Perceptions Of Bodies Research Articles

Unveiling Body Politics: The Grotesque and Alienated Representation of the Monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein explores on the complexities of body politics and societal norms through the narrative of Victor Frankenstein and his creation, the monster. This research paper analyzes the novel through the lens of rejection, Otherness and the societal constructs of beauty and acceptance. The research investigates on the intricate intersections of various discourses in shaping the notion of “black body” throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Furthermore, it highlights on how Shelley’s portrayal of the hideous and marginalized body of the monster in her text aligns with the ideological constructions of black bodies. The monster, with his physical deformities and alien appearance, serves as a powerful symbol of the Other, highlighting society’s tendency to fear and ostracize those who are different. Drawing on Julia Kristeva’s concept of “the abject,” Michel Foucault’s notion of “biopower,” and Freud’s idea of “uncanny,” this paper searches how Shelly’s text reflects broader cultural anxieties and critiques societal norms. Through a detailed analysis of textual evidences, including direct quotes from the novel, this paper examines the implications of the monster’s rejection to socio-cultural norms and the societal forces that shape his identity. The paper concludes that exclusion of Frankenstein’s creation from the society directly stems from the societal constructs and responses towards bodies. Perception of bodies reflects more about the culture observing them than bodies themselves. In its essence, Frankenstein stands as a poignant narrative about the dangers of marginalization and the importance of empathy and acceptance in a diverse society. This paper underscores the critical need to understand how societal constructs shape perceptions of marginalized bodies, paving the way for future research to explore these dynamics in contemporary contexts and to develop strategies for fostering greater inclusion and acceptance.

Visible body, invisible care: Family, gender politics, and the female caregiver in living donor liver transplantation in Taiwan

This study contributes to existing research on gender inequities in living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) by employing a feminist and sociocultural theoretical perspective. Through participant observation and in-depth interviews with 36 participants from 13 families, including 13 donors, 10 recipients, and 13 caregivers, at the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, this study provides a nuanced understanding of the complexities of family dynamics and gender relations throughout the decision-making and meaning-making processes for LDLT in Taiwan. The interviews were transcribed verbatim, translated from Mandarin to English, and analysed using grounded theory and thematic analysis. The findings reveal that LDLT is a gendered experience embodied through four aspects: 1) the impact of family dynamics and gender politics on decision-making, 2) societal and cultural perceptions of women's bodies and families, 3) the multiple roles and multifaceted care work of female caregivers, and 4) gender differences in the discourse on the meaning-making of LDLT. The study illuminates the complex interplay of family, gender, and care within the sociocultural landscape of Taiwan. It underscores the gendered and hierarchical division of care work within households and the vulnerability experienced by female caregivers and donors, as well as other disadvantaged family members. Furthermore, the study offers insights for healthcare professionals and policymakers to recognise the value of caregiving and the need for more support and resources for caregivers. Future research could adopt a multifaceted approach and inform interventions and policies aimed at reducing gender inequities in LDLT, moving beyond the narrow focus on numerical gender imbalance.

Sporting bodies, societal norms in history

The historical exploration of the body in sports hinges upon the value attributed to the body throughout time and converges various social science approaches, encompassing philosophical, religious, educational perspectives, and intersecting histories that involve political, sociological, economic, and medical dimensions. Sports, as a multifaceted cultural phenomenon, hold profound sociocultural significance, reflecting prevailing attitudes towards the human body. The study of body image in sports history becomes a nexus where anthropology, sociology, psychology, and sports science converge, offering valuable insights into the evolution of body ideals and their implications on athlete identity. This examination delves deep into the annals of sports history, unearthing the evolving notions of body image and its impact on athlete identity, shedding light on the implications of historical body image ideals for contemporary sports culture and proposing recommendations for fostering a positive body image and identity in sports. The objectives of this narrative review include unearthing the historical evolution of body image ideals, examining the influence of societal norms on perceptions of athletic bodies throughout history, unravelling the role of media, technology, and popular culture in shaping body image ideals in sports, and identifying the intimate connection between body image and athlete identity, exploring its profound ramifications on athletic performance and overall well-being. By synthesizing findings from existing systematic reviews and scholarly works, this exploration aims to illuminate the intricate interplay between sporting bodies and societal norms throughout history and their enduring legacy on sports culture in the present day.

