The status of branded clothing that are bought in informal contexts (outsourced factories, suitcase trade) is seen, at the beginning, as an uncertain one; so, the buyer himself will give meaning to this clothing by using his own body. Wearing a piece of clothing is a technique of the body. The relationship between the individual and the social body, cultivating a class difference, the consumption on reference to the peer group, they are all processes that can be seen in the way people choose and wear their clothing. This article looks upon the body from the material culture perspective, as the space in which the interaction between man and materiality takes place.
More than just a body mark with a strictly visual role, the tattoo represents a factor in the reorganization of the corporal identity of the individual getting the tattoo. The changes in body attitude which occur once the act of tattooing takes place are of multiple forms, oscillating between the exposing and the concealing of the body. Taking into account that both gestures – of concealing or exposing the tattoo, are deliberate acts of manifesting one’s body identity, understanding them depends on a number of variables, beginning with the exact place that holds the tattoo on one’s body, on to the public or private space where the body is being exposed and to the status of the individual within the group that becomes public to the exposed body.
This
paper is the result of approximately 6 months of fieldwork as a member
of an alternative medicine center offering free services. Starting from
this particular context, I was aiming to question one of the categories
we live by and by which we guide our daily activities. The relation
between body and mind, which defines the meaning of being a person, is
not, within certain limits, a universal category, but the result of
particular social and cultural contexts. In reference to the “mindful
body” concept, I have raised criticism over the reductionist categories
used in the field of biomedicine and at the same time I have rejected
the alleged relation between meaning and physiology promoted by the
postmodern currents.
This paper is an exploratory study about bodies, pain and injury in the context of contact martial arts practice. Although there has been a constant increase among social science scholars in research on these topics, few studies considered the relationships between them, focusing mainly on adjacent topics. The aim of the present paper is to define injury as a particular type of pain as well as its broader implications, in relationship to both the fighters’ bodies and to their everyday life.
Alexandru Bălăşescu In his article Alexandru Balasescu explores the practice of veil wearing in its collision with the French secular legal system. Analyzing the regulatory role of law in public space, and also the historical evolution of this very space, the author turns the argument regarding the ban of veil-wearing in schools and state institutions in France. He argues that secularism is a product and a function of the construction of space based on the requirement of vizibility, turned into the moral value of transparency. The article gives a new perspective on matters of modernity, Islam and competing legal spaces, introducing a long term historical perspective in the conversation on this topic of interest.
