Concept Of Embodiment Research Articles

Time and Flesh: Exploring the Embodied Experiences of Black Mothers.

Drawing on Black feminist theories of intersectionality and concepts of temporality and embodiment, this study centers Black girlhood to understand Black girls embodied journeys of "becoming" Black women. Findings revealed that: (a) Black girls often have complicated histories that lead to constrained and liberatory choices in adulthood and motherhood; (b) becoming a Black woman involves continual adaptations to temporal and historical contexts; and (c) Black motherhood is a contested space, deeply shaped by remembering Black girlhood and navigating maternal responses to legacies of harm. This study highlights the challenges and strengths in the transitory states of Black womanhood.

Corporeality, Corporality, Corporeity, and Embodiment in Performing Arts

The concepts of corporeality, corporality, corporeity, and embodiment can be misunderstood and overlapped in the researches of the performing arts area, when their differences, specificities as well as encounter points are not clear to whoever decides to develop investigations addressing these matters. This approach can foster a plural research field in the matters related to the performing arts in general, also centring the reflexions from the perspective of the subjects who are feeling, experiencing, and surrendered to the creative processes. By addressing corporeity, corporeality, corporality, and embodiment as reflexive viewpoints, performing artists can potentialize singular findings, dynamized from experiences aroused from the body-voice. Within this regard, body and vocal work can assume other ways as research interests. The aspects related to the subjectivity not being disconnected from the body-voice as a potentializer for the experiences opens up the opportunity to understand how the vocal-bodily experiences lived during the creative process can generate singular learning/knowledge/understanding processes, characteristically potentialized by the performing artists who drive their works in this way.

Discussion of “The Possible Profession: Joe Lichtenberg and the Restoration of the Bodily Self”

ABSTRACT This discussion of Daniel Posner’s paper has two purposes. First, it affirms Joe Lichtenberg’s lifelong forward thinking contributions to the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. In “The Psychoanalytic Situation of Infancy” he redefined infant and subsequent development in terms of the non-dynamic unconscious and the bodily self. At the end of his life, these two components of his contributions led to a redefinition of some mental pathologies making psychoanalysis applicable to those previously considered unsuitable for psychoanalytic clinical work such as the neuroatypical. Second, this discussion suggests additional possibilities for integrating and using the concepts of embodiment and subsymbolic memory in psychoanalytic theory and practice. They provide an additional language to understand and communicate with patients: brief clinical moments are illustrative.

Concepts that fit in a (Roman) hand

Abstract The Roman author Lucius Anneus Seneca (4 BC–65 AC), the main representative of Stoic philosophy in Latin literature, wrote several tragedies in verse in which the Latin noun manus ‘hand’ has a remarkable incidence, almost doubling the occurrence of other terms more related to tragic themes, such as scelus ‘crime’ or mors ‘death’. This paper is based on the hypothesis that this high frequency is linked to the concept of embodiment as well as on the metonymies and metaphors used in Seneca’s figurative language to encode abstract concepts. The occurrences of the term manus in a corpus composed of Seneca’s dramatic and philosophical texts have been analysed, paying attention to the metonymic and metaphorical contexts where it appears. As a result, it has been observed that this word can refer to multiple realities such as individuals, actions, identity, control, or power.

Reconfiguring Cartesian Dualism through Pain and Place in a Disabled Body: A Personal Case Study on the Meaning of Adventure and the Outdoors

Summary Can an embodiment with place reconfigure what it means to be outdoors, whose body belongs? Through an autoethnographic narrative of lived experiences with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS) and pain, this case study explores how the colonial and outdated meanings of adventure may exclude disabled outdoor practitioners. Remembering a lifetime of outdoor experiences, from childhood backpacking trips in the Sierra Nevada to working in the field in remote regions of the world, and finally, through field research in the Himalaya, the concept of embodiment of place and pain is examined. In this way, understanding embodiment leads to a dissolving of the Cartesian dualisms that so intently create expectations of what it means to be outdoors. Shifting from pushing through pain to embracing disability reconfigures these dominant narratives. As such, the meaning of adventure is subjective for any body who exists in the outdoors, as we are the apparatus of our experiences, contextual in space and time. Information © CAB International 2024

What Does It Mean to Be Human Today?