Movement Quality Visualization for Wheelchair Dance

Wheelchair dance is an important form of disability art that is still subject to significant levels of ableism and art exclusion. Wheelchair dancers face challenges finding teachers and choreographers who can accommodate their needs, documenting and sharing choreographies that suit their body shapes and their assistive technologies. In turn, this hinders their ability to share creative expressions. Accessible resources and communication tools could help address these challenges. The goal of this research is the development of a visualization system grounded on Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) that notates movement quality while opening new horizons on perceptions of disabled bodies and the artistic legitimacy of wheelchair dance. The system uses video to identify the body landmarks of the dancer and wheelchair and extracts key features to create visualizations of expressive qualities from LMA basic effort. The current evaluation includes a pilot study with the general public and an online questionnaire targeting professionals to gain feedback supporting practical implementation and real-world deployment. Results from the general public evaluation showed that the visualization was effective in conveying basic effort movement qualities even to a novice audience. Expert consulted via questionnaire stated that the tool could be employed for reflective evaluation, as well as performance augmentation. The LMA visualization tool can support the artistic legitimization of wheelchair dancing through education, communication, performance, and documentation.

‘Furnisht with such members as are after a sort burthensome unto them’: White Traveller Perceptions of Black Male Bodies and the Construction of Race, 1450–1730

AbstractThis article explores how European travellers to Africa perceived African masculinity, the male body and sexuality during the period of 1450–1730. It argues that their observations helped Europeans construct early notions of racial difference at a time when skin colour was not the most important marker of difference classifying people. It draws upon a range of European accounts of their voyages and encounters with Africans from 1450 to 1730. It mostly analyses English narratives, but it also examines Portuguese, Dutch and French accounts that were translated into English at the time and read by English audiences.

Improving conservation outcomes in agricultural landscapes: farmer perceptions of native vegetation on the Yorke Peninsula, South Australia

With agriculture the primary driver of biodiversity loss, farmers are increasingly expected to produce environmental outcomes and protect biodiversity. However, lack of attention to the way farmers perceive native vegetation has resulted in conservation targets not being met. The Yorke Peninsula (YP), South Australia, is an agricultural landscape where < 5% of vegetation remains on private properties and roadsides. To identify YP farmers’ barriers to vegetation conservation on the roadside and private properties, we interviewed 35 farmers representing 56,980 ha of farms (11% of the YP area) and three agronomists. We identified five barriers to conservation: (1) negative perceptions of roadside vegetation and (2) management bodies; (3) absence of effective conservation programs making use of farmers’ motivations; (4) > 50% farmers perceived that long-term planning was for ≤ 30 years, not enough time to promote ecosystem conservation; (5) a lack of natural resource management information for farmers—as a result, farmers relied on their own experience to manage vegetation. Furthermore, most farmers depended on agronomists, who generally had no stake in biodiversity conservation. We recommend that (1) the Local Council restore social capital by liaising with farmers to promote roadside vegetation (2) long-term farmer-led conservation action be established and supported by Government and industry acting as facilitators rather than project managers; (3) a change in policy and training promote the involvement of agronomists in conservation and its management on private properties; (4) all levels of Government develop schemes to demonstrate the tangible benefits of native vegetation as habitat for wildlife; (5) on-farm conservation be celebrated as successful farming.

“He’s a little skinny and he’s a little wide.”: a mixed design investigation of American Indian student perceptions of healthy bodies

BackgroundChildhood is a critical developmental time of wellness patterns, yet little is known about what children know and believe. Even less is known about non-majority cultures like American Indian youth. The purpose of this study was to explore American Indian students’ understandings of nutrition and physical activity.MethodsThis mixed methods study took place in 10 schools in an American Indian community in the Southwestern U.S. Ninety American Indian students in grades 3–12 (8–19 years old) were interviewed. The interview included an 8-point body size chart. Numerical data were analyzed via t-test statistics while a constant comparison process and analysis was used for the interview data.ResultsStudents rated approximately 85% of students in Category 5 or smaller on the scale while placing 60% of adults at or above that size. There was a general trend of a larger body type for boys seen as healthy compared to that for girls. Students generally believed that their classmates were larger than the healthy body size.For students, a healthy body was the result of compliance with “eat right and exercise” rules. They exhibited little understanding of nutrition or physical activity and there were few developmental differences in understanding. Health was a corporeal concept and violators of the eat right and exercise rules were seen as lazy.ConclusionsStudents held narrow and corporeal focused notions of health focused on simple rules. People who violated the rules were “lazy”, a concept that seemed to underlie multiple constructs and a finding that holds true in other investigations. Students also reported few adult role models, a topic that should be explored with expanded family groups to better represent the multi-generational (e.g. grandparents, uncles, aunts) family housing common in the community. The findings are limited to a single American Indian community and a mixed design of relatively small numbers. This addition to the literature from a non-majority cultural group expands our knowledge of student perspectives on health. These findings can be used to create more effective curricula and interventions. Schools need more effective, but also alternately framed approaches that promote broader views of health.

