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9 - Conceptualizing Bodies, Hierarchy, and Gendering across Cultures

from Part Two - Knowledges and Domains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2023

By
Subhadra Mitra Channa
Edited by
Cecilia McCallum ,
Silvia Posocco  and
Martin Fotta
Cecilia McCallum
Affiliation:
Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil
Silvia Posocco
Affiliation:
Birkbeck College, University of London
Martin Fotta
Affiliation:
Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences
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Summary

This chapter describes the range of cognitive perceptions about the body, drawn from ethnographic narrations of various cultures, with specific emphasis on South Asia, revealing a startling plurality of views and worldviews about it. These perceptions are both informed by and influence practices related to the body, especially those of gendering, hierarchization, and sexuality and exploitation. The intersection of the way bodies are conceptualized to the power hierarchies existing in any situation illuminates how bodies are both constructed and destroyed, explaining why some bodies are considered dispensable while others are considered as precious. The modern market and the commodification of the body leads to its final disintegration and dissolution as marketable parts, dehumanizing it to an ultimate nonhumanity. All these perspectives and practices are contextualized within historical, political, and material fields of power, giving them a dynamic character. The chapter also summarizes some of the key anthropological theorizations and philosophical interrogations about the body, tracing the discourse from classical to the recent postmodern and feminist perspectives.

Keywords

conceptualizing bodiesbodily praxishierarchizationmarginalizationgendersexualitycommodificationdeconstructionSouth Asia
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality , pp. 237 - 259
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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