Our bodies ourselves - Why we should add old fashioned empirical phenomenology to the new theories of the body

Journal/Book: Women Stud Int Forum. 1996; 19: The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford, England OX5 1GB. Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd. 253-265.

Abstract: Recent feminist theorising of the body is exciting, sophisticated, and difficult to read. The first part of this article argues that the theoretical enterprise of rethinking the body would profit from a meeting with feminist research on the phenomenology of ordinary bodily transitions. In the second section of the article, I reflect on some idiosyncratic personal data in order to suggest ways in which we could further our understanding of corporeality. I suggest four precepts for those concerned with feminist phenomenology of the body to follow: (a) use the metaphor of the Mobius Strip suggested by Elizabeth Grosz (1987, 1994) to cut through difficulties with the concept of the body; (b) focus on people's images of their bodies; (c) focus on what other bodies are present in a given situation; and (d) recognise that bodies operate in and on time.

Note: Article VS-Card H Marshall, Royal Melbourne Inst Technol, Dept Social Sci, GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne, Vic 3001, Australia

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