Examining English as a Medium of Instruction in Vietnam:

This paper is a literature-based review that critically examines the implementation of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) in Vietnam’s higher education (HE). Drawing on policy documents and previous studies in the EMI domain, this paper provides a review of the EMI policies and sheds light on the challenges that could negatively impact the success of the project. The findings indicate a misalignment between the policies and actual implementation, as teachers and students face various challenges in the EMI classrooms. Such challenges include the insufficient supply of qualified teachers, low English proficiency, educational inequality, and irrelevant materials dominated by westernized perspectives. It can be argued that perceptions of teachers, students, and non-educational bodies, such as employers and recruiters, should be considered to ensure the sustainability of EMI implementation. In addition, this article also questions the validity of the monolingual ideology embedded in the EMI policy and discusses implications based on recent development in language education to present an alternative scholarship that transcends the English-only ideology and embraces the multilingual practices in the EMI classrooms.

The valence-dominance model applies to body perception.

First impressions of a person, including social judgements, are often based on appearance. The widely accepted valence-dominance model of face perception (Oosterhof and Todorov 2008 Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 11 087–11 092 (doi:10.1073/pnas.0805664105)) posits that social judgements of faces fall along two orthogonal dimensions: trustworthiness (valence) and dominance. The current study aimed to establish the principal components of social judgements based on the perception of bodies, hypothesizing that these would follow the same dimensions as face perception. Stimuli were black and white photographs showing bodies dressed in grey clothing, standing in their natural posture, in left profile. Raters (N = 237) judged the stimuli on the 14 traits used in Oosterhof and Todorov's original study (Oosterhof and Todorov 2008 Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 11 087–11 092 (doi:10.1073/pnas.0805664105)). Data were analysed using principal component analysis (PCA), as in the original study, with an additional exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using oblique rotation. While PCA produced a third dimension in line with several replications of the original study, results from the EFA produced two dimensions, representing trustworthiness and dominance, providing support for the hypothesis that social perceptions of bodies can be summarized using the valence-dominance model. These two factors could represent universal perceptions we have about people. Future research could explore social judgements of humans based on other stimuli, such as voices or body odour, to evaluate whether the trustworthiness and dominance dimensions are consistent across modalities.

‘I don’t think my torso is anything to write home about’: men’s reflexive production of ‘authentic’ photos for online dating platforms

ABSTRACT This paper explores men’s use of dating apps with an emergent body image focus, addressing cisgender, heterosexual men’s feelings about dating app profile pictures. Drawing from interviews with 15 cisgender, heterosexual men residing in Australia about their use of dating applications including Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble, this paper examines how cisgender, heterosexual men construct their dating app profile pictures, and the decisions they make about the content of images they use for dating profile pictures. Utilizing concepts of self-presentation, authenticity, and bodily reflexive practices, this paper argues that the men in the study are attempting to present authentic and real selves in a dating world, while being confronted by concerns regarding body image and perceptions of ideal bodies. They also demonstrate conflicting desires to appear more muscular, fit, and athletic while not presenting as vain or narcissistic. In the process of creating profiles, these men develop a sense of self drawing on understandings of masculinity and specifically notions of idealized male bodies, which simultaneously run counter to the very authentic images of the self they seek to present.

