Anthropology Through the Experience of the Physical Body

ISBN-13: 9789819957231 / Angielski

Kaori Fushiki; Ryoko Sakurada

Spis treści

1      Introduction: Experiences of the Physical Body

Kaori Fushiki

1.1    Is Anthropology without a Body Possible?   

1.2    How Do We Define Human Beings?

1.3    What Is the ‘Body’?

1.4    The Structure of the Book: The Physical Body as a Problématique

 

Part I        Body and Space

 

2      The Social Body of Women: Patriarchal Ideology and Women-centred Kin Networks among Chinese Households in Malaysia

        Ryoko Sakurada

2.1    Introduction: Between Ideal and Reality

2.2    The Female Body and Theoretical Discussion

2.3    The Field Site: The Home Town of Migrant Workers

2.4    Daily Practices of Women Who Have Migrated from Their Home Town

2.4.1 Case 1: Strong Ties between a Daughter and Her Natal Home

2.4.2 Case 2: Exclusion of Pregnant Female Bodies from the Patriarchal Household

2.4.3 Case 3: The Tans’ Daughter-in-law in Johor Bahru

2.5    Conclusion: Female Kin Networks and the Social Body of Chinese

Women in Patriarchal Society

 

3      A Body Out of Place: Pollution and Pregnancy of Hakka Chinese in Sarawak, Malaysia

        Elena Gregoria Chai

3.1    Introduction: Powerful Female Forces

3.2    Theories of Pollution and Pregnancy

3.3    Pollutants in Local Contexts

3.4    Pregnancy Pollution in Tabidu

3.5    Scenario 1: Seeking Help for a Crying Toddler

3.6    Scenario 2: Steam Cake Is Polluted

3.7    Scenario 3: Polluting the Deities

3.8    Conclusion: Powerful and Dangerous Forces

 

Part II      Imperfect Bodies: Communication and the Body as Media

 

4      The Embodiment of the Deaf in Japan: A Set of Heuristic Models for Identity, Belonging and Sign Language Use

Steven C. Fedorowicz

4.1    Prologue: The Script as Ethnographic Data

4.2    Introduction: A Set of Holistic Heuristics

4.3    Deaf Interactions as Embodied Meaning

4.4    The Japanese Deaf as Viewed through Architectonics

4.5    A Gestural Approach to Japanese Sign Language

4.6    The Body as a Medium for Deaf Performance, Communication and Identity

4.7    Update: The Effects of Covid-19 on the Japanese Deaf

4.8    Concluding Thoughts

 

5      Playing about with Our Imperfect Bodies: Representations of Physical ‘Disability’ in Balinese Mask Drama Topeng

Yukako Yoshida

5.1    Introduction: Physical Defects and Comedy

5.2    Previous Studies on Balinese Comedy

5.3    Physical Defects in Balinese Society

5.4    Comedy in Topeng and Representations of Imperfection

5.4.1 Disability and Ability

5.4.2 Bodily Defects in Diversity

5.4.3 Laughing at ‘Our’ Imperfect Bodies

5.5    Reflexive Views among Actors

5.6    Conclusion: Playing about with Our Imperfect Bodies

 

Part III     The Body and Image

 

6      Bodily Myth and the Rottenness of Fudanshi in Singapore

Aerin Elizabeth Lai

6.1    Introduction

6.2    Boys’ Love and the Rottenness of Fujoshi and Fudanshi

6.2.1 The Singapore Context

6.2.2 In Search of the Elusive Fudanshi

6.2.3 Consumption in the Singaporean Closet

6.2.4 Ambiguity in Censorship Guidelines

6.2.5 Stepping Away from Fudanshi

6.2.6 Unsexing BL Bodies

6.3    The Trap

6.4    Conclusion

 

7      Rethinking the Self in Chinese Kinship Studies through the Household Investigation Ritual

Dean Koon Lee Wang

7.1    Introduction: Imagining an Animal Farm in Chinese Kinship

7.2    Houses and Kinship: A Review

7.3    The Household Investigation Ritual

7.4    Conclusion

 

Part IV     The Body as Container: Taming the Bodies?

 

8      Penetrating the Body: Spirit Possession at a Southern Thailand School: Towards an Anthropology of Affect

Ryoko Nishii

8.1    Introduction: Beyond Binary Thinking of Mind/Body in Anthropology

8.2    Outline of Spirit Possession Events at the School

8.3    The Body in Possession

8.4    The Possession Experience

8.5    Peculiar Relationships among Spirits

8.6    Unsuccessful Remedies

8.7    Presumed Causes

8.7.1 Villagers

8.7.2 The First Principal

8.7.3 The Public Health Office Report

8.7.4 Teachers

8.8    Other Cases of Spirit Possession in Thailand

8.9    Possession by Focusing on Affect

8.10  Conclusion: Spirit Possession as an Arrangement

 

Glossary of Non-English Terms

Index

O autorze

Fushiki Kaori is a professor at the Department of Humanities, Taisho University, Japan. Her expertise lies in the fields of cultural anthropology, organology, ethnomusicology, theatre studies and religious studies. Her research interests cover the performing arts in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, especially Balinese gamelan and glove puppet theatre (wayang potehi) and Chinese rituals related with those performing arts in Singapore. She has published extensively on these topics. Her publications, as a co-editor, include Potehi: Glove puppet theatre in Southeast Asia and Taiwan (2016). She is currently undertaking research on the untold and unseen skills and knowledge of performance acts and the making of musical instruments as a member of a cultural anthropology research group that focuses on the acquisition and developmental processes associated with skills, proficiency and tacit knowledge.

 

Ryoko Sakurada is a lecturer of social and cultural anthropology at the Ikuei Junior College's Modern Communication Department in Japan.

Blurb

This book seeks to break new ground, both empirically and conceptually, in examining changing understandings of the physical human body from a variety of anthropological perspectives. In doing so, it interrogates how the body has been and continues to be conceptualised, experienced and interacted with. After an introductory appraisal of recent approaches to understanding the body, the book provides empirically rich accounts from East and Southeast Asia of how cultural, environmental and social norms shape human physicality. The contributions are organised in four broad themes. Part I, ‘Body and Space’, offers two contrasting case studies from Malaysia, both of which examine gender norms associated with marriage and pregnancy, including the taboos associated with these rites of passage. Part II, ‘Imperfect Bodies: Communication and the Body as Media’, analyses two case studies—Deaf people in Japan and masked theatre performance in Bali, Indonesia, to reflect on changing attitudes towards disability, which reflect broader social norms and cultural beliefs about the nature of disability and its place in society. Part III, ‘The Body and Image’, provides a pair of case studies from Singapore, on male fans of the popular manga Boys Love genre and on ways that the Chinese zodiac system is determined from birth and continues to be spiritually embedded in the body of a Chinese individual through ritual practices. Part IV, ‘The Body as Container: Taming the Bodies?’, presents a single case study from Thailand of spirit possession among schoolchildren. Though wide-ranging, all the case studies posit that the body is a site of constant negotiation. The way the body is presented and the way it is seen is shaped by a complex array of social, cultural, political and ideational factors. Anthropology through the Experience of the Physical Body is a valuable interdisciplinary work for advanced students and researchers interested in representations of the body in East and Southeast Asia and for those with wider interests in the field of critical anthropology.