Considering the multiplicity of the selves, in the material life or in the virtual life, related to the individual or to the community, according to the reality or to the fiction, we can wonder how the self is constructed. This session explores how the constitution of the self is linked to an embodied dimension. Focused on case studies in different fieldworks, with notably questions of personal conceptions and social visibility, associated to different sociological and anthropological approaches, the session aims to present several analyses about the embodied dimension of various self conceptions.

Argument

Considering the multiplicity of the selves, in the material life or in the virtual life, related to the individual or to the community, according to the reality or to the fiction, we can wonder how the self is constructed. This session explores how the constitution of the self is linked to an embodied dimension. Focused on case studies in different fieldworks, with notably questions of personal conceptions and social visibility, associated to different sociological and anthropological approaches, the session aims to present several analyses about the embodied dimension of various self conceptions.

Sociology and anthropology have already studied this question of embodiment, the self often counted as a unity. Following precursory Marcel Mauss`s analysis of the body (1934), we can ask the cultural dimension of the body uses and understand how this dimension can impact the construction of the self. Edward T Hall (1966) explored this cultural dimension in the way people consider distances between bodies with the concept of proxemics. David Le Breton (1990, 2002, 2011) also analyzed the link between the cultural and imaginary conception of the body and its use in creating a physical and spiritual entity defined as an embodied identity. These works help to consider, in various areas of self expression, the embodiment of the self.

Erving Goffman’s analysis (1959, 1963, 1971) notably aimed to understand how the embodiment of multiple roles and identities are linked to cultural, socio-economic or professional requirements. Norbert Elias’ analysis (1939, 1956, 1987) explored the Western cultural and historical production of self-control in the last centuries. He showed how individuals can follow the way of the “detachment”, where the self is based on (and attached to) a rational thinking about it ; and how individuals can otherwise follow the way of the “involvement”, where the self is based on (and attached to) the feeling of real experience.

This last dimension of his sociological analysis can also be linked to the notion of Flow developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990) and opens a new field in asking the embodiment of the self by distinguishing the embodied self and the mentally considered self.

Submission guidelines

Session in English.

Proposals of theoretically or empirically based papers about the embodiment of the self, concerning various fieldworks, should take the form of a +/-300 words abstract, submissions must be recorded on ISA website :

http://www.isa-sociology.org/congress2014/rc/rc.php?n=RC54

no later than 2013/09/30 

Vice-President

• Thomas S. SMITH, University of Rochester, USA

Secretary

• Alireza MOULA, Karlstad University, Sweden,

Treasurer

• Chris SPEED, Edinburgh College of Art, UK

Board Members

• Pierre BOUVIER, University of Nanterre, France
• Roberto CIPRIANI, University of Rome 3, Italy
• Devorah KALEKIN-FISHMAN, University of Haifa, Israel
• Roberto MOTTA, Recife University, Brazil
• Matteo NEGRO, University of Catania, Italy 
• Nicola PORRO, Cassino University, Italy