Variation in Subjective Aging Among Middle-Aged and Older LGBTQ+ People: An Exploratory Study

Studies suggest that women and men have different experiences of subjective aging—including interpretations of age norms, timing of life course stages, and aging anxieties—but few have addressed variation within sexual and gender diverse communities. Drawing on a sample of middle-age and older LGBTQ+ people from Alabama, North Carolina, and Tennessee (n=923), we analyze how four dimensions of subjective aging (age-related self-perceptions, generalized views of aging, aging bodies, and aging anxieties) vary within the LGBTQ+ population by comparing gay and bisexual cisgender men (GBCM), lesbian and bisexual cisgender women (LBCW), and transgender, gender nonconforming, and non-binary (T/GNC/NB) people. Using multivariate regression models, we find that LBCW reported younger ideal ages, more elongated perceptions of the life course, more negative predictions of prospective health, and less aging anxiety compared to GBCM. Regarding self-perceptions and generalized views of aging, T/GNC/NB people reported younger ideal ages and more condensed perceptions of the life course compared to GBCM. Regarding perceptions of aging bodies, T/GNC/NB people reported more positive views of physical changes within the last five years and more negative predictions of prospective health compared to GBCM. Finally, T/GNC/NB people were less anxious than GBCM about future sex lives but were more anxious about not being able to support other people in the future. Overall, while some results align with studies of the general population, we find that sexual and gender diverse people may have different subjective aging trajectories, and thus experience differential physical and mental health outcomes, compared with cisgender heterosexual adults.

Diversity in sex and relationship education – limitations and possibilities in Swedish biology textbooks

ABSTRACT Shortcomings in sex and relationship education (SRE) related to norms and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexuality (LGBTQIA) perspectives have been reported internationally and in Sweden. This paper reports on findings from a critical study of SRE content in Swedish biology textbooks for 13- to 16-year-old pupils, with the aim of revealing which sexual orientations and bodies are made visible or invisible in the texts. About 200 quotations were selected and analysed, quantitatively and qualitatively, with a focus on limitations and possibilities. The results show that LGBT content is visible in all SRE chapters. However, sexual orientation is often constructed as fixed. Furthermore, stereotypical gender binaries are reinforced via heteronormative assumptions regarding hormones, genitals and reproduction, focusing on differences instead of similarities, and thus limiting the‌ potential to widen non-binary perceptions of bodies and sexualities. Our quantitative analyses reveal that there are few, if any, queer, intersex, asexual or crip/disability representations. If gaps in young people’s knowledge regarding norms, intersex, asexuality, queer and crip sexualities are to be filled in order to promote equality and diversity, it is important to rethink the SRE content of Swedish biology textbooks.

Music, Language, Aurality: Latin American and Caribbean Resoundings

Recent work in anthropology has attended to the imbrication of music, sound, listening, and language in research on, and from, Latin America and the Caribbean, as part of a broader movement across regions. In this article, we argue that these relations have their own intellectual genealogies in Latin America and the Caribbean, which have often been neglected in studies written about the region. We focus on recent theorization of aurality—the immediate and mediated practices of listening that construct perceptions of nature, bodies, voices, and technologies. We provide an overview of regional discourses on the interrelations of voice, orality, and writing, and then we discuss the aural turn in four areas: race; migration; socialization and youth cultures; and epistemologies of history, memory, and heritage. We put different bodies of discourse into dialogue as a means of charting a path toward decolonial (inter)disciplinary transformations that are built on other histories, vocalities, and modes of knowledge.

