Bodies in Space: Spatializing Physical Cultural Studies

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Todd Friedman ◽  
Cathy van Ingen
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Analysis ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
The Body ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Henri Lefebvre ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Lived Space ◽  
The Social ◽  
Physical Cultural Studies

The purpose of this article is to discuss the potential contribution of spatial analysis within the emerging area of Physical Cultural Studies (PCS). As PCS examines “expressions of the physical (including, but by no means restricted to sport, exercise, fitness, leisure, health, dance, and movement-related active embodied practices),” an understanding of these practices will be substantially enhanced through spatial analysis as the body impacts and is impacted by the environment in which it exists and the social relations evinced. With a perspective informed by Henri Lefebvre, who recognized the centrality of the body within his analysis of the production of space, the body can be much better understood as the environment and social relations are analyzed through spatial/bodily practices, conceptions of space, and lived space.

scholarly journals The Revival of Sang Hyang Dedari Dance: A Phenomenological Approach To Social-Ecological Reconstruction in Bali

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 72
Author(s):  
LG Saraswati Putri
Keyword(s):  
Community Engagement ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ecological Value ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sacred And Profane ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ecological Reconstruction

This research and community engagement investigates an ancient Balinese ritual known as Sang Hyang Dedari. The dance is interrelated to an agricultural aspect of the traditional Balinese living. As the Balinese struggle to maintain their values from the constant threat of modernization and industrialization, this dance reveals the powerful impact of creating an awareness of socio-ecological equilibrium. The effort made by the villagers of Geriana Kauh, Karangasem, displays how local community rebuilds its environment based on their traditional ecological value. Analyzing Sang Hyang Dedari dance through phenomenological approach, thus, it can be discovered how the ritual sustains the social relations. The bodies of the dancers are the center of an elaborate nexus between people, nature and god. To understand how the dualism of sacred and profane bodies, this research utilizes the body theory by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The importance of phenomenology as a theory relates to the understanding on how the ritual works as an event in its totality. Understanding the unity between the presence of the divine, nature and human. The output of this research and community engagement is a museum built in cooperation between University of Indonesia with the villagers of Geriana Kauh, Karangasem. As the performance and knowledge about Sang Hyang Dedari appeared to be scarce, this museum is a form of collaboration to retrace the history of Sang Hyang Dedari ritual, in an attempt to conserve the ancient knowledge.

Market analysis beyond market fetishism

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damien Cahill
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Market Analysis ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
Unique System ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Capitalist Firm ◽  
Embedded Economy

This article responds to Peck’s call for a heterodox economic analysis of markets that is sensitive to their sociality and spatiality with Polanyi’s work as a starting point. It is argued that while Polanyi’s concept of the socially embedded economy offers a useful heuristic for apprehending the social foundations of economic activity, his analysis exhibits ‘market fetishism’ – a tendency to treat markets as things in and of themselves, without a proper appreciation of their inherently social foundations – and that this is reflected in broader scholarly discourses with respect to markets. Thus, it is argued, we need to augment Polanyi’s framework with other heterodox economic insights. The article outlines a four-step approach to ‘de-fetishizing’ markets. First, the article foregrounds the specifically capitalist nature of the global economy, and the ‘unique system of market dependence’ to which capitalist social relations give rise. Second, it is argued that de-fetishizing markets requires that an agent-centred approach be adopted. Rather than viewing markets as ‘things’ it is argued that they are most usefully understood as the interactions between agents, the most significant of which, within the contemporary global economy, is the large capitalist firm. Third, the interaction between such agents is structured by pervasive frameworks of rules. Fourth, it is argued that markets are inherently spatial phenomena. They are spatially constituted and contribute to the production of space.

Cyborg Anthropology

2022 ◽  
pp. 145-201
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Machine System ◽  
Exchange Of Information ◽  
The Social

In this chapter, the body is re-envisioned as a cybernetic organism, and new types of exchange of information, matter, and energy are anaylsed. Through the cybernetic understanding of a human being as a machine system, it is possible for man to modify and replace lost organs or functions and create a partially artificial being. When the body becomes a scientific and technological creation and real relationships become a cyborg prosthesis of the non-human, the body and the social relations become a problem of cybernetic functioning.

scholarly journals Women in Literature (Fadila Faruq)

2018 ◽  
Vol 212 (1) ◽  
pp. 241-266
Author(s):  
Dr. Suhad S. Sahib
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
The Body ◽  
Arab Women ◽  
Central Authority ◽  
Women In Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Intimate Relations ◽  
And Control

