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SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY.
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Role of the human body.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Role of the human body. Ways in which space and place shape personal and social identity. The human body as the basic unit of existence and identity. The body construed as gender. Gender as an identity and a socially created difference in power between groups (male and female).
Paper Introduction:
How Fundamental Is the Body to the Field of Social Geography?
The question to be addressed in this study is centers upon the issue of how fundamental the variable of body is to the study of social geography. Bell and Valentine (1997) take the position that the human body is a practice of the self continuously subjected to self-discipline and self-surveillance. As a launching point for social geography, Bell and Valentine (1997) make the case that constructions of body shapes, eating disorders, bodily pollution, and the time and space specificity of cultural definitions of edibility are important fundamental constructs in the study of society.
Bell and Valentine (1997), in essence, position the human body as the basic unit of existence and identity. They are certainly well aware that constructions of the body and of id
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Applied to social geography, the fundamental tenets ofCartesian dualism allow scholars to understand the ways in which attributesof the human body, including gender, physical attractiveness, size andshape, and so forth help to form the cognitive schemas of self andidentity. At the same time,gays and lesbians have come to occupy a space and place in geography thatis largely shaped and informed by their sexual orientation and the uses towhich they put their bodies and the ways in which they understand theirbodies. This is not to suggest that other cultures, includingtraditional cultures, do not also impose gender stereotypes upon theirmembers. ReferencesBell, D., & Valentine, G. In social geography, the body is usually treated as less significantthan gender, which, as noted above, is a social construction (Knox andMarston, 2 1). Consuming Geographies: We Are Where We Eat. Knox and Marston (2 1) maintain that as with other forms of identity,gender implies a socially created difference in power between groups. In T. Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures. As Postman (1985) maintained, it is society that shapesthese distinctions at the level of the nation-state, the community, or thefamily and the home. In Nigeria, amulti-year severe drought devastated rural populations resulting inwidespread famine. Gender, Identity, and Place: Understanding Feminist Geographies. Bell and Valentine (1997)contend that the human being experiences the world and knows the worldfirst, through the body and then, through increasingly complexrelationships or dualisms with home, community, city, and so forth. The question to be addressed in this study is centers upon the issueof how fundamental the variable of body is to the study of socialgeography. Thehuman body, male or female, is used to distinguish between genders. Amusing Ourselves to Death. (2 2). Places and Regions in Global Context. (1998). This analyst also discusses the deconstruction ofmind/body or culture/nature dualisms. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.Lucashenko, M. Another researcher who has also approached social geography from thisperspective is McDowell (1999), who examined the range of places in which asense of the self as a man or a woman is constituted. Such a parsing of the fabric of life maycreate arbitrary dividing lines, but what is consistent in social geographythat begins with the body is a recognition that the human body itselfshapes the identity of its owner and the ways in which that individual(male or female, youth or adult, minority or majority group member)understands and interacts with other social units. Feminist theorists have added significantly to ourunderstanding of how gender and the body understood as physiology createidentity or inhibit the creation of identity. Cartesian dualism posits that all humansenjoy a physical or sensate existence along with a mental or cognitiveexistence. (1996). Neil Postman (1985) suggested that all societies use the media as ameans of promulgating stereotypes related to gender and gender-specificattributes, competencies, and appeal. It is his belief that young male andfemale children in most Western societies acquire a sense of genderidentity from a media barrage which tacitly provides stereotypes ofidentity. A text on Human Geography by Knox and Marston (2 1) also addressesissues of the body through the lens of gender. The Social Studies, 93(1), 23-31.Solomon, R.C., & Higgins, K.M. How Fundamental Is the Body to the Field of Social Geography? Bell and Valentine (1997) take the position that the human bodyis a practice of the self continuously subjected to self-discipline andself-surveillance. In thecase of gender, the power difference advantages males of females and issocially and culturally created. (1985). The body, construed as gender and gender differences,therefore creates inequities in behavior and custom. Valentine (1998) is clearly making reference to what someanalysts would characterize as gendered geographic and socio-geographicanalysis. (1997). Gender, genre, and geography. The argument is that the divisionbetween public and private spaces has been crucial to the socialconstruction of femininity and masculinity in industrial society. London: Routledge.Fausto-Sterling, A. An example of social geography in which the body is a starting pointfor investigation is provided by Lucashenko (1998) in an analysis of theintersection between gender and geography. Valentine (1998), in a discussion of youth and youth cultures,contends that the body and gender are both excellent starting places for ananalysis of the relationships between individuals and larger social unitsas well as social places and spaces. Poor women, relative to their male counterparts, havebeen especially vulnerable to malnourishment, undernourishment, and evenstarvation. Southerly, 58(4), 5 -51.McDowell, L. It is Valentine's (1998) belief thatall people experience and even know their environment through theirphysical selves. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Monette, P. Cool places: An introduction. Valentine (Eds). Skelton & G. It is Postman's (1985) contention that electronic media haveenormous power to affirm or to deny identity and to impose socioculturalstereotypes upon the young. Among these people, gender does define specificactivities needed to maintain community, but is in no way the matter ofstereotypes that gender becomes in mainstream White Australian society. (2 1). An interesting approach tothis subject was provided by Monette (1992) who discussed geographies ofidentity with respect to gay men and lesbians. To a small degree, beginning with Rene Descartes, social scientistsand philosophers have attempted to move from the human body to anunderstanding of the larger social environment. A Short History of Philosophy. McDowell (1999) draws upon the theories advanced by individuals suchas Michel Foucault to posit that the body is a surface upon which powerrelations may be mapped. Though women represent 7 percent of the world's 1.3 billionpeople living in absolute poverty, Richburg, Nelson, and Tochterman (2 2)assert that development activities in the Third World are rarely focused onwomen and their needs. Bodies, once again,become the building block upon which social geography is founded. Thebinary sex categories and the characteristics that distinguish them havebeen defined as natural across time and place and as a phylogeneticallyinherited structure of two basic types of human groups. Fausto-Sterling(2 ) also suggests that contemporary Western society is wrongfullyreliant on false dichotomies like nature-nurture, biology-culture, andessentialism-constructivism. Fausto-Sterling (2 ) believes that the most significant scientific influence onthe reification of a theory of sexual dimorphism in the nineteenth centurywas the work of Charles Darwin. Knox and Marston (2 1) give several examples of how thesedifferences are played out in different parts of the world. New York: Penguin.Richburg, R.W., Nelson, B.J., & Tochterman, S. New York: Basic Books.Knox, P.L., & Marston, S.A. (1992). (1998). Inperiods of sustained famine and drought, it is often the case that afterthe men have eaten there is little or no food left for the women and thechildren. Another social scientist who has used the body as a starting pointfor research in the field of anthropology and politics is Fausto-Sterling(2 ). Darwin's evolutionary theory, says Fausto-Sterling (2 ), held thatthe sexual categories of male and female emerged to serve the fundamentalpurposes of species reproduction for natural selection and survival. The work of this researcher has applicationsin any number of disciplines including cultural and gender studies,politics, and anthropology. The question of whether or not the body is truly "fundamental" to thefield of social geography can therefore be answered with a resounding"yes." Social geography concerns itself with the ways in which space andplace shape or impact upon the construction of personal and social identity(Knox & Marston, 2 1). Gender inequity: A world geography lesson plan. Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story. London: Routledge, 1-19. Though many traditional social geographers and social scientistsaddress issues related to the body in their analyses, it is only with theadvent of feminist analysis that adequate attention to a non-Darwinianapproach has been given in the literature. New York: Oxford University Press.Valentine, G. Because of actual physiological or biological differencesbetween males and females it is therefore logical to conclude that young aswell as old individuals will know and understand their places and spacesfrom a biological and body-centered perspective. "Body" in this context is interpreted as gender,which is linked directly to discrimination and marginalization. As a launching point for social geography, Bell andValentine (1997) make the case that constructions of body shapes, eatingdisorders, bodily pollution, and the time and space specificity of culturaldefinitions of edibility are important fundamental constructs in the studyof society. For example, in Muslim households, males eat before womenand children, who are then allowed to consume whatever food is left. Based upon this admittedly brief discussion, it seems reasonable toconclude that Bell and Valentine (1997) are correct in their assertion thatthe body can be a viable starting point for the study of social geography.By adding the construction of gender to the construction of biology orreproductive function, it is possible to explore the ways in which thepossession of one body or another positions people within small and largeunits of society. McDowell(1999) moves from an analysis of the body to the next unit of socialgeography, the home, and then on to community and city, work andworkplaces, public places and the street, the nation-state, andtransnational displacements. Valentine (1998) discusses the ways in which the body becomes boththe locus and the lens through which geography and society alike areexperienced. Bell and Valentine (1997), in essence, position the human body as thebasic unit of existence and identity. (1999). These two groups haveexperienced enormous difficulty, says Monette (1992), in achieving anautonomous identity separate from sexual orientation. New York: Harcourt.Postman, N. This analyst traces the prevailing theory of sexual dimorphism inWestern culture to antiquity and argues that these early ideas have had apowerful influence on views of sex and sexuality and the body. Knox and Marston (2 1) also make reference to the intersectionbetween culture derived from religion and its affect on genderrelationships. These authors claim thatgender is an identity that has received a great deal of attention bycultural and social geographers within the last two to three decades.Gender is understood as a category reflecting the social and not thephysiological differences between men and women. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. They are certainly well aware thatconstructions of the body and of identity are intimately related to otheraspects of geography such as place and space, culture and community,climate and terrain. Using indigenous Aboriginalpeople in Australia, Lucashenko (1998) argues that the Aboriginal people ofAustralian do not construct gender in the same manner as the Caucasians inmainstream society. Another example of the body as a starting point for the study ofsocial geography was offered by Richburg, Nelson, and Tochterman (2 2).These researchers approach the study of social geography from theperspective of gender, noting that regardless of place, women earn only 1 percent of the world's income and less than 1 percent of the world'sproperty. Descartes, in his theoryof a dualism in which a mind/body differentiation exists, proposed thethesis that a person is a coupling of two different substances, mind andbody (Solomon & Higgins, 1996). (2 ).
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