Female Bodies and Globalization: The Work of Indigenous Women Weavers in Zinacantán

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 36-55
Author(s):  
Eugenia Bayona Escat
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Differences ◽  
Ethnic Difference ◽  
International Market ◽  
Craft Production ◽  
The Body ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Body ◽  
Female Bodies

Women producers and sellers of textile crafts in Zinacantán, Chiapas, Mexico, use one of the few resources they have to enter business: craft production as informal, invisible, and underpaid work. Taking the body as the axis of analysis, three distinct areas of transformation of indigenous women producers by tourism may be identified: the private and domestic body of craftswomen, the social and public body as an icon of ethnic difference, and the commodified body as an extension of the touristic object. The analysis shows that tourism and participation in the international market strengthen gender, class, and ethnic differences and contribute to the perpetuation of existing inequalities. Las productoras y vendedoras de artesanía textil en Zinacantán, Chiapas, México, utilizan uno de los pocos recursos que tienen participar en el mercado: la producción artesanal como trabajo informal, invisible y mal remunerado. Tomando el cuerpo como eje de análisis, identificamos tres áreas distintas de transformación ejercidas por el turismo sobre las productoras indígenas: el cuerpo privado y doméstico de las artesanas, el organismo social y público como icono de la diferencia étnica, y el organismo mercantilizado como una extensión del objeto turístico. El análisis muestra que el turismo y la participación en el mercado internacional fortalecen las diferencias de género, clase y etnia y contribuyen a la perpetuación de las desigualdades existentes.

Body-Image and Body-Beautification among Female College Students

1990 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 281-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamar R. Kelson ◽  
Ann Kearney-Cooke ◽  
Leonard M. Lansky
Keyword(s):  
Body Image ◽  
The Body ◽  
Female College Students ◽  
Body Consciousness ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Body ◽  
Competent Body ◽  
Feminist Identification ◽  
Cultural Pressures ◽  
Body Cathexis

Women's body-image has social and personal implications. Judgments about the body can be based on appearance (public body-consciousness), internal sensations (private body-consciousness) or body-effectiveness (body-competence). The correlates of body-image and beautification were studied in a group of 245 female undergraduates who completed a body-beautification questionnaire, the Body-consciousness Inventory, the Body-cathexis/Self-cathexis Scale, and questions on feminist identification. Significant correlations were found between public body-consciousness and beautification. Body-cathexis was also correlated with body-competence. For feminists, a competent body was correlated with awareness of internal sensations, while nonfeminists connect a competent body with appearance. Results were discussed in relation to the social and cultural pressures for women to focus on appearance.

scholarly journals Documenting/Performing the Vulnerable Body: Pain and Agency in Works by Boris Mikhailov and Petr Pavlensky

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 85-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Nordgaard
Keyword(s):  
Case History ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Public ◽  
Body Pain ◽  
Political Function ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Body ◽  
Contemporary Media

This article explores the concepts of pain and agency in the photography series Case History (1997–1998) by the Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov, and in four performance-actions (2012–2014) by the Russian performance-activist Petr Pavlensky. Although they represent different generations and respond to different historical contexts, Mikhailov and Pavlensky share a focus on the wounded body. Taking both the documentary and performative aspects of these artworks into account, Nordgaard argues that the wounded body stands forth as a body of agency which also reflects the social, political, and historical settings in which it exists. The relational consideration of the two artists therefore offers important insights for understanding post-Soviet Ukraine and present-day Russia, and reflects on the correlation between the private and the public body. By placing Mikhailov and Pavlensky in dialogue with a broader discussion on spectatorship and the role and significance of “shock imagery” and spectacle in contemporary media, the article further suggests why artworks depicting the body in pain have both an ethical and political function.