Introduction

Introduction Polly Galis, Maria Tomlinson, and Antonia Wimbush We need to be able to experience our diverse bodies—the varied ways we decorate and move them—as a source of taken-for-granted pleasure and celebration. Susie Orbach.1 Il faut parler. Fort, vite, n'importe comment. Il faut vaguer, oser le vague, respirer à la limite de nos poumons, germer multiples, indéfinies, flotter, errer, indéfinir nos vastes corps. Marie Cardinal.2 DURING THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, our perceptions of others' bodies, and our relationship with our own bodies, have become increasingly defined by the media and technology. Consumers of traditional and online media can be bombarded daily with images of many different bodies. We gaze at the bodies in the media, and, in turn, we cast this gaze onto our own bodies. This self-reflection may engender feelings that can range from self-loathing to self-confidence. People of all gendered identities may feel pressured to transform their bodies to resemble models on the front cover of magazines or they may be inspired by an influencer on Instagram who encourages them to celebrate their body shape. Indeed, images and discourses in the media can both perpetuate and disrupt societal bodily norms. Social media, in particular, has become a platform through which people across the world have increasingly challenged normative societal attitudes towards the body. The media is thus one space in which our bodies are subject to a societal gaze that seeks to enforce certain expectations, norms, and values. This special issue examines a variety of corporeal representations—within both visual culture and literature—and explores how these works have, in turn, critically gazed back at society. Most relevant to the topic of this issue, we can find a variety of examples from within the francophone world that contest societal bodily norms. In France, various feminist blogs and social media accounts have sought to criticize the 'ideal' beauty standard of the thin woman that they observe in French society. For instance, the online magazine Paulette fills its pages with empowering images of women. It celebrates and foregrounds the bodies of black and minority ethnic women, plus size women, older women, and women with body hair. In this way, Paulette uses digital space to reject patriarchal expectations of beauty and to encourage women to gaze upon their [End Page 1] own bodies in a more positive way. Online campaigns that call into question bodily norms are also found in francophone contexts outside Europe. For example, in 2017, women across West Africa, including French-speaking Senegal and Cameroon, took to social media to protest a Nivea advert in which a black female model is using the product in order to gain "visibly whiter skin." Women responded by using the hashtag #pullitdownnow, highlighting how this discourse of whiteness is a product of colonialism. This movement thereby exposed that advertisements can perpetuate a neo-colonial gaze that valorizes whiteness and encourages black women to see themselves through this lens. The desire to resist societal bodily norms and expectations is not new to the Internet age. For centuries, consumers of cultural production have been subjected to idealized bodily images in paintings, and subsequently in photographs and films. These images have helped to cement normative patriarchal, western, and colonial ideologies about the body. The majority of these protests against these ideologies have been framed within a discourse of feminism. Women's challenge to the male and colonial gaze have appeared in spaces such as literature, street protests, and anti-colonial resistance. In Algeria, French colonialism sought to westernize Algerian women by unveiling them. Algerian women not only protested against colonialism by wearing the veil, even if they had not done so before, they also took an active part in the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962). In France, second-wave feminists such as Julia Kristeva, Annie Leclerc, Marie Cardinal, and Hélène Cixous problematized negative patriarchal discourse about the female body such as that pertaining to menstruation, pregnancy, and the menopause. Their works on the body emerged in the aftermath of the May 1968 protests during which women took to the streets to campaign for greater bodily rights and autonomy. The Mouvement de...

Sins against Nature: Sex and Archives in Colonial New Spain by Zeb Tortorici

Reviewed by: Sins against Nature: Sex and Archives in Colonial New Spain by Zeb Tortorici Evan C. Rothera Tortorici, Zeb. Sins against Nature: Sex and Archives in Colonial New Spain. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018. Zeb Tortorici, an associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures at New York University, is an accomplished scholar of sexuality in colonial Latin America. Sins against Nature analyzes sodomy, bestiality, and masturbation in colonial New Spain. The book covers the period from 1535—the establishment of the viceroyalty of New Spain—to 1821—the culmination of the Mexican wars for independence against Spain. Tortorici bases his findings on 327 documents from the criminal courts and the Inquisition courts that he found in archives throughout the Americas. Some of the documents are quite extensive, while others are barely fragments. Ultimately, he "explores how bodies and their desires are textually recorded and archived (through the collaboration of witnesses, confessants, scribes, colonial bureaucrats, and archivists), and thus survive into our own day" (18). [End Page 167] Tortorici considers viscerality by opening with a case that featured a man having sex with a corpse. He argues that viscerality has "untapped potential for archival studies of early modern sexuality (and beyond)" (31) because it "plunges us deep into the guts of the colonial archive, and it does not let go" (45). Here readers can see two intertwined objectives: Tortorici is clearly interested in what the sins against nature tell us about the contours of life in colonial Latin America, but also about archives and archival practices. From the general discussion of viscerality, he moves to an analysis of sodomy. He first adopts a microhistorical approach and scrutinizes a 1604 case from Valladolid, Michoacán, in which six Purépecha men were tried, and four were executed, for sodomy. Among other points, and in contrast to many scholars, Tortorici argues that judges made no distinction between the active and passive partners in sodomy cases. Courts often sentenced the accused to be burned at the stake or garroted and then burned. The idea being that burning the body destroyed any trace of the act. However, as he notes, "the colonial archive documents, in explicit detail, and makes visible (and eligible) the delineations and silhouettes of nefarious desire, thereby committing them to historical memory" (81), an ironic result indeed. The following chapter, in contrast to the microhistorical approach in the previous one, takes a broader scope and analyzes 129 archival references to sodomy. Sodomy did not always elicit horror and Tortorici wants scholars to move beyond polarized categories of tolerance and repression. Just as evidence of sodomy frequently depended on people's perceptions of human bodies, animal bodies also "became legal forms of evidence" (126) in bestiality cases. Tortorici examines 144 archival references to bestiality and, unlike some scholars, does not see bestiality as marginal to the historical past. Rather, he contends that it was central to the functioning of colonialism in New Spain. Bestiality cases, he asserts, "provide historians with a surprising amount of information about the colonial past—everything from rural mores and environmental change to legal traditions" (134). Interestingly, the cases reveal that, as time passed, bestiality came to be seen as an increasingly illicit act, but the punishments grew less severe. Bestiality cases, like sodomy cases, featured bodies—in this case, animal rather than human—being burned to deaden the memory of the act. However, in both types of cases, the documents in the archives preserved the memories of the nefarious sins. The last two chapters return the discussion to humans. Chapter five examines forty-one Inquisition cases about priests who solicited sex from male and [End Page 168] female parishioners. These cases composed an "archives of neglect—that is, a repository of historical records (created and maintained by the Catholic Church and, more specifically, by the Holy Office of the Mexican Inquisition) that reveal the imbalance of power between priests and their denouncers" (165). The Catholic Church usually protected priests who were fluent in native languages, or gave them light punishments, and thus valued priests more than individual parishioners. The final chapter considers pollution (masturbation) and eroticized religiosity. Tortorici utilizes a small handful of cases...

