Читать книгу The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology - Группа авторов - Страница 85

The phenomenological perspective focuses on the “lived body” and the idea that consciousness is invariably embedded within the body. The human being is an embodied social agent. The work of Merleau-Ponty, in particular his text The Phenomenology of Perception has been revisited, and it is regarded by many as critical to our appreciation of embodiment (Crossley 1995, 2006; Csordas 1994). Essentially, he argued that all human perception is embodied; we cannot perceive anything, and our senses cannot function independently of our bodies. This does not imply that they are somehow glued together, as the Cartesian notion of the body might suggest, but rather there is something of an oscillation between the two. This idea forms the basis of the notion of “embodiment.” As Merleau-Ponty (1962) writes:

Men [sic] taken as a concrete being is not a psyche joined to an organism, but movement to and fro of existence which at one time allows itself to take corporeal form and at others moves toward personal acts … It is never a question of the incomprehensive meeting of two casualties, nor of a collision between the order of causes and that of ends. But by an imperceptible twist an organic process issues into human behaviour, an instinctive act changes direction and becomes a sentiment, or conversely a human act becomes torpid and is continued absent-mindedly in the form of a reflex. (Merleau-Ponty 1962: 88, cited by Turner 1992: 56)

Thus, while the notion that embodied consciousness is central here, it is also highlighted that we are not always conscious or aware of our bodily actions. We do not routinely tell our body to put one leg in front of the other if we want to walk, or to breathe in through our nose if we want to smell a rose. The body in this sense is “taken for granted,” or as Leder puts it, the body is “absent.” Whilst in one sense the body is the most abiding and inescapable presence in our lives, it is also characterized by its absence. That is, one’s own body is rarely the thematic object of experience … the body, as a ground of experience … tends to recede from direct experience (Leder 1990: 1).

Within this perspective, the lived body is presumed to both construct and be constructed by, and within, the lifeworld. The lived body is an intentional entity which gives rise to this world. As Leder (1992: 25) writes elsewhere:

in a significant sense, the lived body helps to constitute this world as experienced. We cannot understand the meaning and form of objects without reference to bodily powers through which we engage them – our senses, motility, language, desires. The lived body is not just one thing in the world but a way in which the world comes to be.

We can see therefore that it is analytically possible to make a distinction between having a body, doing a body, and being a body. Turner (1992) and others have found the German distinction between Leib and Körper to be instructive here. The former refers to the experiential, animated, or living body (the body-for-itself), the latter refers to the objective, instrumental, exterior body (the body-in-itself).

This approach highlights that the concept of the “lived body” and the notion of “embodiment” remind us that the self and the body are not separate and that experience is invariably, whether consciously or not, embodied. As Csordas (1994: 10) has argued, the body is the “existential ground of culture and self,” and therefore he prefers the notion of “embodiment” to “the body,” as the former implies something more than a material entity. It is rather a “methodological field defined by perceptual experience and mode of presence and engagement in the world.” This idea that the self is embodied is also taken up by Giddens (1991: 56–57), who also emphasizes the notion of day-to-day praxis. The body is not an external entity but is experienced in practical ways when coping with external events and situations.

How we handle our bodies in social situations is crucial to our self and identity and has been extensively studied by Goffman, symbolic interactionists, and ethnomethodologists (Heritage 1984). Indeed, the study of the management of bodies in everyday life and how this serves to structure the self and social relations has a long and important history within sociology. It highlights the preciousness of the body as well as the remarkable ability of humans to sustain bodily control through everyday situations.

Marrying the work of theorists such as Foucault and Giddens with the insights of the early interactionists, Nick Crossley (2006) has developed the particularly useful concept of “reflexive embodiment.” Premised on Cooley’s (1902) notion of the “looking glass self” and Mead’s (1967) suggestion that we care about, and are influenced by, how we think other people see us, Crossley’s thesis is that humans are not merely subjects of regulation but are active agents whose thoughts, actions, and intentions are embedded within social networks. Embodied agents have the capacity to reflect upon themselves and such reflection involves an assessment of what they believe other people (the “generalized other”) think of them.

“Reflexive embodiment” refers to the capacity and tendency to perceive, emote about, reflect and act upon one’s own body; to practices of body modification and maintenance; and to “body image.” Reflexivity entails that the object and subject of perception, thought, feeling, desire or action are the same. (Crossley 2006: 1)

This notion is central to the experience of health and illness, not least because so many bodily practices and techniques are associated with the maintenance and reproduction of bodies to ensure good health and to manage illness. Many of these themes and issues have been explored by sociologists who have studied how people experience illness to explore how bodies are “lived;” how bodies are visualized especially in virtual, digitized spaces then colonized by commercial agencies to generate value and how embodiment shaped by socio-political power relations.