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A ‘Body’ Problem in Visual Anthropology

Body Ethics and Bodies of Power:
Some Ramblings on Issues with the Body on the Big Screen

Of course, images of people are necessarily images of bodies. And selves, are embodied selves. The skin, not simply the ‘body envelope’ (Gell 1993: 35) cannot be said to be where the outline of the ‘body’ lies unproblematically (cf Frankau 2006). For the body on a screen or in a photograph, is an entirely material body, which lies beyond the controls of one’s own skin and said ‘boundaries’. The demand within art for the freedom from censorship, and it follows, for the right to free agency is one which is in direct conflict with the free agency of the bodies on screen, which could be said to be trapped within the film or image itself. In his most recent book, Art and Agency, Alfred Gell argues that art is meant to capture its audience with the body as the main target. However, anthropologists should be more concerned by the fact that within the art of photography and filmmaking we ‘capture’ the image of our subject with the body as the necessary focus.

In metaphorical terms, this process of ‘capturing’ might remind us of incarceration, and it follows, that the lens of the camera would resemble a Foucauldian Panopticon. The Panopticon was a prison apparatus designed by 18th C. English Philosopher Jeremy Bentham. It allowed prisoners to be seen and surveyed by prison guards, without them knowing whether or not they were being watched. Likewise, people who are captured in photographs and film have no idea what audience will be surveying them, or even when and where they will be watched, and for what purpose. Foucault theorised that this asymmetrical (one-way) surveillance of the body is a way to further punish prisoners. So, what I am arguing is that part of the problem of the body in visual anthropology is the danger of subjects becoming incarcerated objects. And this could be one reason why ethics become an immediate issue as soon as a camera is involved in a (peopled) situation. Like the Panopticon, the camera is a piece of ‘machinery that assures dissymmetry, disequlibrium, difference’ (1975: 202) between viewed and viewer. In the case of visual anthropology this can be quite dangerous, especially considering the fact that much of what is considered to be classically ethnographic filmmaking focuses on peoples who were previously subjugated under colonial rule, being filmed by people who belong to Post-Colonial powers (a very clear and uncomfortable hierarchical paradigm).

David MacDougall writes in the Corporeal Image that ‘[s]ymbolic hierarchies reveal themselves in the cinema by regulating what can and cannot be seen’ (2006 :19). In this case, a permanent power is placed in the hands of whoever films, and equally as important, whoever edits the footage and he or she usually remains unseen. I would argue that this is not limited to cinema, but indeed to whatever four walls the image of a body might be incarcerated in. This should be evident in the framing of the photograph, for the framing process includes certain things within its borders by necessarily excluding others. These exclusions become non-transparent invisibilities, and our trust (whoever ‘we’ may be) lies with the image capturer to tell a ‘true story’ (whatever that may be).

Editing video, the process in which ‘symbolic hierarchies’ become the most implicit, is necessary in the production of video, and comes with its own ethical concerns. The Western anthropological gaze is an active one, while the non-Western bodies of the ‘other’ are passively being manipulated through the process of digital editing. Film-makers, within implicit and necessary limits, control when and how a person on screen moves. In this way, the editor becomes the soul mediator of a person’s visual, and therefore, bodily representation. The audience’s way of knowing the subject relies entirely on this representation. Effectively, editing has the power of stripping what I would call the ‘cine-body’ of free agency.

Herein lies a major and in-built epistemic bodily crisis of ethnographic filmmaking and photography.

Sneak Peak At Suspension Documentary

My Suspension – September 11th 2010

Brett fastening rope to freshly pierced hooks.

This is a narrative of the day I suspended, the video is soon to follow:

The atmosphere was strange and uneasy. It was clear that the Dr. Phil film crew was making Monique uncomfortable. Now and again they’d drag her to a certain spot to ask if she had been abused as a child, if she had been raped at some point and what her parents thought of what she was doing to herself. They were, I suppose, asking all the wrong questions. She’d try to get away from them, and I’d here them mention ‘B-roll’ as they shadowed her. It was strangely all about her, and yet not about her at all. The hike down to the creek was hard on some of the group. We lost 900 ft over 45 minutes moving from the dry and dusty desert to the more piney and lush area of Deep Creek Hot springs. The camp had vaguely split into two groups, and the group that I didn’t fall into seemed more interested in anything else besides the suspensions. They were enjoying the hot springs and the waterfall and the cold but refreshing fresh water below. We had found a secluded area with trees on one side obscuring and separating us from the clothing optional swimmers and on the other side was a tall rock slope that went up about 80 feet. ‘Burners’ and ‘Hippies’ and nudists were loud and abrasive and/or naked, which some of our group (including myself) really were not sure of how to interact with. One woman who had very faded out purple hair in a small pony tail and was only wearing shorts kept approaching us energetically and was clearly not comprehending our coldness. She was asking for weed and then a lighter and wanted to try on our equipment and asked why we were filming, like a curious and unwelcome child in an adult situation. The Dr. Phil show couple told her that they were filming for the show and she ran off excitedly and started yelling it to some other people in the hot spring, over and over again. The attention was very unwanted. Brett was clearly tired, and not quite there. He was more of an automaton than the passionate suspension artist I had seen in the past. Of course, I was also aware that he hadn’t slept at all the night before. I watched Monique go through her first suspension through the view finder of my camcorder, knowing that when my turn came I’d be going through exactly the same steps. (We were doing the same kind of suspension with the same kind of hooks from the same place.) I was dancing around Neil who had an HD Flip camera, and the 2-man Dr. Phil crew who was invasively close to Monique the whole time. Brett sat her down on the same rock she would later be jumping off and Tony stood in front of her in case she lurched forward. She looked very worried, and Tony told her ‘Your breasts look stupid’ (A Mel Gibson meme?) and she cracked up and smiled. Brett made sure that she knew the hooks would be going through the huge tiger tattoo on her back and she said she knew. Her face showed the pain of the piercing very clearly, which made me nervous. The actual piercing otherwise was uneventful. Brett locked the two giant safety pin-looking “hooks” and attached fairly slim blue rope to either side which hung in an upside down arch. He pulled up on the hooks via the rope so that they faced upward and the rope came over her head like a necklace. She yelped a bit and flinched. Someone laughed at her and told her that if she couldn’t handle that, she was really in for something. I thought about the piercer I saw at the CoRE Q&A who stubbed his toe and despite suspending many times reacted like anyone would if they stubbed their toe. Not all pain is the same. She got up on the big rock underneath the tree where Neil and Brett had set up the rigging and Brett talked her through it a bit. Tony held her hands (which looked really comforting and I knew that’s how I would want to be eased into it) and she jumped off the rock. As she swung forward, she made a weak screaming noise which was actually more of a squeal. ‘Put me down, put me down!’ she said quickly and before she could swing backwards she was on the ground again. She took a little while, had some water and Brett talked her through it again. ‘Don’t force it.’ I think he said, among other things. The man with the camera ran over and tried to ask her something, she reminded them that this was the time that they were not welcome to speak to her and they backed off. She got back up on the rock and this time, swung back and forth from her heals to the balls of her feet to get used to the pull of the hooks on her skin. She got up eventually and everyone clapped. Once she was down, she was greeted by a few different people, got hugged by a very enthusiastic Shelby and then Seth came out of hiding (he didn’t want to be on national television) and hugged her. It started to sink in that it was my turn. Brett asked who was next and I raised my hand. I was determined. He looked at me for a moment and then said he was going to take a breather and let the film crew and a lot of the group get out of the canyon. Shelby was excited and said ‘My turn!’ and I handed over my camera with a nervous grin. Brett appreciated the connection between me filming Shelby in the mine and Shelby filming me now. He told me that I had to faint to make it even, and then quickly warned me that I better not. While everyone who was leaving was packing up, the camera man approached me and said, ‘So you’re taking your research pretty seriously then’. I nodded and told him that they don’t call it ‘participant observation’ for nothing. He wished me luck, shook my hand and gave me his card. He told me to e-mail him and he’d make sure I could get a copy of the show once it aired. Then along with everyone else who was leaving he left our little enclave. The people who wanted to stay, included Tony, whom I asked to stay, Neil who I was secretly hoping would stay, Shelby and Berto, Kenny who was another first timer who would be going up after me, and John Johnson, another piercer. Once the majority of people had left, Brett seemed to relax a little. A wasp came around and ended up stinging him and he swore that if it didn’t leave him alone that he was done for the day. The thought of not being able to suspend in the next hour or so made me feel robbed. It felt really important to me suddenly, I needed to do this, and I needed these people here. I was overtly aware and really glad that most of the people from the Don Mine were going to be there for my first suspension. They felt very important to me, and I didn’t want anyone else in the whole world there. My heart was beating quickly and I felt anxious, but tethered (in a it’s-meant-to-be sort of way). I looked up into the mountains over the trees which were being bathed with the golden light of a lowering sun, closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. This place is beautiful, I thought to myself, and I let that feeling of awe swell in me. I tried to pull myself into what I can only describe as a spiritual calm, which I had felt earlier that day; Looking into the sky, breathing deeply and pulling one of my hairs out to give to the earth. It was something my mom always told me to do when I was really young and used to pocket things from the trails we would hike, the way a child might collect sea shells. She told me that if a Native American took something from the earth, like sage or a pebble they would leave one of their hairs in exchange. So, if I wanted keep whatever I took from the earth, giving one of my hairs was the right thing to do. I hadn’t pocketed any of nature’s trinkets but I had the compulsion earlier that day to pluck one of my hairs and leave it on the ground.

