Body taken for granted

This article focuses on the power technology and globalization has on our behaviors, motivations and overall the way we take care of our bodies. Going back home in the middle of nowhere south of France last week has made the difference between the way we use our bodies depending on hnow immerged in a technology driven environment. My family lives in a farm in the middle of nowhere on a fluvial island, where we do not have internet, nor good cell service. My family’s relationship with technology and their bodily function is very different from the one I have been accustomed to by living in heavily « technologized » societies.

In Natasha Schull’s article, “Data for life: Wearable technology and the design of self-care.”, she pinpoints and explain the new developing technologies that are shaping us. The emergence of wearable technologies like the “Applewatch” or the “Fitbit” has created a new way for technologies to influence our behaviors constantly by monitoring our bodily functions as well as activity throughout the day. 

“I then turn to consider the behavioral-informatic mode of regulation that corresponds to such a self, which I call ‘governance by micronudge’, focusing on how this mode of regulation at once exemplifies and short-circuits cultural ideals for individual responsibility” (Schull, 2016; 8).

The micronudge referred to here is a new form of power given to technologies, that differs from more institutional power. A noticeable difference is that allowing the wearable technologies’ power to invade your life is a choice. Today’s culture is heavily reliant on technology, much more than in ages where electricity was not yet globalized. The dispositifs functioning today are more and more omnipresent in our lives. The power a simple fitbit vibration can have on your behaviors is enormous because of the blind trust we put in technology. It does not yet occur to us that those dispositifs might overthrow our own freedom and take over our entire lives. Take for the example the movie “The Matrix”, in which technology has taken over the world and now control humans, using our body energy to power their own machinery. In some way, we became their dispositive by influencing their way of being. By stripping us of our sense of kinship and existing altogether, they have reduced us to simple batteries. Transforming humanity into a simple mean to assure their survival. All the anthropological questions we considered in this class no longer matter if our very existence is reduced to creating energy. Our very sense of anthropology, culture and customs would not exist anymore.

“My problem, as I have already said, is in understanding how truth games are set up and how they are connected with power relations” (Foucault, 1997; 296). This could relate to a study done by David Rosenhan (1973) in which sane patients were being evaluated in mental institutions and checked in for an unlimited amount of time. They were to simulate hearing voices for the time of the interview but to behave normally immediately after and for the rest of their stay. From the point of the diagnosis, all their behaviors were interpreted according to their “mental illness”. This truth game induced a power relation in which those “patients” were now regarded as mentally ill, without any proof, other than an initial interview to back up that claim. This shows how a truth game can impact and create power relationships distorted by one false belief. The staff treating those fake patients with condescendence and smugness was only on the basis of a fake diagnosis. All their technologies of the self are seen in one light that differs completely from their habitus, because they indeed behaved normally for the rest of their stay. But for the staff, they are speaking their truth as well, so where does putting yourself into question come into play? Do you constantly have to think twice about your own beliefs to make sure they are not distorted by a dispositif? Or do we take the risk of abusing our power on someone else by being sure of ourselves ?

In Foucault’s text about Ethics of care of the self, he explains that risks of power overuse depends on taking care of one self.

“But if you take proper care of yourself, if you know ontologically what you are, if you know what you are capable of … if you know all this you cannot abuse your power over others” (Foucault, 1997; 288). However, taking proper care of yourself, in my opinion, does not repress the fundamentally human need to be superior to others. You could argue that the simple human nature and truth games is what makes people abuse their power over others, not whether they take good care of themselves.

WORKS CITED :

Schull, Natasha Dow. 2016. “Data for life: Wearable technology and the design of self-care.”  BioSocieties11 (2016): 317-333.

Wachowski, Andy, Larry Wachowski, Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, and Carrie-Anne Moss. 1999. The matrix. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video.

Foucault, Michel. 1997. “The Ethics of the Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom” in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth (pp. 281-301)

Rosenhan, David (1973). “On Being Sane in Insane Places.” Science 179:250-58

The habitus, our way to absorb and enact techniques of the body relying on culture and social relations. It is like an embodied lifeworld. In this article I will focus on Mauss’ text : Techniques of the body as it was, for me, more relevant and interesting relating to the habitus. In his text, he describes techniques of the body and how they are influenced by culture and socio-cultural status. It was stated in class, that techniques of the body have to be effective for the body to absorb them. But what about precarious ideas we are holding, that are culturally anchored but physically inconvenient. Like traditional tattoos, neck rings in the Kayan culture or the Chinese foot binding custom. Those are passed on through culture and are considered a part of their habitus although they can be physically burdensome.

