Cultural Modifications of the Body

Le corps fait l'objet de nombreuses manipulations sociales sous forme de rituels ou d'opérations chirurgicales qui visent à le modeler selon un modèle idéal du corps, défini, entre autres, d'après des normes de genre androcentrées. La médecine héritière des Lumières souhaite réparer les corps mutilés, différents, indifférenciés, ambigus, afin qu'ils entrent dans la catégorie de l'acceptable, du complet, du défini, voire du beau et du monosexué. De ce point de vue, la finalité des techniques médicales comme la nymphoplastie ou la clitoridoplastie-et également celles relatives à l'intersexuation et la transsexualité comme le montrera le deuxième volume de ce numéro-ne se distingue pas de celle des rituels d'excision et de circoncision qui visent également à trancher dans le vif de la chair pour sexuer les corps. Le terme même de sexe en latin vient de secare, couper, comme si la coupure qu'elle soit physique à travers les opérations ritualo-chirurgicales de sexuation, ou catégorielle au niveau du langage, à travers la binarité des genres 1 , présupposait une indifférenciation originelle qui menace l'ordre social en tant qu'elle apparaît comme bisexuée. Car, si le genre apparaît à beaucoup comme relatif et le sexe absolu, celui-ci peut revêtir également une certaine plasticité, ainsi qu'en témoigne les rituels d'excision, de circoncision, et d'infibulation, mais aussi les interventions chirurgicales comme l'hyménoplastie, la 1 Corinne Fortier, « Inscribing Trans and Intersex People in the Dominant Binary Categories of Gender », in Value,

El presente trabajo es el resultado de una investigación acerca de la práctica y la estética del tatuaje. Consiste en un análisis de argumentos, motivaciones e intereses con respecto al tatuaje, presentados por un grupo de individuos tatuados y por un grupo de tatuadores, en Chile. En su sección introductoria, analiza el tatuaje desde una perspectiva histórica. En su desarrollo, se concentra en la reflexión acerca de las respuestas obtenidas en el estudio de campo. En su parte final, esboza conclusiones emanadas del análisis efectuado y presenta una interesante entrevista con un tatuador de renombre internacional.

This article examines tattooing as an ancient and contemporary form of body inscription and modification. It frames the
popularity of tattooing in the Western World in relation to other modern body modifications and within the landscape of
consumer culture. Showing parallels between the motivations and meanings of contemporary tattoo practices, a historical
overview of tattoos in premodern and non-Western cultures is presented. The divergent ways in which scholars have
approached tattooing is examined, juxtaposing research in the behavioral sciences that links tattoos to deviant and antisocial
behaviors with ethnographic and social–scientific studies that place tattoos within cultural, symbolic, esthetic, and prosocial
frameworks.

Edited by: Erynn Casanova and Afshan Jafar

This cutting-edge series will address how global forces impact human bodies and the individual and collective practices associated with them. Books in this series will explore the globalization of bodily practices as well as the interaction of local and global ideas about bodies produce particular forms of embodiment. We are particularly interested in research covering the ways that globalization engenders in-between spaces, hybrid identities and ‘body projects.’

Culturally modified teeth are one of the few personal identity markers to survive into the archaeological record, have modern comparatives, and exist as a global deep-time behaviour. Typology and description, however, have suffered from a multitude of, often misinterpreted, classification systems usually restricted to specialized geographical areas and local publication. With the high variation of designs, a lack of consistent codified definitions makes cohesive discussion frustratingly difficult: highlighting that a new, clear global classification system is overdue. Expanding on the frequently-used works of Romero (1958-1986), a renewed classification model is presented, supplying continuity between past and future work. It provides an integrated system synthesizing previously temporally and spatially scattered examples, located via the literature and online museum collections. Pursuing a logical structure, modifications are integrated by more precise, defined descriptions and clear drawings. Usability and successfulness were assessed via both standardized participant evaluations and examples held at the Natural History Museum, London; results adjusted and improved the classification. This classification system provides a functional tool for global comparisons, supplying a framework to discuss designs in clear, unified codes rather than confusing or imprecise descriptions while also removing the necessity to access scattered, rarely reprinted classifications.

This is a revision of the previous essay, "If the Shoe Fits: Women Defining Personal and Social Identity by Means of Wearing Permanent Metal Adornments from the Early to Middle European Bronze Age".
Our appearance matters, it is as simple as that. Why our appearance matters and what it can signify is rooted within our diverse cultures. We often dress according to what our specific cultures dictate or encourage. Therefore, through our dressing traditions, we have the ability to establish our personal identity as belonging to a specific social category of which the surrounding society would be able to comprehend, as long as they consider themselves to be of the same or similar culture. This essay will focus on permanent metal adornments that some women wore during the Early to Middle European Bronze Age. Could wearing such permanent metal adornments be symbolic of these women’s personally and socially perceived identity within their community and how could such a practice be continuously reinforced across several generations? To discover this, I will predominately use the research on Bronze Age female identity from the archaeologist, Marie Louise Stig Sørensen. I will also briefly cross-examine these ancient practices with the women from one unique modern day culture, whom much of the Westernized world perceives as taboo.

Melentie Pandilovski curates The Institute of Fungus by Ian Haig at the Riddoch Art Gallery in Mount Gambier, South Australia. Technology and mediated realities are having an impact on our physical bodies. We are confronted by the messy and irrational reality of our bodies as the rational world technology and digital screens all around us remind us of who and what we truly are: meat bodies. With over 14 different video works, sculptural pieces and real time video, The Institute of Fungus gives an overview of Ian Haig’s intensely visceral and body centric art practice. With works exploring individual themes of selfie culture, violent video games, re-animated organs, interior bodies, hyper visceral simulation and the mutating conditions of the body all with the overriding theme of the confrontation of the body through technology. The exhibition offers new ways of considering what the body is in relationship to the contemporary media landscape.

Our appearance matters, it is as simple as that. Why our appearance matters and what it can signify is rooted within our diverse cultures. We often dress according to what our specific cultures dictate or encourage. Therefore, through our dressing traditions, we have the ability to establish our personal identity as belonging to a specific social category of which the surrounding society would be able to comprehend, as long as they consider themselves to be of the same or similar culture. This essay will focus on permanent metal adornments that some women wore during the Early to Middle European Bronze Age. It will be established that such adornments would have likely been continuously part of their personally and socially perceived identity within the community. I will also briefly cross-examine such ancient practices with that of one unique modern day culture, whom much of the Westernized world perceives as taboo.

Междисциплинарный научный и прикладной журнал «Биосфера», 2016, т. 8, № 4 РЕЦЕНЗИИ И ДИСКУССИИ Рецензия на выпуск пятый Маклаевского сборникакнигу «Бетель, кава, кола, чат. Жевательные стимуляторы в ритуале и мифологии народов мира», опубликованную в 2015 г. в Санкт-Петербурге Музеем антропологии и этнографии (Кунсткамерой) Российской Академии наук. Ответственный редактор и составитель М.В. Станюкович, редактор А.К. Касаткина, редактор английских текстов Байон Гриффин (Bion Griffin).

I recently came upon a light news item that caught my eye: following a partnership between Disney and Barneys department store, beloved Disney cartoon characters have been augmented to resemble fashion sketches: Though many of us in the fashion world are used to seeing these hyper-elongated bodies, impossibly willowy limbs, bodies whose legs consume 3/4...