I was broken out of my moment by yelling drunken or otherwise intoxicated hippies and what seemed like unnecessarily loud splashing and screaming and I felt a little sad. And I thought back on how it juxtaposed the don mine and how beautiful and powerful all those moments were in seclusion. The environment the hippies created reminded me more of the audience at the art show who oh’d and awe’d, and said terribly ignorant and frustratingly thoughtless things while watching the ‘freak show’. But they were outside this space we had created, and we were inside of it. Broken out of my calm I got scared again. Why do I want to do this? I asked myself. But I couldn’t answer that. I ran various things over in my mind: my last heartbreak, all the heartbreaks, to reclaim my body, to get in touch with something that supposed ‘primitives’ could touch but me as middle class white girl in post-modern America couldn’t? Maybe it was to get a first on my dissertation, or to understand what they (‘they’ being this suspension group I had come to befriend) understood and I didn’t, closing that gap that separated me from the people I was with. Maybe it was to answer all the questions I was trying to get people to answer for me. Maybe it was my old habit of facing things head on that I’m afraid of, or because my pride couldn’t face backing down. But none of those reasons seemed to fit completely, and I let it go for the time being.

My heart kept pounding, and in a way that was comforting, because I knew from past piercing experience that adrenaline, or whatever it is that pulses through your veins when you’re terrified, can make pain very tolerable.

Brett announced that he wanted to get out of there before sun down and I think it was sometime around or after five. So, we had a little over two hours. I was reminded again of the Don Mine situation, rushing to get the suspension in before we were stuck hiking in the dark. He decided that he would pierce me in the same rock where Mo had been pierced, and once I was down I’d be handed over to Johnny to be patched up and Brett could simultaneously pierce Kenny. Like a very small suspension assembly line. Brett lead me to the spot where he was going to pierce me. I asked if this was the real thing and if I should take off my shirt. He confirmed and I gave my shirt to Tony. I sat on the big rock facing the sloping wall away from the trees. I heard Brett put on gloves behind me and then he started pinching and pulling the flesh around my shoulder blades between his thumbs and knuckles of his index fingers. What feels more comfortable he asked pulling on one spot, here?, pulling on a spot a bit lower, or here? I spent a moment thinking about the absurdity of the word ‘comfortable’ right now and then shakily told him, ‘The lower one.’ I think so too, he said. He began to prep me with some kind of iodine solution and some cotton wool and I concentrated on keeping my breaths steady to avoid hyperventilating. Why am I doing this? I asked myself again. And quickly I was able to answer it: I’m doing this for me. And that was reason enough.