In the text, Mauss states that “in all these elements of the art of using the human body, the facts of education were dominant” (Mauss 1973, 73). This emphasizes the role of nurture in absorbing techniques of the body. Nature also is a determinant that should not be underestimated. A documentary called Three Identical Strangers (2018) follows the story of three young men who meet each other at 19, discovering that they are triplets who were separated at birth for a psychological experiment. The experiment was aimed at comparing different rearing environment to scale the role of nurture over nature. We could relate our habitus to that study because even if each family in which they were placed was socially and economically very different, they all came to extensively relate to one another and share a huge amount of similarities. The way they move, talk and behave is disturbingly similar. As such, the question arises; is our habitus essentially related to our education, class and culture? One of the triplets was raised in an immigrant culture that strongly differs from the conservative and strict environment another one lived in but they still ended up having a very similar habitus. Another assumption is that our habitus is deeply anchored within ourselves and that they will always betray us by coming back to the surface. But take the example of someone raised by wealthy parents with very conservative views who chooses to diverge completely from the values she was raised in. Her habitus would technically be reflecting a high social status and strict moral values. But when she chooses to believe in another way of life, is she changing her habitus or is just delusional about her capacities to break off from her education? I believe that our habitus is not fixed and can change with our capacity to create our own self. It is maybe, in part because of her education that she chooses to diverge, but it was not through imitation.

Mauss also concludes his essay with, “In every society, everyone knows and has to know and learn what he has to do in all situations” (Mauss 1973, 85.). But what if society itself is biased from centuries of traditional practices that have impaired our way to move towards a goal of acceptance and tolerance rather than judgment and fear of the unknown. Shouldn’t we be able to modulate our actions based on case specific particularities and not antiquated social values?

Works Cited :

• Mauss, Marcel. 1973 [1934] “Techniques of the Body.” Economy and Society 2
• “Three Identical Strangers” 2018. Directed by Tim Wardle. NEON studios.

Body (n.): screen through which we can see the historical, social and cultural dynamics playing out in the physical/organic realm.

It is simultaneously one and multi-faceted, with various ways of understanding its complexity. Our body as a screen can be illustrated as a two-way mirror, which on one side conveys the behaviors that make us who we are, our “habitus” (Mauss 1973). But also apprehends everything in our life. And finally, contains hidden from view, but seeing all, our unconscious (Ellenberger 1994).

Our body evolves.

The habitus is our way to absorb and enact techniques of the body (Mauss 1973) relying on culture and social relations and norms. Technologies of the self (Foucault 1997) are intentional practices that transform our bodies, whereas our habitus is the embodiment of a set of dispositions. It is fundamentally unconscious, its practice is automatic, and technologies of the self can become part of our habitus through repetition, becoming automatic. Our body can change through the integration of new technologies of the self into our habitus. They are integrated through a screen-like quality that enables us to absorb our world and modulate our way of being accordingly. Therefore, the way we are in the world is modulated by our past, our story as well as the historical, social and cultural context in which we evolve. But is it really? This would imply that moving to another country permanently would bring about a change in our habitus based on the new culture we live in. It would influence the way we walk, talk, if we hold doors open for strangers, overall the way we convey our story in the physical world.

Mauss states that “in all these elements of the art of using the human body, the facts of education were dominant” (Mauss 1973, 73). He emphasises the importance of tradition and education, allowing us to understand someone’s habitus by reading their body like a story, specifically a legend. A legend is a traditional story, sometimes popularly regarded as historical but not authenticated. (Oxford Dictionary). Legends are historically transmitted orally and are part of children’s education. Each scar, smile or habit is part of our own legend/story. But can this story change after it has been shaped by our education? Once we are used to a certain way of being, it is extremely hard to change according to a new environment you’ve never lived in. Then, can our habitus change according to settings or is it set in the context we grew up in? Does living in a multicultural society makes us ambivalent or rather, lost in between different ways of being?

The case example of Mr. Brown presented by Kauffman shows that he, whom was used to being physically active and well mannered, was deeply impaired by a stroke. « The illness experience as dehumanizing, compromising, and altering one’s life through changing what one takes for granted »(Kaufmann 2011, 4). He suddenly went from being able to take care of himself to needing help for everything. His screen played his historical, cultural and social dynamics in the physical world according to the evolution of his story, changing with it. Contrary to Mauss’ argument, our screen is also influenced by present experience and not mainly by education. This shows that our body can change and evolve, but can also suffer with that change.