Perceptions of the healthiest body in a market-integrating indigenous population in Argentina: Fat idealization and gendered generational differences.

Market integration seems to induce gender-specific generational change in health-related perceptions of body size. We predicted that among the Qom of Argentina, younger women would perceive comparatively thinner bodies as healthiest, demonstrating thin-idealizing body norms, and older women would retain culturally rooted perceptions of heavier bodies as healthiest. As traditional and globalized body size ideals are different for men, we predicted that men would perceive normal bodies as healthiest and would not exhibit generational differences. We asked Qom adults (n = 273) residing in Namqom, Argentina to choose the healthiest body size from the Stunkard Figure Rating Scale (FRS). We performed multiple linear regression with age, gender, and body mass index (BMI) predicting healthy-body perception score. A majority of women chose overweight bodies as healthiest. As predicted, older women preferred heavier bodies compared to their younger peers; this generational effect was stronger among women clinically defined as underweight (BMI ≤19.99 kg/m2 ), and "normal" weight (20.00 kg/m2 ≤ BMI ≤24.99 kg/m2 ), as compared to women clinically defined as overweight (25.00 kg/m2 ≤ BMI ≤29.99 kg/m2 ) or obese (≥30.00 kg/m2 ). Men exhibited no generational effects and largely perceived bodies corresponding to a "normal" BMI as healthiest. Among Qom women, there is evidence for the adoption of the idealization of thinness as healthy alongside traditional perceptions that fat bodies are healthy.

Choreographing the Disabled Body: Performing Vulnerability and Political Change in the Work of Tamar Borer