With the progress of artificial intelligence, the digitalization of the lifeworld, and the reduction of the mind to neuronal processes, the human being appears more and more as a product of data and algorithms. Thus, we conceive ourselves "in the image of our machines," and conversely, we elevate our machines and our brains to new subjects. At the same time, demands for an enhancement of human nature culminate in transhumanist visions of taking human evolution to a new stage. Against this self-reification of the human being, the present book defends a humanism of embodiment: our corporeality, vitality, and embodied freedom are the foundations of a self-determined existence, which uses the new technologies only as means instead of submitting to them. The book offers an array of interventions directed against a reductionist naturalism in various areas of science and society. As an alternative, it offers an embodied and enactive account of the human person: we are neither pure minds nor brains, but primarily embodied, living beings in relation with others. This general concept is applied to issues such as artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism and enhancement, virtual reality, neuroscience, embodied freedom, psychiatry, and finally to the accelerating dynamics of current society which lead to an increasing disembodiment of our everyday life. The book thus applies cutting-edge concepts of embodiment and enactivism to current scientific, technological, and cultural tendencies that will crucially influence our society's development in the twenty-first century.

Body Modification on Viking Age Gotland

In recent years, research has provided evidence for permanent body modification in the Viking Age. Based on the current state of research, we identified around 130 male-gendered individuals from Scandinavia and beyond with dental alterations in form of horizontal furrows, most of them stemming from the Baltic isle of Gotland. We suggest that this custom was used as a sign of identification for a closed group of merchants. In contrast, artificial cranial modifications in the Viking Are so far are only known from three female individuals from Gotland. While both forms of body modification have received wide attention in other cultural contexts, the specific expressions of these customs in Viking Age society still lack systematic investigation with regard to their social implications. Based on the archaeological concept of embodiment and modern communication theories we discuss the perception of modified human bodies as media for the presentation and construction of social identities on Viking Age Gotland.

Beyond Truth-Telling: Embodying and Dwelling in Truth and Hope

This paper seeks to argue that truth is not something that relates to telling/speaking only. Its main aim is to show that in their quest for communion with God, other human beings – and one should add – the entire creation, humans need to go beyond truth-telling toward the ways of embodying and dwelling in truth and hope. To introduce its argument, the paper proceeds in the following steps. First, it expounds a Christian perspective on truth, employing notions such as sacrament, desire, and relationality. Through the image of communion with God, a link between truth-telling and hope is outlined. Second, it tries to show that truth-telling is not only an affective but also an existential category. As such, it involves the whole of human being. Therefore, it makes sense to turn to the concept of body and embodiment when reflecting on the human pursuits of truth. The paper then, third, examines various constellations of this central claim by exploring a specific case from popular culture, namely, ‘Crocodile’, an episode from the Netflix series, Black Mirror. In particular, a proposal is made for the significance of embodying and dwelling in truth for Christian theology and practice. Finally, in the last step, this embodying and dwelling is given more concrete contours with respect to hope by probing into the images of home and feast.

The poverty of embodiment in the work of Juhani Pallasmaa

In books such as The Eyes of the Skin, architectural theorist Juhani Pallasmaa posits unmediated sensual encounters as the site of authentic engagement with the built environment. Such ideas are prevalent in mainstream architectural discourse today. In this article, I show that they are also highly problematic. Pallasmaa rejects visual intentionality, construing it as the instrument of an objectifying reason that distances us from our ‘being-in-the-world’. Referring to the phenomenologist philosophies of Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and indebted to Henri Bergson’s concept of duration through lived experience, Pallasmaa’s theory promises a poetic inhabitation of the world, irreducible to reason and characterised by an animistic embodiment, allegedly offering a more meaningful architectural experience. Informed by contemporary rationalist thought and drawing on neuroscientific, anthropological and philosophical arguments, I first argue that Pallasmaa’s project is weakened to the point of collapse by the misunderstanding of his intellectual resources, particularly with respect to the use of incompatible concepts of embodiment in Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s works. I then show how his ideas of embodiment, disinterested vision and sensuality constitute an impoverished account of lived experience that, far from overcoming alienation, mystifies it. I specifically discuss Pallasmaa’s analysis of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West, his comparisons of human- and animal-created structures and his forays into neuroscience. Finally, I dispute Pallasmaa’s claim that an immediate sensual encounter is the route to authentic engagement with the world, and question whether the unmediated lived experience he yearns for is even possible.

