Anthropology

Anthropology of the Body

Module code: L6065AID
Level 6
30 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Lecture
Assessment modes: Not yet finalised

This module explores the body from an anthropological perspective. It considers how different societies and cultures conceptualise and experience the human body.

In recent years, anthropologists and other academics have become increasingly interested in the body, including authors such as Foucault and Bourdieu. Some draw upon Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological approach with its emphasis on the senses. Others attempted to resolve the tensions between experience and agency.

The module asks how the body represents a challenge for anthropological research. It explores recent ethnographic contributions to this field. We consider the body as a site:

• on which social and cultural processes are inscribed
• where power relations converge and are articulated
• where agency is performed.

Materials are drawn from both non-Western and Western societies.