This dissertation presents the results of a two-year ethnographic study among individuals who practice yoga and/or chiropractic care in Victoria, British Columbia, focusing on their experiences of their musculoskeletal systems. Anthropological research has examined the ways in which we live and experience our bodies as part of how we are in the world (cf. Csordas 1994, 1990; Merleau-Ponty 2007). In comparison with fleshed bodies, skeletons, as foundational aspects of living, breathing corporeality, have remained under-theorised and under-examined as essential aspects of how we perceive our everyday lives. I approach the skeleton as a critical space of bodies, a part of the internal material world that shapes not only the body as an object, but how we are in the world as subjects. Observations at two yoga studios and interviews with 21 individuals enable me to explore the skeleton’s space and place in the lived experiences of embodied selves. My analysis of interview narratives draws principally from theories of materiality and material(s) (Sofaer 2012; Ingold 2007), Mol’s “the body multiple” (2002) and Taylor’s notion of “surfacing” (2005). I argue that skeletal embodiment is deeply material, sensory and sensorial, personal, and critical in the formation of what I am calling the “skeletal subjectivity” of an individual. Specifically, I suggest how, skeletally, bodily-ness is experienced by participants as a means to se prendre en main, that is, ‘taking hold’, ‘taking care of one’s self’, ‘taking one’s self in one’s hands.’ I argue that, among these yoga and chiropractic practitioners, skeletal embodiment and subjectivity is navigated through materiality—that bodies “surface” in various ways through participants experiences and stories (Taylor 2005). My analysis contributes to the anthropology of the body by including skeletal lives as part of our embodiment without discounting previous notions of embodiment or of bodies in general. My idea of se prennent en main is a novel addition to conceptualizing embodiment, encouraging researchers to consider closely how individuals may respond to their sensorial and material body in living their lives. / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/14125 |
| Date | 23 August 2022 |
| Creators | Campeau-Bouthillier, Cassandre |
| Contributors | Mitchell, Lisa |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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