Our body hurts

Our screen can fissure or shatter based on the context as well. “Bio-politics” (Stevenson 2014) and colonialism are contexts in which our sense of self is impaired. Biopolitics is the concept of protecting life exclusively in organic terms. “The inscriptions mark the degree to which Inuit bodies actually became statistics in the eyes of the Canadian state and its agents.” (Lisa Stevenson 2014, 31). In Stevenson’s text, considering the Inuits as only a statistic in the system, and caring for them for the sole purpose of “looking good” is a form of violent colonialism because it takes away the possibility to inhabit cultural institutions. What is displayed on their screen is now lacking a part of themselves. Protecting life solely on organic terms is not enough. What makes us human is more than just flesh and bones, it includes our social faculties, the beauty of a kiss or the gift of cultural diversity. Taking away all those things would be like turning our screens off. Or reducing it to simple black and white images that would be the same for everybody, stripped of colors and variety. A screen through which we could not see the historical, social and cultural dynamics playing out in the physical/organic realm. Or at least not as it is but through a universal filter of a single existence. The traumatic experience of biopolitics is like erasing all the chapters of our story that constitute our cultural, historical and social existence. This trauma can cross our screen and settle in our unconscious, within which it takes apart our habitus, fracturing our physical world by nullifying our cultural selves.

In Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth (1965) he describes cases involving mental disorders in colonial Algeria. He, by discussing with both colonized and colonizing individuals, shows that violent colonialism traumatizes both parties. “the psychiatric phenomenon, the mental and behavioral disorders emerging from this war have loomed so large among the perpetrators of “pacification” and the “pacified” population” (181). Surprisingly, the perpetrators and the victims experienced a rupture in their screen. Our bodies are unpredictable, we can think we are going to react a certain way, but our past may be embodied too deep for us to consciously realize how events may impact us. As Mauss said, our education can greatly influence our appraisal of situations. Values can dictate how our perception is shaped, empathy and resistance may or may not be an important part of our self-concept, building the path our body will take in facing

violent colonialism. Suffering is an inherent part of building ourselves, evolving as individuals and through the organic realm. The pacifier’s example in Fanon’s depiction shows that the breach in his screen stemmed directly sort of work he was doing. The way he interprets the situation is shaped by his own cultural dynamic.

Our body is like a book, we go through our own stories not knowing what awaits us on the next page. When a text is read, it takes a new meaning, which is anchored within ourselves. But by reading more and more, our interpretation of the first text can change along with our knowledge. Our body changes and hurts in accordance with our education, present experiences and already established habitus. Those are shaped by the journey that is our life, displayed by our screen, performed in our world.

Our body heals.

The trauma produced by biopolitics and colonialism crosses our screen and settle in our unconscious. But by accessing it and letting the repressed trauma diffuse so we can reach it, it is possible to resolve it and heal. It is like osmosis in a cell. Water diffusion through its membrane allows cell respiration, letting oxygen in and carbon dioxide (the trauma) out. Our unconscious is a reservoir of past experiences, which are expressed through symptoms, resembling the functioning of a locomotive. The outside part of our two-way mirror keeps the lid down, and what spills out are the symptoms.

Freud’s work is an excellent illustration of how unconscious access can induce healing. By using “free association” (Freud 1985), the patient and the therapist work together through language to access a past trauma and initiate the healing. “The technique of the narrative thus aims at recreating a real experience […] to make the center of inexpressible and painful sensations ‘clear’ for her and accessible to her consciousness” (Lévi-Strauss, 1974, 194). Here, a shaman is a medium in between the symbolic and organic realms. By opening up the woman’s screen, he allows her to connect with her unconscious. By language he makes her pain tangible and she can then understand it and move towards healing. He is making her emotional and unconscious pain tolerable by her body and consciousness, and thus he allows the body to fight against it.

As seen with Levi-Straus’ story about the shaman, the use of symbols in the shaman’s approach resembles some modern techniques using the same means in psychotherapy. Symbols are an inherent part of our language and govern some of our interactions, like metaphors and sarcasm. Through it, we can access unconscious traumas through the process of “abreaction” (Ellenberger 1994). Abreaction is the process through which a patient re-experiences the traumatic experiences of the past in the present. In modern psychology; “Psychotherapy cures the hysterical symptoms (though not the hysterical predisposition) by bringing the trauma to consciousness and discharging it through affect. words, or corrective association” (Ellenberger 1994, 486). Therefore, the unconscious acts as a defense mechanism, helping the screen blur

 experiences that were too harmful to come to the surface. If reaching our unconscious reveals the harmful truths we were hiding to protect ourselves, could it also imply that the unconscious has the authority over the screen? Is the unconscious, in the symbolic realm, superior to the organic realm? Has human evolution made us slaves to our own screens/bodies? Consequently, are we really our own or do we have a hidden double identity in the unconscious, shaped by all those inhibited thoughts, drives and experiences. Is our screen really showing our true selves or only what the unconscious allows it to portray through the organic world? The historical, cultural and social dynamics playing out in the organic realm are only the ones available to our consciousness, it is missing a considerable amount of experiences that might have an impact if they were available.