After the finishing of the research, we found the following results: The writer has sought to search for what they were through the heroines were often open text voice of equality, and take the heroines of women's rejecting voices the marginalization and persecution and to advocate openness to the world, it owes a world governed by traditions and superstitions. Touched on topics of interest to women crossing of the suffering of Arab women that hurt of sexual oppression, spinsterhood, and the violence of the man, her novel represent a cry against feminist ideas of traditional and stereotypical suffered by mothers in the stillness and silence. Taken from the body axis of subjects and penetrated the depth of the social relations and psychological generated through it, but most of her novels are breaking taboos has boldly as high in the description of intimate relations. - The masculine power is considered as the strategic entrance to the persecution of feminist is the central authority and control over the oppressed in society and especially the Algerian society, especially as this was the authority is the authority of the Father. Did not denounce the authority of the Father, but long-pen authority of the husband and brother. Masculine authority is in the eyes of the writer is the authority racist dictatorship, they are calling for the lost harmony between the female and masculine power, they are rejecting the personality of the woman in Haramlik or Psychological tension which is necessary characters and suffering from spiritual unity in spite of the presence of the man, the husband. Then enter into a world of utopia to achieve what cannot be achieved on the ground. At the level of the language we note that it choose the language appropriate to the contents of that address Sometimes it tends to discipline and sometimes tend to slang, but it did not disturb the nerve, especially with male photographed moments of intimate relationships.

scholarly journals Bourdieu’s theory and the social constructivism of Berger and Luckmann

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 518-537
Author(s):  
Milos Jovanovic
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

The paper compares Pierre Bourdieu?s sociological approach with the one developed by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann. The aim of the paper is to identify the complementarities and incongruences of these approaches. The main similarity consists in the intention to ?dialectically? overcome/bridge the gap between ?objectivism? and ?subjectivism? in social theory. Another parallel includes a negative attitude towards the relativistic tendencies of postmodernism. These authors share the thematization of: the body as a locus of social influences, the centrality of language in social life, the social functions of knowledge, and the importance of power in social relations. Differences in theorizing are attributed to the different intellectual, theoretical, and socio-cultural contexts in which these scientists operated. The divergences of these theoretical approaches become evident when one examines the different meaning and significance attached to the concepts of individuation, structure, action, habitus and habitualization, structure of relevance and relation of common-sense and scientific knowledge. Finally, there is a visible difference in political views: Bourdieu was a critic ?from the left,? while Berger and Luckmann were self-proclaimed liberal conservatives.

Henri Lefebvre

Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Zieleniec
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Henri Lefebvre ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Right ◽  
The University ◽  
The City

Henri Lefebvre is now established as one of the most important social theorists of the 20th century. Over a long life (b. 1901–d. 1991) he wrote and published prodigiously more than sixty books and several hundred articles on a range of issues and themes. His legacy and lasting impact not only includes being the most influential and seminal theorist on the reprioritization of space in social and critical analysis but also recognition for his contribution to the analysis of everyday life, modernity, the Right to the City, and the urban. He continues to influence and inspire research across a number of disciplines and fields; these include rural and regional studies, sociology, geography, politics, philosophy, and urban studies. Lefebvre’s commitment Marxism; his nondogmatic and humanist approach to the definition, discussion, extension, and application of key concepts; and his integration of those concepts into his various analyses of the rural and the city, of the state, of space and politics, and of modernity and everyday life led him to a conflicted relationship and at times marginalization within the structuralist-influenced French Academy and the Communist Party of France in which he was a member for thirty years. His anti-Stalinist stance and nonconformist opposition to the structural determinism prevalent within the party led to his expulsion, but throughout the 1960s, as professor of sociology at the University of Strasbourg and latterly at the new university at Nanterre, he became one of the most respected teachers and intellectuals inspiring and influencing the May 1968 student revolt. Lefebvre’s work after that, still influenced and committed to Marxist dialectics and critique, increasingly focused on the urban, the social production of space, everyday life, modernity, and the survival of capitalism. Of these his introduction of the concept of the right to the city and the social production of space have been immensely influential for a range of urban scholars and theorists and his work as a whole is being increasingly adopted, adapted, and extended by a variety of researchers of the city in a range of disciplines. The works selected below reflect Lefebvre’s long career and extensive corpus of work. However, only those books and articles that have been translated into English are included here. They represent his exegesis of Marxism and its application to a range of themes that were applied or are important for urban analysis. The secondary literature cited is organized thematically and while not comprehensive provides an overview of the expanding literature on, about, and applying Lefebvrian analysis.

scholarly journals Serving, Contemplating and Praying: Non-Postural Yoga(s), Embodiment and Spiritual Capital

Societies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Di Placido
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
The Body ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Spiritual Capital ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
The Social ◽  
Full Participation ◽  
Moving Body

In this paper, I discuss the role of spiritual seekers’ embodiment of karma, jnana and bhakti yoga(s) in the context of a neo-Vedantic, non-monastic ashram located in southern-Europe, an ashram I regard as an example of modern denominational yoga. Methodologically, I rely on an ex-post multi-sensory autoethnography, involving apprenticeship and full participation immersion, and I share with physical cultural studies a commitment to empirically contextualise the study of the moving body. Theoretically, I employ Shilling’s theory of the body as a multi-dimensional medium for the constitution of society, enriched by other theoretical and sensitising concepts. The findings presented in this paper show that the body of the seekers/devotees can be simultaneously framed as the source of, the location for and the means to, the constitution of the social, cultural and spiritual life of the ashram. As I discuss the development, interiorisation and implementation of serving, contemplative and devotional dispositions, which together form the scheme of dispositions that shape a yogic habitus, I also consider the ties between the specific instances under study and the more general spiritual habitus. The paper ends by broadening its focus in relation to the inclusion of Asian practices and traditions into the Western landscape.

