio-material theories while analyzing practices of radiolistening as material-discoursive intra-actions involving bodies, radioapparatuses, and the content chosen from these in a life course perspective. I am interested in intra-actions where these phenomena involves a "becoming with" ageing.
This analysis includes materiality, time and space, memory and experience, so
I apply a mix of socio-material and narrative theoretical inspirations. This means that the interactions between the listening bodies and the apparatuses, their spatial positions and movements are interpreted as material-semiotic intra-actions, as well as embodied experiences and memories in time and space are interpreted in a postphenomenological perspective, influencing on daily rythm and bodily movements.
Martin Heřmanský (Charles University in Prague)
Paper short abstract:
The paper will focus on subcultural practices concerning the body among contemporary Czech emo kids. In addressing the issue of how is the body used, I will show its potentiality to subvert social norms of dominant society and, at the same time, to reproduce to some extent its hegemonic masculinity.
Paper long abstract:
Emo is one of the most recent youth subcultures today, experiencing its boom after the year 2000. Emerged from punk and hard core subcultures, it has been also heavily influenced by both goth subculture and otaku participatory culture, all of which have made a lasting impact on perception and use of body among contemporary emo kids.
The body, by means of style and embodied subcultural capital, plays an important role in formation and reproduction of subcultural identity of many emo kids being an important tool for manifestation of their authenticity. Both emo boys and girls transform their corporeal capital to subcultural one by the notion of body as a project which is shaped, enhanced and transformed to gain its "proper" form and look.
In my paper, I will focus on diverse subcultural practices of contemporary emo kids in Czech Republic, which concerns the body. In addressing the issue of how is the body used is emo subculture, I will show its potentiality to subvert social norms of dominant society and, at the same time, to reproduce to some extent its hegemonic masculinity.
Päivi Roivainen (University of Turku)
Paper short abstract:
How do children interpret the clothed body? In the paper, based on interviews of 5-7 year old children, I will introduce how children themselves analyze age, gender, body, function and aesthetics.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper I will discuss how 5-7 year old children interpret the clothed body. I´m preparing my PhD study on childrens clothing as material culture.Typical feature in the study of childhood has been the fact that childhood has been seen from adult´s point of view. There has been studies on parents ideas of childwear and on childhood memories of grown-ups. The demand of researching children in their own right saw a daylight in childhood studies in the 1970s. There has been increasing interest in childrens own experiences ever since. In my study I have wanted to express childrens´ own voice: their own thoughts and feelings. I have been interviewing children in small groups and we have been talking about their own clothes as well as some pictures of historical childwear in museum collections. How do children analyze age, gender, body, function and aesthetics? How do they express their visual and tactile observations and their emotions? How does their strong sense of certain social conventions interact with the vivid world of imagination, narratives and fairytales?
Zuzana Pešťanská (Comenius University in Bratislava)
Paper short abstract:
The paper aims to demonstrate a relation between the conception of pollution associated with the moral emotion of disgust and gynaecological nurses´representations of the female body in the pregnancy. It presents the results of ethnographic field research at a hospital.
Paper long abstract:
In my contribution I will discuss gynaecological nurses' representations of pregnant women. I will illustrate my argument by the results of ethnographic research at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in a hospital situated in Central Slovakia. I will consider a relation between (1) conception of "pollution" associated with the moral emotion of disgust, and (2) nurses' representations of the female body in pregnancy. I will present the results of analysis of the nurses' stories about (im)proper and (un)hygienic behaviour of the patients admitted into the Division of Risk Pregnancy at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and will relate these results to the Mary Douglas' conception of dirt as a universal symbol of social classificatory systems. I will demonstrate that nurses' descriptions of the bodies of pregnant women are biased toward negative statements: what is not proper for female body during pregnancy, and what pregnant women should not do. Apart from Mary Douglas' Grid-Group Cultural Theory, I will interpret my results in terms of the Moral Foundation Theory developed by Jonathan Haidt and his colleagues from the field of cultural psychology. I will argue that combination of those two theories is useful in explanations of social classifications and action tendencies.
Andrei Mihail (SNSPA Bucharest)
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on strategies of coping with disease of kidney recipients after realizing that the transplant is just a different treatment of the same illness. The patient is surounded by individualizing discourses through which he must make new senses of a body re-shaped by the transplant.
Paper long abstract:
A new kidney brings the promise of a new life for sufferers of renal disease going through dialysis. The transplant surgery is promoted by the health system and NGOs as a cure which will restore the patient`s body autonomy and life-style disrupted by the failing kidney. However, after the surgery the patient finds himself in a different reality. Dietary constraints and strong immunosuppressive medication with short and long-term side effects are limiting the improved body autonomy. The transplant becomes a different treatment for the same old diseased organism. Through this paper, I will focus on the new relationship between body and disease that are emerging after the transplant from patients disillusioned by the promise of the "gift" of life. By using ethnographic data collected from members of Romania`s biggest recipient NGO, I will show that the patients must deal with the disease in an ambiguous context created at the interstice of the medical and social levels. The indi
vidualizing ideology of modern medicine is a key factor of understanding the habitus constraining patients to embody their disease. Is it just your own disease for whose evolution you must be held responsible? It`s a question whose answer is shaped through interactions with medical staff, media, psychologists, dieticians and other recipients. Emerging body-illness relationships are ranging from disease as a "partner" as one recipient pointed out, or as something better to "refuse" as did another recipient.