So, is our body really a screen through which we can see them or only a filter showing what small percentage of ourselves we have access to?

 Our body can change, break and heal. Separately or all at once. Those changes, hardships and healings alter the way our screen depicts us, and how we are seen by the world.

WORKS CITED:

Legend | Definition of Tale in English by Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford Dictionaries | English, Oxford Dictionaries, en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/legend.

Mauss, Marcel. 1973 [1934] “Techniques of the Body.” Economy and Society 2 (1): 70–88

Foucault, Michel. 1997. “Technologies of the Self” in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth (pp. 223-252)

Kaufman, Sharon R. 1988. “Toward a Phenomenology of Boundaries in Medicine: Chronic Illness Experience in the Case of Stroke.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly

Fanon, Frantz. 1965. “Colonial War and Mental Disorders” In the Wretched of the Earth (181-199)

Stevenson, Lisa. 2014. “Facts and Images” in Life Beside Itself (pp.21-48).

Ellenberger, Henri, The Discoveries of the Unconscious, Chapter 7, Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis (1994)

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Effectiveness of Symbols (1974)

Four months ago, I went through an emergency knee surgery because of a destroyed meniscus. Needless to say I was not mentally prepared to lose my capacity to walk overnight. One month of a leg-long brace preventing me from moving, bending or twisting my knee. This experience made me realize how, all my life, I have constantly taken my body’s basic functions for granted. The same phenomenon happens when you find yourself sick and cannot breathe normally through your nose, you then realize how easy your life seemed back when you could. Although, my experience was much more invalidating, the basic sensory concept is the same. This relates to the concept of a Lifeworld. A Lifeworld is the world that we take for granted, the world we live into when we don’t reflect on it. “The Lifeworld, le Lebenswelt, is the world of our common, immediate lived experiences” (Good 1994 ,122). It can be disrupted by illness or temporary disabilities. Exactly like when I woke up in the hospital, unable to move my leg at all.

 Kaufman’s text « Chronic illness experience of stroke: followed patients who suffered a stroke, and evaluated the emotional and physical toll it had on their lives and lifeworlds. « Phenomenologists describe the illness experience as dehumanizing, compromising, and altering one’s life world through changing what ones takes for granted ». (Kaufmann 2011, 4) The case example of Mr. Brown shows that he, who was used to being physically active and well mannered, was deeply impaired by the stroke. He suddenly went from being able to take care of himself to needing help for everything. This sudden change impaired the way he saw himself as well as the body he took for granted. Previous life experience shaped how badly the illness affected his lifeworld because of how big the change was. The more impact an illness has on the emotional and physical capacities, the more it will hinder one’s self embodied and linguistic experiences.

As of my experience, I have never had problems relating to walking before so I never stopped and considered how fortunate I was. Taking walking for granted is, to some level, fundamentally universal. Most people around the world are able to learn to walk without much effort. A newborn held upright minutes after his/her birth will instictively put one foot after another. A body function as elemental as walking was not questionned by anybody in my entourage and I did not either. But facing a situation in which I would not be able to walk for more than a month made me realize how our body altogether is taken for granted. Take our sensory experiences for example. We are able to experience breathtaking sounds, colors and smells all the time, but we never stop to think about how fascinating those experiences are. We do think about the aspects of said sounds, colors and smells but not usually about how our body came to relay them to our brains.

In this blog, I will appraise and cogitate the different ways we constantly take our bodies for granted and how we can gain awareness of its beauty and diversity through different experiences and testimonies.

Works cited :

Kaufman, Sharon R. 1988. “Toward a Phenomenology of Boundaries in Medicine: Chronic Illness Experience in the Case of Stroke.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly

Good, Byron. 1994. “The body, illness experience, and the lifeworld: a phenomenological account of chronic pain” in Medicine, Rationality, and Experience: An Anthropological Perspective. Cambridge University Press