1. THE MINDFUL BODY (Scheper-Hughes and Lock)
MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
THE MINDFUL BODY (Scheper-Hughes and Lock)

2. “The body is the first and most natural tool of man”
Marcel Mauss
“The body is the first and most natural tool of man”
LI Hernandez

3. Prolegomenon to the Body
Three Bodies
INDIVIDUAL BODY: lived experience of body-self … the way in which the body is received and experienced in health and sickness
SOCIAL BODY: the body as a natural symbol with which to think about nature, society and culture … the body as a social meaning
BODY POLITIC: the body as a regulated, surveyed and controlled body in reproductive and sexuality, in work and in leisure, in sickness and in health
LI Hernandez

4. The Individual Body “I think, therefore I am” (RDescartes)
Anthropological (Aristotle) vs. Medical (Hippocrates) construction of disease/illness through the body (individual)
“Body and Mind” continuum (Descartes) – the palpable body and intangible mind in terms of sickness and wellness
Cartesian legacy (fn Hippocrates) separated this “body and mind” model to develop clinical science (the body as an examined body)
LI Hernandez

5. Medicalization of Illness
Body (external)
Mind (internal) II
Age of Science
Medicine
Body as clinical investigation
III
Medicalization of Illness
Illness vs. Disease
…abnormalities in the structure and/or function of organs and organ systems (disease) from the patient’s subjective experience of malaise (illness)…
Illness stage Disease-Illness stage Disease Stage
Thus, the “illness “ dimension of human distress (i.e., social relations of sickness) is being medicalized and individualized. Medicalization entails a missed identification between the individual and the social bodies, and a tendency to transform the social being into the biological.
LI Hernandez

6. The Social Body
Body as a metaphor (e.g., how do we convey our body to others?)
Body as a symbol (e.g., what do you represent your body?)
Body as a meaning (e.g., why you present your body to others?)
Body as history (e.g., what is the history of your body?)
LI Hernandez

7. Body (self)
Form
Substance
Meanings
Matter
LI Hernandez

8. Illness/Disease Mental disorder STI AIDS Cancer Cardio-Vascular RTIs
Sex Worker
Body Decoration
Diet
Economic
Social Acceptance
Illness/Disease
Mental disorder
STI
AIDS
Cancer
Cardio-Vascular
RTIs
Etc…
LI Hernandez

9. The Body Politic
Body as a social control (i.e., reproductive health or family planning)
Body as physical mapping (i.e., body decoration as a means to self-identify)
Body as a social fit (i.e., societal scripts for the domestication of the individual body in conformity to the needs of the social and political order)
LI Hernandez

10. What kind of body do you represent?
In conclusion…
What kind of body do you represent?