Exploring the implications of the metaverse: opportunities and challenges for dance movement therapy

This paper explores the integration of emerging technologies, specifically the metaverse and virtual reality (VR), into the field of dance movement therapy (DMT). The metaverse is conceptualised as a unified, immersive 3D virtual environment that transcends the limitations of the physical world. The author includes vignettes illustrating the practical application of VR in therapy and relaxation as used currently and speculates about the potential future applications of multi-sensory virtual environments. The paper reflects on the concept of embodiment in VR and its potential implications for DMT, discussing the convergence and divergence of principles. The paper concludes with a discussion on the ethical considerations, highlighting privacy, data security, informed consent, accessibility, inclusivity, psychological impact, therapeutic boundaries, cultural sensitivity, efficacy, evidence-based practice, and ethical development and deployment.

The role of embodiment and ergonomics in immersive VR tours in creating memorable tourism experiences

PurposeGiven the growth of virtual reality (VR)-based tourism experiences in the past five years, this study aims to investigate the impact of VR-based interactions (ergonomics and embodiment) on memorable experiences and revisit intention mediated by cognitive and emotional responses.Design/methodology/approachThis study has used an exploratory sequential mixed methodology research design to operationalise this research. Study 1 uses qualitative in-depth interviews to explore the proposed research questions, and Study 2 uses a 3 × 3 factorial experimental research design to test the proposed hypothetical model with 355 samples.FindingsThe results indicate that embodiment plays a more crucial role than VR ergonomics. Also, the cognitive response in the virtual tour indirectly generates a more memorable experience than the emotional response.Research limitations/implicationsThis research uses the theory of technological mediation as an overarching framework to conceptualise the research. Also, the research has applied the tenets of cognitive embodiment theory, metacognitive theory and other related theories to develop the arguments. Thus, the results of this research will extend the holistic understanding of these theories.Practical implicationsThis research will guide VR tourism developers in understanding the requirements and expectations of tourists. It also serves as a manual to understand how tourists process the VR tour psychologically.Originality/valueVery minimal focus was given to understanding the tourists’ interaction with technology in VR tours. The concept of ergonomics and embodiment investigated as an experimental variable is a novel approach in technology-based tourism research.

From Embodiment to Super-Embodiment: An Approach to Open-Ended and Human Aligned Intelligence/Mind

Embodiment is a key to solving the reliability and alignment issues in the current AI. This is because it imposes consistent constraints on the entire agent-environment interactions and accompanying information without specifying their actual contents, and the constraints are common to those with similar embodiment. The concept of embodiment should be generalized beyond mechanical properties of the body and information structure of sensory signals, encompassing internal organs and metabolism, mental processes, and inter-agent interactions, to “super-embodiment”. It can address sensibilities, values and morals toward artificial humanity, which will be critically important for the next generation AI. [Y. Kuniyoshi, Open-ended intelligence arises from emergence and development from embodiment, J. Robotics Soc. Jpn. 41(7) (2023) 585–590 (in Japanese); Y. Kuniyoshi, Fusing autonomy and sociality via embodied emergence and development of behaviour and cognition from fetal period, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B: Biol. Sci. 374 (2019) 20180031].