Fictions of the Human Right to Health: Writing Against the Postcolonial Exotic in Western Medicine

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary J. Jolly
Keyword(s):  
Health Research ◽  
Western Medicine ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Medical Humanities ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
The Body ◽  
Health And Wellness ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Cultural Specificity ◽  
The Social

The last decade has witnessed far greater attention to the social determinants of health in health research, but literary studies have yet to address, in a sustained way, how narratives addressing issues of health across postcolonial cultural divides depict the meeting – or non-meeting – of radically differing conceptualisations of wellness and disease. This chapter explores representations of illness in which Western narrators and notions of the body are juxtaposed with conceptualisations of health and wellness entirely foreign to them, embedded as the former are in assumptions about Cartesian duality and the superiority of scientific method – itself often conceived of as floating (mysteriously) free from its own processes of enculturation and their attendant limits. In this respect my work joins Volker Scheid’s, in this volume, in using the capacity of critical medical humanities to reassert the cultural specificity of what we have come to know as contemporary biomedicine, often assumed to be

A body without a head

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Chavoshian ◽  
Sophia Park
Keyword(s):  
Liberation Theology ◽  
The Body ◽  
Women's Spirituality ◽  
Passive Condition ◽  
Sexual Identities ◽  
Logical Square ◽  
The Social ◽  
Feminine Sexuality ◽  
Body Shapes ◽  
Body Theory

Along with the recent development of various theories of the body, Lacan’s body theory aligns with postmodern thinkers such as Michael Foucault and Maurice Merlot-Ponti, who consider body social not biological. Lacan emphasizes the body of the Real, the passive condition of the body in terms of formation, identity, and understanding. Then, this condition of body shapes further in the condition of bodies of women and laborers under patriarchy and capitalism, respectively. Lacan’s ‘not all’ position, which comes from the logical square, allows women to question patriarchy’s system and alternatives of sexual identities. Lacan’s approach to feminine sexuality can be applied to women’s spirituality, emphasizing multiple narratives of body and sexual identities, including gender roles. In the social discernment and analysis in the liberation theology, we can employ the capitalist discourse, which provides a tool to understand how people are manipulated by late capitalist society, not knowing it. Lacan’s theory of ‘a body without a head’ reflects the current condition of the human body, which manifests lack, yet including some possibilities for transforming society.

Myriad Aspects of Secular Thinking on Malayali Cuisine

GIS Business ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 202-206
Author(s):  
SAJITHA M
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Social Indicators ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Healthy Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Civilized Society

Food is one of the main requirements of human being. It is flattering for the preservation of wellbeing and nourishment of the body.  The food of a society exposes its custom, prosperity, status, habits as well as it help to develop a culture. Food is one of the most important social indicators of a society. History of food carries a dynamic character in the socio- economic, political, and cultural realm of a society. The food is one of the obligatory components in our daily life. It occupied an obvious atmosphere for the augmentation of healthy life and anticipation against the diseases.  The food also shows a significant character in establishing cultural distinctiveness, and it reflects who we are. Food also reflected as the symbol of individuality, generosity, social status and religious believes etc in a civilized society. Food is not a discriminating aspect. It is the part of a culture, habits, addiction, and identity of a civilization.Food plays a symbolic role in the social activities the world over. It’s a universal sign of hospitality.[1]

Körpertechniken

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erhard Schüttpelz
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Social

The contribution re-establishes Marcel Mauss's concept of body functional techniques: the social-anthropological basis, the theoretical technical position and the systematic programming of this term. According to Mauss, modern body functional techniques and their media inventions can be interpreted in different ways: as strategies for the reduction of the body and as a project of a reciprocal, psychosomatic, ritualistic and medial intensification.

Beyond the Social Determinants of Health

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Laura Hall ◽  
Urpi Pine ◽  
Tanya Shute
Keyword(s):  
Labour Force ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Social ◽  
Weather Changes ◽  
People First

Abstract This paper will reflect on key findings from a Summer 2017 initiative entitled The Role of Culture and Land-Based Healing in Addressing and Ending Violence against Indigenous Women and Two-Spirited People. The Indigenist and decolonizing methodological approach of this work ensured that all research was grounded in experiential and reciprocal ways of learning. Two major findings guide the next phase of this research, complicating the premise that traditional economic activities are healing for Indigenous women and Two-Spirit people. First, the complexities of the mainstream labour force were raised numerous times. Traditional economies are pressured in ongoing ways through exploitative labour practices. Secondly, participants emphasized the importance of attending to the responsibility of nurturing, enriching, and sustaining the wellbeing of soil, water, and original seeds in the process of creating renewal gardens as a healing endeavour. In other words, we have an active role to play in healing the environment and not merely using the environment to heal ourselves. Gardening as research and embodied knowledge was stressed by extreme weather changes including hail in June, 2018, which meant that participants spent as much time talking about the healing of the earth and her systems as the healing of Indigenous women in a context of ongoing colonialism.