Choreographing the Disabled Body: Performing Vulnerability and Political Change in the Work of Tamar Borer Ilana Szobel (bio) With the most powerful tool we have as human beings—the imagination—we produce change, healing and transformation of both our mind and physical condition.1 –Tamar Borer The Israeli-Jewish performance artist Tamar Borer, born in 1965, was trained in many different forms of dance in institutions worldwide. She studied classical ballet at the American Ballet Theatre in New York, modern dance at the Rina Sheinfeld Dance Theatre (where she performed for seven years), authentic Balinese dance in Indonesia, and trance dance in Mexico. In 1992, she traveled to Japan to study with Kazuo Ohno, the well-known and skilled founder of Butoh-soul dance. More than two decades after this formative encounter, Borer remains one of the most innovative and influential Butoh performers and teachers, not just in Israel but worldwide.2 She has been invited as an esteemed guest to a variety of dance festivals across the globe and has won many awards and prizes, including the first prize at the Gvanim beMahol (Shades in Dance) Competition for First Independent Work (1988), the Distinguished Artist Award from ballet master Albert Gaubier’s Foundation (1996), and the Buchman Hyman Fund’s Promising Artist Award (1997).3 Borer choreographs and performs solo, duets, and ensemble productions throughout the world. Despite her worldwide presence, her studio is located in Tel Aviv, and the vast majority of her noteworthy performances and collaborations take place in Israel. Her performances raise questions and concerns about Israeli subjectivity—particularly in relation to the Israeli– Palestinian conflict. In this context, while creating a home-grown as well as transnational artistic venue for addressing the political situation in which Israel is embroiled, Borer’s work functions not just as a productive point of departure for social critique and change, but most pointedly as an invitation to a kind of social self-reflection for contemporary Israelis. [End Page 55] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Piano Forte. Photographed by Tamar Lem (2013), courtesy of Tamar Borer. In 1990, Borer was involved in a car accident that left her paralyzed in both legs. This life-changing experience prompted a continued exploration of her body and sense of embodiment, alongside her physical training, creative expression, teaching, and professional performances. Her remarkable talent and dedication won her the Willie and Celia Trump Medal of Mercy and Equality Award (Ot Hachesed) in 2002, “for serving as a role-model for growth and empowerment in the face of disability.”4 Experiencing dance in a new way enabled—and forced—Borer to critically examine both her capabilities as well as her own limitations, and it prompted her to encounter dance and performance through her unique body and self. This process is shared by many professional artists, but as Western dance traditionally idealizes and privileges the able and “capable” body—the Apollonian robust and stable body5—the integration of a disabled body into contemporary Israeli dance resulted in radical redefinitions of physical expression and grace by disrupting and challenging the cultures that have evolved around dance. In understanding Borer’s work as a physically disabled dancer, I examine the implications of disability and embodiment, focusing on the artistic and aesthetic in Israeli society. Thus, I am interested in questions such as: What does it mean to address the political arena from the position of the disabled occupier? In what ways do the visual markers of “limited” mobility, such as walkers, wheelchairs, or canes, affect sociopolitical concepts such as [End Page 56] control, agency, and authority? And, in a broader sense, how can the physical, emotional, social, and existential perspectives of the non-Apollonian frame challenge Israeli perceptions of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict?6 My study examines the nexus of disability and performance, which introduces us to new perceptions of bodies, agency, and space, and invites us to rethink our personal, collective, and national stability. This rethinking of what constitutes stability challenges our conceptualization of the Zionist movement in general, and of the Israeli occupation in particular. Politicizing the Disabled Body From its inception, the Zionist movement has created a conceptual connection between...

The Brain’s Body: Neuroscience and Corporeal Politics by Victoria Pitts-Taylor

Reviewed by: The Brain’s Body: Neuroscience and Corporeal Politics by Victoria Pitts-Taylor Keyvan Shafiei Victoria Pitts-Taylor, The Brain’s Body: Neuroscience and Corporeal Politics, Duke University Press, 2016 The brain matters. Says the opening line from Victoria Pitts-Taylor’s The Brain’s Body: Neuroscience and Corporeal Politics. On the face of it, the human brain matters inasmuch as it is the body’s central information processing organ; the CEO that presides over many of our executive bodily functions. But the brain matters beyond the ways in which it has biologically evolved and currently processes information. The brain also matters in social thought, as neuroscientific research has historically informed widespread perceptions of certain bodies and persons at the social and institutional level. Moreover, the brain is embodied, and bodies accrue social and political meanings beyond what they represent at the level of scientific interest. Pitts-Taylor takes this interplay between science and culture as her starting point, and she investigates the entanglement of brains and bodies with cultures and ideologies (1). [End Page E-3] The project of Pitts-Taylor’s book can be broadly situated at the crossroads of feminist theory, neuroscience, philosophy of biology, social epistemology, and queer and disability theory. In the introduction, she limns the broad historical architecture of this varied, interdisciplinary locale. For much of 20th century thought, the brain and the mind had been separately conceptualized as objects of philosophical and scientific inquiry. The brain belonged to the body, for the most part, while the mind was conceived as an epiphenomenal happening of its own. Toward the end of the century, however, such conceptual distinctions began to seriously weaken, as the boundaries between philosophy, cognitive science, and neuroscience started to erode. Soon, the brain and the mind coalesced into a biological whole, and a new conception of the mind as both embodied and deeply social came into prominence among some researchers in the neurobiological sciences. At this juncture, the mind/brain, with its deeply social profile and underpinnings, was no longer regarded as biologically fixed. Instead, the brain was now understood as “the product of embodied experience,” as “the foundation for (and reflected in) social structures,” and as “subject to intervention and transformation.” (5) The Brain’s Body follows in this lineage of naturalistic questioning into, among other things, the mindedness of the body, the bio-materiality of cognition, and the situatedness of cognizing bodies in material cultures. In the spirit of critical rebelliousness, however, Pitts-Taylor’s book turns this lineage on itself, animating its critique and commentary by calling the cultural situatedness of this tradition itself into question. If the brain, qua the object of study, is plastic and can be socially influenced, should we not, qua theorists of the embodied brain, also heed and problematize the ways that such influences configure into our theorizing about the brain and the body? Pitts-Taylor thinks that we should! But this means that our theorizing about the brain is itself deeply plastic and impressionable, and thus open to the influence of social and ideological structures. Pitts-Taylor’s book, in a nutshell, is concerned with this concentric interplay of brains, bodies, and power structures. In a view that the book persuasively argues for, this interdependence is not merely symbolic, but also extends into the ways in which material structures are configured, including the literal structure of the brain. As such, and as the subtitle of the work suggests, “the book is concerned with the corporeal politics of the brain and the neurobiological body”(5) wherein the interplay of discourse and ideology manifests not merely through symbolisms and at the level of representations, but also in the corporeality of the world around us. [End Page E-4] Along these lines, Chapter 1 offers a discussion of the phenomenon of plasticity. The concept of neural plasticity, which refers to the ability of our brains to change and be changed, captures an exciting reprieve from the orthodoxy of neurodeterminism and biological reductionism. But, with the advancement of various forms of biotechnology, plasticity research also now holds potential for different modes of biogovernance and pharmaceutical intervention into contemporary life.1As such, plasticity is a...