The production of space at Nineveh

Iraq ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 187-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Lumsden
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Spatial Production ◽  
The Social ◽  
Objectively Measured

Space, or spatiality, has generally been relegated to the background by historians and social scientists (Soja 1989). The Cartesian worldview demands a separation between thinking and the material world, between mind and matter. In this view space is seen simply as something that can be objectively measured, an absolute, a passive container (Merrifield 1993: 518).An alternative view, propounded mainly by postmodern geographers, regards space as a “medium rather than a container for action”, something that is involved in action and cannot be divided from it (Tilley 1994: 10). Space is not an empty, passive container, but an active process that is both constituted and constitutive (Merrifield 1993: 521). So, in this view the social, historical, and the spatial are interwoven dimensions of life (Soja 1999: 263–4). History and society are not understood if space is omitted; there is, in fact, no unspatialised social reality (Soja 1989: 131–7; 1996: 46, 70–6).The philosopher Henri Lefebvre's concept of the social production of space plays an important part in this latter view of the active role of space in social processes. Lefebvre criticises the notion that space is transparent, neutral and passive, and formulates in its place an active, operational and instrumental notion of space (Lefebvre 1991: 11). He argues that it is the spatial production process that should be the object of interest rather than “things” in space, and that space is both a medium of social relations and a material product that can affect social relations (Lefebvre 1991: 36–7; Gottdiener 1993).

Whither the Global in Chinese Higher Education? The Production of Space in China's “New Era” Universities

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
James I. McDougall
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Chinese Higher Education ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Contemporary China ◽  
New Era ◽  
Spatial Practice ◽  
Global Flows ◽  
Global Standards

Abstract Since the 1990s, not only have China's universities become more in line with global standards but they now set them in some areas. This paper looks at how the production of space in Chinese higher education is employed in “new era” China to manage contested sites of globalization. From the spatial practice of scholarship to the representational spaces that map the educational bureaucracy, the production of space in Chinese higher education helps to organize social relations. This paper argues that the production of space in Chinese higher education is used to manage conflicts between global flows and localization as well as to serve national priorities. The paper contributes to ongoing discussions of the globalization of higher education and cultural studies of space and spatiality in contemporary China.

scholarly journals O “corpo-migrante” e Bourdieu: corpo e incorporação no contexto migratório / Bourdieu and the ‘migrant-body’: embodiment in the migratory context

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (19) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelo Alario Ennes
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
The Body ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social

O presente artigo tem como objetivo central a análise de algumas obras de Pierre Bourdieu tendo em vista sua contribuição para o desenvolvimento de uma agenda de pesquisa em torno da ideia do “corpo-migrante”. Esta agenda visa compreender como o corpo é socialmente produzido no contexto migratório e como isto resulta nas relações sociais e de poder das quais o imigrante é parte. O artigo foi elaborado com base em (re)leituras de obras de Bourdieu com foco na ideia de incorporação e corpo e a partir de um levantamento bibliográfico por meio do qual foram identificados alguns artigos que já fazem o diálogo entre conceitos bourdieusianos e a questão migratória, e outros que tratam do corpo no contexto migratório mas sem problematizá-lo teoricamente. Como resultado, sugiro que Bourdieu nos oferece elementos suficientes para apreender e compreender o “corpo-migrante” como resultado de relações de força e poder que geram a inserção, o posicionamento e o reposicionamento de imigrantes em campos específicos em que atuam. This article sets out to analyse a number of works by Pierre Bourdieu, focusing specifically on his contribution to the development of a research agenda surrounding the ‘migrant-body.’ This agenda aims to understand how the body is socially constructed in the context of migration, and how this results in the social and power relations in which the migrant becomes embedded. The article is based on (re)reading Bourdieu’s books with a focus on his ideas of embodiment and the body. Additionally, a review of the literature enabled two groups of articles to be identified, the first comprising texts that already develop a dialogue between Bourdieu’s concepts and the topic of immigration, while the second group studies the body in the migration context without problematizing the issue theoretically. In the conclusion, I suggest that Bourdieu offers us enough elements to understand the ‘migrant-body’ as an outcome of power and social relations that generate the insertion, positioning and re-positioning of migrants within the specific fields in which they act.

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