Body & PoststructuralismSome of the principles

I The experience of body is socially constructed

One’s body is experienced and interpreted in certain ways depending on what culture he or she lives in, on gender, social status, natural and urban environment, etc. We learn from otherpeople: how to move and hold ourselves, how toname our bodily sensations and expressions, and how to evaluate them. Bodies are different – but the meaning of the differences is created by people.

It means that we used to take for granted some assumptions and ways of being, treat them as “natural”, while they are are quite optional.

II The construction of body is politics

At the same time each way of body construction includes some evaluation points, processes of normalization and marginalization. Quoting Foucault: “The soul is the prison of the body”. The field of “body politics” investigates and uncovers how it becomes a disciplinary object.

We can notice these politic acts in many usual moments of everyday life: in momentary assessments of the appearance and feelings of shame, in details of self-presentation and in the way of how space is organized. Maybe the implicit perception of body as separate and inferior object habituates us to live with the ideas “opposition is normal", "obedience is normal" and "violence is okay". Than the different body perception can become a path to a freer society.

III Body overflows any of its descriptions

The way I experience my body is not the only option: it’s just a usual one I can choose, but I don’t have to. Culture and my own life experience offers plenty of possibilities, which don’t fit to this general line. Body is a dynamic, changeable diversity, and it’s impossible to grasp it. So, the new practice, language and focus of attention can make the experience of body qualitatively different.

IV None of the body descriptions is «the correct one»

Some of the models claim to give unambiguous interpretations about body and prescriptions: what the particular symptom means, what types of bodies are exist, what is right and what is wrong. It doesn’t look like a good idea, because it reduces one’s agency. Every way of experiencing and describing the body is relational: it can be useful, but it can be revised and chosen.

V Through the new body experience the new versions of self can become available

Because of its marginal position in our culture on the one hand - and its ability to go beyond the

borders of any definition on the other, body can be a guide for the deconstruction and exploration of

the other possible ways of being.

Presentation: Elena Grebenyukelena.grebenyuk@gmail.com

Photographs by

Henri Cartier Bresson

Helmut Newton

Arno Rafael Minkkinen

Alexander Rodchenko

Ivan Sakharov