2002
DOI: 10.1525/aa.2002.104.4.1123
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Rethinking Anthropological Studies of the Body: Manas and Bōdham in Kerala

Abstract: Anthropological research that focuses on the body has been prolific in the last two decades. This trend has provided an important reorientation away from a tendency to focus on mental representations of experience and has allowed for a more holistic understanding of the human condition. However, this article argues that much research on the body has created a false dichotomy: Westerners are seen as living in a world of mentalistic bias and mind–body dualism while all others are understood as more grounded in t… Show more

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Cited by 27 publications
(15 citation statements)
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“…Indeed, my ethnography suggests that not only may interiorized experiences of place be embodied (that is, not mentalistic and abstract), but they may also be experienced at intensely affective, extra-conscious and supra-subjective levels. Thus, I agree with Halliburton (2002Halliburton ( , 1126) that anthropologists should be sensitive to "local phenomenology," or what Feld (1996, 91) calls " social phenomenology," that is, context-specific dimensions of knowledge and experience-and with Navaro-Yashin (2009) that affect should be situated and understood within ethnographic contexts, since her interlocutors, like mine, were also vocal about (conceptually contradictory) notions of both embodied emotions and interiority. 17 However, given these debates variously posed between constructionism and universalism, discourse and embodiment, and emotion and affect, the question I asked myself is whether the various Vaishnava place-experiences are socially constructed or more primal and affective, and the simple answer is that they are both.…”
supporting
confidence: 52%
“…Indeed, my ethnography suggests that not only may interiorized experiences of place be embodied (that is, not mentalistic and abstract), but they may also be experienced at intensely affective, extra-conscious and supra-subjective levels. Thus, I agree with Halliburton (2002Halliburton ( , 1126) that anthropologists should be sensitive to "local phenomenology," or what Feld (1996, 91) calls " social phenomenology," that is, context-specific dimensions of knowledge and experience-and with Navaro-Yashin (2009) that affect should be situated and understood within ethnographic contexts, since her interlocutors, like mine, were also vocal about (conceptually contradictory) notions of both embodied emotions and interiority. 17 However, given these debates variously posed between constructionism and universalism, discourse and embodiment, and emotion and affect, the question I asked myself is whether the various Vaishnava place-experiences are socially constructed or more primal and affective, and the simple answer is that they are both.…”
supporting
confidence: 52%
“…This is to avoid the pitfalls of taking a dualistic position between the health philosophies of the supposedly spiritual East and the rational West, much like with recent anthropological considerations of the philosophy of the body (for an excellent example, refer to [70]). During the analysis, my initial viewpoints on health between two models of a scientific Western paradigm and an Eastern experiential model were challenged when I came across various mixed systems and influence from non-Chinese cultures and geographical origins.…”
Section: Discussion: the Health Philosophies In Principle And Practicementioning
confidence: 99%
“…Le numéro spécial de The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute coordonné par Low et Hsu (2007) -consacré aux thèmes « Vent, vie et santé : perspectives anthropologiques et historiques » -s'inspire d'une approche phénoménologique merleau-pontienne explicitement reconnue : Hsu s'est intéressée au « vent », entité étiologique historique, en adoptant la perspective d' Ingold (2000) sur l'environnement directement inspirée de Merleau-Ponty (1945). Halliburton (2002) décrit des expériences religieuses bouddhiques et hindouistes ouvrant sur la « phénoménologie locale » du Kerala, un usage du terme que l'auteur revendique clairement. Becker (1981) offre une étude philosophique à partir d'une mobilisation de sources secondaires 7 sur les expériences proches de la mort (near-death experiences) pratiquées dans cette forme populaire de bouddhisme née en Chine (III e siècle) puis diffusée en Corée et au Japon (XI e siècle).…”
Section: De Quelques Résonances Philosophie Phénoménologique Et Penséunclassified