Dr. Mona Al Bahr, Senior Executive Manager for Social Programmes at the Emirates Foundation, spoke on "The Body and Social Theory” at this Gender Research Seminar. The presentation focused on the concepts outlined in The Body and Social Theory, authored by Chris Shilling and published by Sage Publications. Dr. Badr authored the Arabic translation of the book. The discussion was conducted in Arabic.
This session focused on the importance of discussing dominant academic theories of the body. A number of disciplines have contributed to the discourse on "the body," including sociology, history, anthropology, cultural studies, mathematics, philosophy, theology and religious studies. In The Body and Social Theory, Chris Shilling attempted to create a paradigm with which to understand this multidisciplinary approach to studying the body, using the works of both classical and contemporary thinkers. In the second edition of the book, and in light of contemporary trends, the author also included a discussion on the human genome, in which some analysts state that our hereditary constitution determines our identity and destiny. Dr. Al-Bahar reflected on how western feminist theories of "the body" relate to contemporary feminist thought in the Arab world, and analyzed the points of intersection between the two.
In spite of the fact that social theories of the body confirm the impossibility of reducing our identities as humans and our physical relations to only “natural” or “biological” factors, our physical constitutions are nonetheless open to reductionism through language and technology. Dr. Al Bahr argued that it would be interesting to epistemologically analyze the current notion of what is considered to be “natural” with regards to the differences in the physical abilities of women and men and people belonging to different ethnic groups. By doing so, we would conclude that the body is not only a means for social classification and categorization, but is also able to formulate social relations and human connections. |