Contagious Communities: Medicine, Migration and the NHS in Post-War Britain. By Roberta Bivins

Recent media coverage of Max Moseley’s involvement in the 1961 by-election in Moss Side reveals the ways in which alarmist and overtly racist campaigns were directed towards non-White migrants in postwar Britain. Leaflets that were allegedly circulated at the time proclaimed, ‘Protect your health. There is no medical check on immigration. Tuberculosis, VD and other terrible diseases like leprosy are on the increase. Coloured immigration threatens your children’s health.’ This was certainly not the only time that public health served as a catalyst for public opinion. In 1962, for example, Pakistani migrants were required to wear vaccination badges following a smallpox outbreak, thus demonstrating the ways in which pseudo-scientific myths characterized postwar attitudes towards ‘the coloured invasion’. What is clear from these campaigns, as observed by Roberta Bivins, is that perceptions of foreign bodies have shaped both medical knowledge and immigration policies. Indeed, it is along these lines that Bivins, in the lucid and captivating Contagious Communities, uses a fascinating medicalized lens to understand the impact of postwar migration to Britain.

Body image perceptions and symptoms of disturbed eating behavior among children and adolescents in Germany

Theoretical backgroundBody image distortions such as perception biases are assumed to be precursors of eating disorders (ED). This study aims to investigate body image perceptions and symptoms of disturbed eating behavior among a sample of 11–17 year-old students in Germany.MethodsA cross-sectional survey study was carried out among 1524 students of twelve secondary schools from all school types in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany). A naturalistic photograph-rating consisting of photographs of young women’s bodies was used to examine children’s perceptions of female bodies (i.e., perceived average body size and perceived ideal body size of young women). Also, symptoms of disturbed eating behavior were examined.ResultsCompared to statistical data, children and adolescents underestimated the average body size of young women by more than two BMI-points (estimated average BMI = 20), with no differences between boys and girls. Also, girls and boys generally held a slim female thin-ideal (perceived ideal BMI = 19.5), which is nearly three BMI-points below the average body size in the young female population. Girls showed a slightly stronger female thin-ideal than boys. Among all subgroups, early-adolescent girls (13–14 years) displayed the strongest thin-ideal internalization. Nearly one-third of this group perceived a BMI below 18 as ideal female body size. Symptoms of disturbed eating behavior were common among youth and most frequent among adolescent girls (15–17 years). Girls who displayed a bias towards underestimation of female body size and girls who displayed an underweight female thin-ideal were more likely to report harmful dieting behaviors and psychological distress associated with eating, body, and weight.ConclusionsThis study found that 11–17 year-old girls and boys do not show accurate judgements regarding the average body size of young women. Instead, there is systematic and significant underestimation, indicating considerable perception biases, which may constitute a risk factor for the development and maintenance of ED. Symptoms of disturbed eating behavior were common, especially among girls, and associated with body-related perceptions. Future research will need to clarify the severity and course of these symptoms.