BGHS.NEWS

The InterDisciplines special issue “The body and its Multiple Dimensions is released now. This issues’ focus is understanding the body from different perspectives, such as from physical to metaphysical bodies, to social, to political and economic bodies. The topic evolved for the first time during the Linie 4 series of public lectures hold by members of the BGHS, which took place in 2016. On the occasion of the conference Lund/York/Bielefeld, also in 2016, some of the BGHS members worked out additional papers to approach their ideas of re_thinking the body.

The guest editors of the journal are Cleovi C. Mosuela, , alumna of the BGHS in the faculty of sociology and Britta Dostert, doctoral researcher in the faculty of history. A result is this issue with five articles by young international researchers.

About the topic

Common across the individual articles is an understanding of the body as a sociological and historical category in the center of an analysis of power relations, discourses, social transformations and contested meanings. Some papers demonstrate how biopolitical instruments use the body along intersectional categories for political purposes, which is in line with Foucault’s theory about bodies, being racialized, sexualized and gendered as a part of a biopolitical project.

Along this, Michelle G. Ong investigates aging Filipina migrant bodies in New Zealand. The article questions, how the construction of responsible citizenship is related to a certain healthy body and stabilize social inequalities. She therefore focusses throughout her discourse analysis of migrants’ understanding on health and aging bodies.

Oleksandra Tarkhanova focusses state discourses as well as she takes a critical stance on contemporary Ukrainian welfare and labor policy discourses in their effects on women’s reproductive rights and options. Tarkhanova analyses, how the female body is essentialized as a birth giving material to fulfil its “higher, natural purpose”.

Misogyny as a meaningful structure of gendering bodies, is also part of Susan Lindholms contribution, as she presents her research on the gendered body in the space of hip-hop. In her article she discusses the bodies’ potential of being able or unable to negotiate multiple and sometimes conflicting frames of belonging, such as national, transnational and popular culture.

Dealing with the example of soccer players, Katarzyna Herd argues that the body is a means for constructing narratives. Herd’s analysis signifies how soccer players enlarge their corporealities upon their own agency to impel history writing and the reputation of their team by performing in meaningful connections with their fans.

Also Cleovi C. Mosuela works with the concept of agency in relation to the body. Mosuela inquires into the corporeal element of nursing care in the case of Philippine-trained nurses working in german hospitals. Therefore she points out the significance of “body work” and care work, which leads to a very special, humanized relation to the patient.

About the InterDisciplines

The InterDisciplines, the online journal in editorial responsibility of the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology (BGHS), is published twice a year to different, the sociology or history concerning topics. Every issue is managed by different guest editors.

You find the current issue here:
http://www.inter-disciplines.org/index.php/indi/issue/view/24