Abstract
The body came to be taken seriously as a topic of cultural history during the “corporeal” or “bodily” turn in the 1980s and 1990s. Soon, however, critique was raised against these studies’ conceptualization of the body as discursively shaped and socially disciplined: individual bodily agency and feeling were felt to be absent in the idea of the material body. This article critically analyzes new approaches in the field of body history, particularly the so-called “material turn”. It argues that the material turn, especially in the guise of praxiography, has a lot to offer historians of the body, such as more attention to material practices, to different kinds of actors and a more open eye to encounters. Potential problems of praxiographical analyses of the body in history include the complicated relationship between discourses and practices and the neglect of the political and feminist potential of deconstructive discourse analyses. However, a focus on the relationship between practices of knowledge production and the representation of the body may also provide new ways of opening up historical power relations.
Highlights
In the 1980s and 1990s a “corporeal” or “bodily” turn took place in sociology and feminist philosophy
While there is a fear that turning to materiality might essentialize the body and undo the important work of deconstructing seemingly fixed notions of biological difference, new approaches such as praxiography might offer a solution
It allows space for the materiality of the body, but does not turn to essentialism: praxiography focuses on the ontological instability or multiplicity of the body, how it is differently enacted in every practice and has managed to form a seemingly natural unity
Summary
In the 1980s and 1990s a “corporeal” or “bodily” turn took place in sociology and feminist philosophy. Critique was raised against these studies’ conceptualization of the body as discursively shaped and socially disciplined. We explore what praxiography has to offer to historians of the body: It seems to pay more attention to material practices, to different kinds of actors and purports to have a more open eye to encounters (between bodies, objects, experts, and techniques). These new approaches potentially contain a number of problems. We hope to stimulate discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of the material turn’s key features amongst historians of the body
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