Bodies on the Line vs. Bodies Online: A Feminist Phenomenology of Digitally Mediated Political Action

Many scholars and commentators dismiss digitally mediated activism as an inadequate and inferior form of political participation. Such disparagements ignore accounts from feminist, disabled, BIPOC, and LGBTQ + activists, for whom social media has become an essential tool to raise awareness, advance political demands, and build coalitions. By centering their praxis and delineating how social justice–oriented social media activism (SJSMA) reconfigures political presence, we demonstrate that SJSMA constitutes consequential—indeed, embodied—political action, which remains undertheorized. This article clarifies how the definition of “the political” that privileges conventionally corporeal and public political activism is rooted in masculinist and ableist thinking, what we term manceptualism. Drawing on Black feminist media studies, crip, queer, and feminist theory, we offer a corrective to manceptualism by retheorizing embodied political action. Taking a phenomenological approach, our concept of marbled embodiment better accounts for our simultaneously online and offline lives and political labor.

HOW COULD HUSSERL’S THEORY OF THE BODILY SELF-CONSTITUTION OF THE EGO HELP BRIDGE THE EXPLANATORY GAP?

The explanatory gap—the apparently ineliminable chasm between physical, bodily processes and states on the one hand, and subjective, lived experience on the other—belongs among the greatest problems of contemporary philosophy of mind and empirical research concerning consciousness. According to some scholars—such as eliminativist philosophers like Paul and Patricia Churchland—it is a pseudo-question. However, in our interpretation, an accurate phenomenological reflection on one’s own consciousness convinces the attentive and careful philosopher that it is very much a real question—and in fact a crucial one. The present paper endeavours to show how Husserl’s theory of the bodily self-constitution of the ego could help us, not to close the explanatory gap in a reductionist manner, but rather to bridge this gap by rendering apparent the necessary connection between the subjective, phenomenal side of experience and its bodily basis. In this interpretation, Husserl’s conception of embodiment could even provide a more rigorous and firmer theoretical foundation than any which currently undergirds empirically related research regarding the origins of consciousness in the natural world. In the first half of the study, I outline Todd Feinberg and Jon Mallatt’s attempt to bridge and, in a further step, to eliminate the explanatory gap, in which they proceed from the external world to the interiority of mind. The second part of the paper presents a phenomenological analysis that aims to demonstrate that a Husserlian attempt would follow the opposite direction: from the inside proceeding outwards towards the external, physical reality.

Using In Death: Unchained as case to investigate embodiment-related elements in VR game design

The research focuses on the concept of embodiment in VR game design, which is a trending topic in VR theories and applications. Currently, other investigations focus on a more broad term of VR products or a specific category of VR games, which ignores the importance of embodiment in generic VR game design. This research focuses on various approaches towards embodiment and uses the VR game In Death: Unchained as an example to demonstrate those approaches' application, effect, and limitations. To begin with, the virtual environment on embodiment in VR games like In Death will be examined, the same as the usage of players’ actions and haptic feedback designed to increase the sense of presence. Next, the limitation of VR games will be listed after comparing with other VR projects from Meta or Google, which undermine the embodiment of VR games. finally, this research is looking forward to the future and trend of development in VR games' embodiment.

Towards an Ethics for the Healthcare Metaverse

Harnessing the metaverse for medical and healthcare purposes is currently heralded as the “next frontier in healthcare.” However, to ensure the “amazing possibilities” of the so-called “healthcare metaverse” can be fully realized, it’s vital to proactively identify and address potential challenges, especially those of an ethical nature. This paper aims to spotlight these ethical challenges within the healthcare metaverse and chart a course for confronting these issues and cultivating an ethics framework for this emerging field. We will demonstrate that the ethical quandaries within the healthcare metaverse bear striking similarities to those seen in digital medicine, an arena that grapples with vast quantities of data and the application of artificial intelligence. Reflecting on these parallels, we explore how six central ethical challenges in digital medicine – 1) accessibility, 2) fairness, 3) discrimination and bias, 4) responsibility, 5) privacy, data safety and security, and data ownership, as well as 6) environmental issues – unfold within the healthcare metaverse’s virtual boundaries and show that the metaverse’s immersive nature further intensifies these ethical challenges. In view of this, we advocate that the next phase in forging ethics for the healthcare metaverse involves a nuanced reconsideration of current ethical methods and principles in digital medicine, with an emphasis on the immersive element of the metaverse. We foresee the concept of embodiment within virtual settings to be at the heart of this immersion-focused reassessment.

