Philadelphia, December 2-6 2009
Call for Papers
Reimagining Bodies and Embodying Value in a Neoliberal Age
Organizers:
Fred Ketchum (University of Chicago)
George Paul Meiu (University of Chicago)
Email: aaapanel2009@gmail.com
In the context of late capitalism, we are witnessing
an increasing return to the body proper as a central
site of governmentality and value production. The
optimization of vitality and the valorization of
youth, ideal heights and desirable weights, erotic
features and exotic traits, visions of perfection
and perfectible visibilities, valuable ethnicities
and commodified identities, bio-value and
bio-capital, the violation of the body vulnerable
and the violence of bodies at war. These are only a
few of the recurrent themes in the neoliberal moment
that have engendered not only new ways of imagining
bodies and configuring subjectivities, but also new
forms of exclusion. For many, the impossibility of
embodying value has become generative of new
imaginations of bodily practices and social orders.
Throughout the last two decades, the body has become
an important site of reflection and critical
thought. From cultural studies to political
philosophy, from feminist theory to literary
criticism, scholars have (re)thought the
theorization of embodiment. The anthropological
concern with bodies has undergone multiple shifts
and diverged in many directions. One important
thread emerged with a critique of hegemonic bodily
configurations. Often, the issue of embodied value
has been explored with emphasis on the somatic body
in medical anthropology. For example, the
objectification and commodification of bodies and
body parts, particularly in the context of
technological and scientific developments like organ
transplants and stem cells, has shed light on at
least some ways in which value is produced.
Beyond this important focus on the value of
abstracted bodies, however, anthropology has
provided fewer analyses of how bodily practices
might carry value in the context of late capitalism,
and on how subjects might be viewed as generative of
value. Yet, this concern could shed light on
anthropology?s relevance in today?s world. What
can anthropology contribute to our notions of
identity, by theorizing some of the new ways of
embodying value of self-entrepreneurial subjects,
and the complex links to globalized images of the
?ideal?? How might we understand the publics in
which such discourses take place and are
materialized, and what forms of exclusion they
produce? Emphasizing an ethnographic perspective,
this panel aims to address some of these issues both
from theoretical and methodological viewpoints. For
anthropology a central question remains: To what
extent does the "body" allow for a critically
informed ethnographic investigation? Is there still
a place in our political and critical pursuits for
an "anthropology of the body"?
Papers could engage the following questions, but are
not limited to them:
o What are the relations between globally
circulated ideals of the human body, as
mechanism of value production, and local,
culturally and historically specific
articulations of embodiment?
o How do discourses of the body unfold in everyday
life and how are such discourses, in turn,
reshaped or reinforced in practice?
o How are bodies re-envisioned or reemployed in
neoliberal techniques of governmentality?
o How can we critically rethink bodies through the
lens of a neoliberal context abundant in new
forms of value production, new bodily
technologies, new forms of consumption and
commodification, and new aesthetic and affective
configurations?
o How can different ethnographically-grounded
explorations help us rethink bodies in relation
to biopolitical mechanisms of power?
Please submit abstracts (250 words) and a brief bio
or CV by email to aaapanel2009@gmail.com by March 1,
2009. Participation in the panel will be confirmed
via email by March 18th.