Updating long-held assumptions about fat stigma: For women, body shape plays a critical role

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaimie Krems ◽  
Steven L. Neuberg
Keyword(s):  
Body Shape ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
The Body ◽  
Theoretical Assumption ◽  
Obesity Stigma ◽  
Obese Female ◽  
Three Samples ◽  
Female Bodies ◽  
Different Parts ◽  
Fat Stigma

Heavier bodies—particularly female bodies—are stigmatized. Such fat stigma is pervasive, painful to experience, and may even facilitate weight gain, thereby perpetuating the obesity-stigma cycle. Leveraging research on functionally distinct forms of fat (deposited on different parts of the body), we propose that body shape plays an important but largely underappreciated role in fat stigma, above and beyond fat amount. Across three samples varying in participant ethnicity (White and Black Americans) and nation (U.S., India), patterns of fat stigma reveal that, as hypothesized, participants differently stigmatized equally-overweight or -obese female targets as a function of target shape, sometimes even more strongly stigmatizing targets with less rather than more body mass. Such findings suggest value in updating our understanding of fat stigma to include body shape and in querying a predominating, but often implicit, theoretical assumption that people simply view all fat as bad (and more fat as worse).

Visual body processing’s associations to Body Mass Index and internalization of societal beauty ideals

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Cazzato ◽  
Elizabeth Walters ◽  
Cosimo Urgesi
Keyword(s):  
Body Mass Index ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
The Body ◽  
Configural Processing ◽  
Cultural Ideals ◽  
Beauty Ideals ◽  
Female Bodies ◽  
Processing Mechanisms ◽  
Attention To Detail

We examined whether visual processing mechanisms of the body of conspecifics are different in women and men and whether these rely on westernised socio-cultural ideals and body image concerns. Twenty-four women and 24 men performed a visual discrimination task of upright or inverted images of female or male bodies and faces (Experiment 1) and objects (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, both groups of women and men showed comparable abilities in the discrimination of upright and inverted bodies and faces. However, the genders of the human stimuli yielded different effects on participants’ performance, so that male bodies and female faces appeared to be processed less configurally than female bodies and male faces, respectively. Interestingly, altered configural processing for male bodies was significantly predicted by participants’ Body Mass Index (BMI) and their level of internalization of muscularity. Our findings suggest that configural visual processing of bodies and faces in women and men may be linked to a selective attention to detail needed for discriminating salient physical (perhaps sexual) cues of conspecifics. Importantly, BMI and muscularity internalization of beauty ideals may also play a crucial role in this mechanism.

Unmaking and Remaking the World in Long-Term Solitary Confinement

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Lisa Guenther
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Solitary Confinement ◽  
Hunger Strike ◽  
State Prison ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Collective Resistance ◽  
Civil Death

In The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry analyzes the structure of torture as an unmaking of the world in which the tools that ought to support a person’s embodied capacities are used as weapons to break them down. The Security Housing Unit (SHU) of California’s Pelican Bay State Prison functions as a weaponized architecture of torture in precisely this sense; but in recent years, prisoners in the Pelican Bay Short Corridor have re-purposed this weaponized architecture as a tool for remaking the world through collective resistance. This resistance took the form of a hunger strike in which prisoners exposed themselves to the possibility of biological death in order to contest the social and civil death of solitary confinement. By collectively refusing food, and by articulating the meaning and motivation of this refusal in articles, interviews, artwork, and legal documents, prisoners reclaimed and expanded their perceptual, cognitive, and expressive capacities for world-making, even in a space of systematic torture.

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