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)