Embidiment As a Paradigm

Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology Thomas J. Csordas Ethos, Vol. 18, No. 1. (Mar., 1990), pp. 5-47.
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The 1988 Stirling Award EssayEmbodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology
THOMAS J. CSORDAS
The purpose of this essay is not to argue that the human body is an important object of anthropological study, but that a paradigm of embodiment can be elaborated for the study of culture and the self. By paradigm I mean simply a consistent methodological perspective that encourages reanalyses of existing data and suggests new questions forempirical research. Although I shall argue that a paradigm of embodiment transcends different methodologies, I will not attempt to synthesize the broad multidisciplinary literature on the body.' The approach I will develop from the perspective of psychological anthropology leans strongly in the direction of phenomenology. This approach to embodiment begins from the methodological postulate that thebody is not an object to be studied in relation to culture, but is to be considered as the subject of culture, or in other words as the existential ground of ~ u l t u r e . ~ The work of Hallowell is a useful point of departure, since his denomination of the "self as culturally constituted" marked a methTHOMAS J. CSORDAS is Assistant Professor ofAnthropology at the University oSWisconsin.Milwaukee.

odological shift away from concern with personality structure, and remains current in anthropological thought. In his most influential article, Hallowell (1955) articulated two principal concerns, which for present purposes I will term perception and practice. Perception is a key element in Hallowell's definition of the self as self-awareness, the recognition of oneself as an "object in aworld of objects." He saw self-awareness as both necessary to the functioning ofsociety and as a generic aspect of human personality structure. He referred to his outline of a method to study the self as phenomenological "for want of a better term," but I would argue that what he lacked was Nevertheless, in dia more adequately worked out phenomen~lo~gy. rectly addressing the problem of perception,Hallowell prefigured an anthropological critique of the distinction between subject and object. However, although he explicitly recognized the self as a self-objectification and the product of a reflexive mood, Hallowell cast his analysis at the level of the already objectified self. A fully phenomenological account would recognize that while we are capable of becoming objects to ourselves, in...