Dynamic Embodiment for Social Theory: "I move therefore I am"

173 Pages·2012·1.97 MB·English

by  Brenda Farnell

Dynamic Embodiment for
Social Theory
This book presents a series of ontological investigations into an adequate theory
of embodiment for the social sciences. Informed by a new realist philosophy of
causal powers, it seeks to articulate a concept of dynamic embodiment, one that
positions human body movement, and not just ‘the body’ at the heart of theories
of social action. It draws together several lines of thinking in contemporary social
science: about the human body and its movements; adequate meta-theoretical
explanations of agency and causality in human action; relations between moving
and talking; skill and the formation of knowledge; metaphor, perception and the
senses; movement literacy; the constitution of space and place, and narrative
performance. This is an ontological inquiry that is richly grounded in, and
supported by anthropological ethnographic evidence.
Using the work of Rom Harré, Roy Bhaskar, Charles Varela and Drid Williams
this book applies causal powers theory to a revised ontology of personhood, and
discusses why the adequate location of human agency is crucial for the social
sciences. The breakthrough lies in the fact that new realism affords us an account
of embodied human agency as a generative causal power that is grounded in our
corporeal materiality, thereby connecting natural/physical and cultural worlds.
Dynamic Embodiment for Social Theory is compelling reading for students and
academics of the social sciences, especially anthropologists and sociologists of
‘the body’, and those interested in new developments in critical realism.
Brenda Farnell is a professor of Anthropology and American Indian Studies at
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is editor of the Journal for
the Anthropological Study of Human Movement.
Ontological explorations
Other titles in this series:
From One ‘Empire’ to the Next
Radha D’Souza
Science for Humanism
The recovery of human agency
Charles R. Varela
Philosophical Problems of Sustainability
Taking sustainability forward with a critical realist approach
Jenneth Parker
Dialectic and Difference
Dialectical critical realism and the grounds of justice
Alan Norrie
Interdisciplinarity and Climate Change
Transforming knowledge and practice for our global future
Edited by Roy Bhaskar, Cheryl Frank, Karl Georg Høyer,
Petter Naess and Jenneth Parker
Conversations about Reflexivity
Edited by Margaret S Archer
Relational Sociology
A new paradigm for the social sciences
Pierpaolo Donati
Sociological Realism
Edited by Andrea M. Maccarini, Emmanuele Morandi
and Riccardo Prandini
The Economics of Science: A Critical Realist Overview
Volume 1: Illustrations and philosophical preliminaries
David Tyfield
The Economics of Science: A Critical Realist Overview
Volume 2: Towards a synthesis of political economy and
science and technology studies
David Tyfield
Dynamic Embodiment for Social Theory
“I move therefore I am”
Brenda Farnell
Dynamic Embodiment
for Social Theory
“I move therefore I am”
Brenda Farnell
First edition published 2012
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2012 Brenda Farnell
The right of Brenda Farnell to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Farnell, Brenda.
Dynamic embodiment for social theory : “I move therefore I am” / Brenda Farnell.
p. cm.—(Ontological explorations)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Human body—Social aspects. 2. Movement, Psychology of.
3. Muscular sense. 4. Semantics. I. Title.
HM636.F37 2012
306.4—dc23
2011032673
ISBN: 978–0–415–78109–1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978–0–203–80503–9 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon
To Drid Williams
whose work, inspiration and guidance
made this possible
Contents
List of figures x
Preface and acknowledgements xii
1 The primacy of movement 1
2 The body in social theory 8
3 A new ontology of personhood 21
4 A methodological move: movement literacy 34
5 Bourdieu’s habitus: a sociological mislocation of agency 69
6 Lakoff’s and Johnson’s metaphors: a psychological
mislocation of agency 86
7 Verbal and non-verbal: a linguistic mislocation of agency 104
8 The ab(sense) of kinesthesia in Western thought 118
9 Implications of dynamic embodiment for social theory 129
Notes 134
Bibliography 142
Index 155
Figures
4.1 Movement in wedding dance. Photograph from Nuer Religion,
E.E. Evans-Pritchard 1956 35
4.2 Three distinct action signs glossed as a ‘handshake’ 39
4.3 A transcription of the action ‘I raise my (right) arm’ using the
Laban script 42
4.4 Movement transcriptions of three actions that look the same 42
4.5 The basic Labanotation staff provides syntactic order for the
symbols of the Laban script 43
4.6 The Labanotation staff adapted for writing Plains Sign Talk
(Farnell 1995a) 44
4.7 The set of graphic signs provided by the Laban script for body
parts and surfaces 45
4.8 The set of graphic signs provided by the Laban script for
specifying spatial direction 46
4.9 Two different cultural conceptions of the cardinal directions 47
4.10 Nakota storytelling with Plains Sign Talk and Nakota speech:
page one of the Labanotated score 48
4.11 An example of the form sent out from the Bureau of American
Ethnology by Garrick Mallery (1880) to his collectors of signs
out on the Plains 51
4.12 An illustration from Mallery (1880) showing how illustrations
were taken from photographs. Mallery frequently used the faces
and torsos from original photographs but replaced the handshapes.
Sometimes the Native person’s appearance was altered
significantly by replacing ‘white man’s’ clothing with more
recognizably ‘Indian’ materials 52
4.13 Word glosses of PST signs accompanied by descriptions of
movements in words. From Mallery (1880) “Collection of Gesture
Signs of the North American Indians (for collaborators only),”
Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington D.C. Clark (1885) also used this method of recording
signs 53
Figures xi
4.14 Accommodating simultaneous action in PST grammar 55
4.15 An example from E.T. Seton (1918) that uses all available means:
word glosses, verbal description and sketches with dotted lines 58
4.16 Sketches of PST signs from Tomkins (1926) that attempts to record
the movement component with lines, arrows and dotted lines for
the final hand positions 59
4.17 Missionary Lewis F. Hadley promoted the use of PST for teaching
Christianity and published a book and a series of cards (1893).
Where his religious concepts did not fit with those of indigenous
peoples, he invented new signs or stretched translations to
accommodate Christian ideas as best he could, sometimes
with amusing results 60
4.18 Graphic depictions of Plains Sign Talk (PST) by Native Americans 61
4.19 Photographs in isolation or in a series like this (Hofsinde 1941)
were also used in attempts to record individual signs and signed
utterances 62
5.1 Route directions given by a young Nakota woman at
Fort Belknap Reservation, Montana. The flow of action signs
and vocal signs read from bottom to top 70
5.2 Route directions from Harlem to Lodgepole in Nakota and PST 83
6.1 A transcription of the PST sign glossed as “TO THINK” 102
7.1 An American-English speaking professor gestures as she
talks informally to her students about doing field research 108
7.2 A second spatialized metaphor occurs in both vocal signs
and action signs as the American-English speaker says,
“fit into, you know, your interests” 109
7.3 Integrated use of standard Plains Sign Talk and Nakota 111
55
7.4 Metaphorical transformation of handshape kineme from to
which identifies Inktomi as the subject. From ‘Inktomi and the Frog
make the seasons’, Sentence #5, Farnell 1995: 181 112
7.5 The American-English speaker gestures as she says
“I hold on a little tighter to some of my own presuppositions” 113
8.1 Oken’s Path of Progress by Wheels of Five (after Gould 1985: 206) 119