Alongside: Exploring the Meaningfulness of Significant Moments in Others' Lives Through Observation and Interview.

How do we explore the meaningfulness of others' experiences? What means do we have to access their experiencing of the world? How do we express our understandings of others' experiences of body and place without reducing them to objectification? In this methodological paper, we reflect on how we can gain valuable insights into the lived experiences of others through research activities that are conducted 'alongside' participants. Phenomenological concepts of intentionality and embodiment are considered as we draw on an empirical example of exploring the experiences of hospitalized patients with neurological diseases through observations and interviews. The aim is to unfold alongside as an epistemological stance to explore the meaning of another's lifeworld. We strive to show that personal presence and engagement within this approach contains relational, existential, and aesthetic dimensions worth considering.

Digital Embodiment as a Tool for Constructing the Self in Politics

This article offers an exploration of the theoretical and methodological implications related to the concept of digital embodiment in the field of contemporary communication. It seeks to analyze a crucial intersection between the virtual and material dimensions of human experience, enabling a deeper understanding of how bodies are shaped, visualized, and experienced in the digital age. Specifically, through this conceptual lens, we examine how human bodies are engaged in continuous interaction with digital technologies, giving rise to new forms of presence and identity. Therefore, we will seek to analyze how the personalization of the body within political communication has been profoundly affected by the virtualization of human experience. Next, we will introduce a new approach, useful for studying this fusion, that can emphasize the importance of analyzing this issue using ethnography, which is useful for fully understanding the complex dynamics surrounding the personalized digital body.

Turning toward suffering: Rethinking the patient- clinician relationship in physical therapy practice

ABSTRACT In this professional theoretical article, the authors argue that patient care should be centered on connection and that authentically turning toward suffering necessitates an approach to care that transcends medicine’s traditional focus on cure and physical restoration and differentiates between pathology and disability. The meaning of illness and suffering for those who have experienced life-changing injuries or illness is explored. Strategies for approaching the lifeworld of these individuals are discussed using the concepts of phenomenology and embodiment, rooted in the work of philosophers from the phenomenological tradition. The authors also propose an approach to patient care offering a case-based example based on postmodernist concepts that elevate connection, relationship, and interdependency above the traditional focus of restoring normality and physical independence for individuals with disabilities. Traditional assumptions about quality of life, illness, and disability are called into question by focusing on the fluidity of being and disability identity, which serves to destabilize static, binary conceptions of individuals as either healthy or ill, disabled, or able-bodied. A postmodern lens invites healthcare practitioners to envision themselves as part of an assemblage that may promote a more expansive view of the relationship between patient and healthcare practitioner.

Beyond Public Health and Private Choice: Breastfeeding, Embodiment and Public Health Ethics.

The key objective of this paper is to emphasize the importance of acknowledging breastfeeding as an embodied social practice within interventions related to breastfeeding and lactation and illustrate how this recognition holds implications for public health ethics debates. Recent scholarship has shown that breastfeeding and lactation support interventions undermine women's autonomy. However, substantial discourse is required to determine how to align with public health goals while also recognizing the embodied experiences of breastfeeding and lactating individuals. Presently, interventions in this realm predominantly revolve around health-related messaging and the promotion of individual behaviors, often neglecting the systemic and structural factors that influence choices and practices. I closely examine breastfeeding interventions in India, in particular Mothers' Absolute Affection health promotion program, along with breastfeeding narratives. I argue that for such interventions to evolve, they must acknowledge the intrinsic embodied social nature of breastfeeding during their design and implementation. Furthermore, it is important to emphasize that achieving equity and justice objectives necessitates moving beyond the confines of both conventional public health frameworks and frameworks solely centered on private choices. Instead, a more encompassing approach that embraces the concept of embodiment should be adopted.