He marked me four times by pressing the back of the 4 g (or was it 6 g?) needle into my skin so that it left a slight impression. (An entrance and exit for each of the two piercings.) All of this was building up my fear and anticipation. Alright, he told me, I want you to start taking slow deep breaths, and on the third I’m going to push it through. Take your first one, nice and slow… The needle was already pushing against my skin very slightly. On the third breath he pushed the needle through and I could feel it going beneath my skin and heard the ‘pop!’ of it breaking out the other side, but the pain didn’t register, I was too scared. My heart slowed and I could feel some of my anxiety release as he shifted it around and let it rest on my back. As soon as I felt myself calm I knew that the second one was going to be worse. And it was. But still, it wasn’t bad. It felt like any piercing, a very familiar pain to me (sixteen times over). Both hooks were in and I was feeling pretty good (all things considered). They asked if I was alright, and I said I was fine. Tony gave me some water. Brett grabbed some of the blue rope, had me stand and then he began tying them to the hooks in my back. He then clamped them shut. How does it feel? Someone asked. ‘Like I have two giant safety pins in my back’ I told them. Yeah, Brett said, feels a lot like jewelery. I agreed. They checked periodically to make sure I was feeling fine. Brett told me to lean my head back and put my arms up to receive my blue rope necklace. The hooks flipping upward through the flesh hurt and I felt myself cringe. It didn’t feel possible. It didn’t feel like I would be able to hang from these things in my back. It felt too shallow, it felt like I was going to break and I couldn’t really get my head around it. What if, despite this working again and again I was the one whose skin just went SNAP! Early on in my research, my friend had told me of fears very similar to those I was experiencing. I mentioned it to Brett and Tony and Neil. Neil said that was part of it – doing what the mind thinks is impossible but the body is capable of. Trusting that you’re body can handle it. I nodded. Brett told me I could do it from the big rock that Monique went off of but if I did I was going to swing. I could also do it from the sandy area between the big rock and the stump of the tree and he’d pull me directly up. Tony had told me “no tippy-toes” earlier – that sometimes when people get on their toes they get stuck and can’t go any further. I didn’t want that all. I wanted to be off the ground. I tried the sandy ground at first. The hooks began to pull and I felt off balance like I was falling. I decided to step up onto a flat rock only a few inches of the ground and try it from there. It feels so warm, I remember saying. I could hear John telling a young boy at the entrance to the enclave that he didn’t want to come back there. The boy obstinately said ‘Why?!’ What a brat, I was thinking. And John told him that really boring stuff was happening there. There was slight shame that came over me for a moment that I was something too gruesome for a child to see, that they needed to be protected from me, and I knew that whatever happened I didn’t want to see that little boy. I told Brett I wanted to turn around and very shortly after that I was holding Tony’s hands in front of me and walking off the little ledge. ‘Are you ready?’ Tony was asking me, Of course I’m ready I thought to myself, it seemed so obvious to me, so obvious that everyone there should understand and know everything I was feeling. ‘Yeah, I’m ready’ I was telling him and I could see him in front of me with my hands outstretched into his and then I was going up. My eyes were closed and I could hear the sound of rope being pulled through the pulley system quickly and I felt all the skin from my ribs and my back being pulled away with a force and sensation that was strange and unfamiliar. It felt like my arms were locked in place and I couldn’t move them. It was like I was a misbehaving puppy being plucked from the litter and I kind of wanted to sleep. My feet were no longer touching anything but my hands were still barely touching Tony’s gently, which I suppose, retrospectively, he was holding way above his head. I kept my eyes closed and was getting used to this new embodiment. Pain never even crossed my mind, what was crossing my mind was strange and slow and internalized. Speech, though I wasn’t trying to speak seemed far away and uncomfortable to try to achieve, like something on a high shelf when you’re feeling lazy. I heard Brett’s voice saying something like, talk to us, Cat, anything, we need to know you’re ok. Just wiggle your fingers, anything. That seemed reasonable and I wiggled my fingers in Tony’s outstretched hands. I opened my eyes, and there was Tony! But he was so far below me at an angle I’ve only seen people from in movies. Like a POV shot of somebody who has just learned to fly and they’re taking off from the ground and whoever was just speaking to them is reaching up as if either letting them go, or offering to pull them back down. I need a picture of this! I thought, next time I should really bring my camera. And I thought about asking for someone to get my digital camera for a moment and then remembered I had wanted someone to take pictures but I had been so nervous I had completely forgotten. How silly of me! And then I remembered that Shelby was filming me and that seemed alright. I must have been smiling. I did it! I thought to myself triumphantly. Look at me!

And then I was at a bit of a loss for what to do. I felt a bit silly yet again. What does one do when hanging from hooks? Later on I realised I had felt that way when watching others suspend. Seeing them get pierced is morbidly fascinating, watching them get up is thrilling and then there’s a bit of a ‘Now what?’ feeling. I simultaneously felt like I could come down at any time, or I could be up forever, either way really, I seemed to think to myself. I’m not really bothered. I swam with my legs in the air slowly and twisted my wrists and hands. I’m dancing, I thought! And Tony gently pushed me in a little circle and I danced and danced and it felt beautiful and free. I saw Neil on the high rock, and I smiled at him for what felt like a long time. And then I was somewhere untouchable. Something I understood in that moment that I would never have the words to describe. It was both a feeling and what felt like a place. A place inside of me that felt so internal and individual and interconnected between everything I was and ever would be that it shut out the rest of the world, and I felt whole and really and entirely unimagined. It was a feeling of being, not just now, but in the way that I may not always be but I will always have been. It was so hugely personal that it made me feel like even parts of myself were strangers to it. This, whatever this was, it was the only thing that I had. And no one but me could feel it, or touch it or break it. And later, looking back I’d think I really had seen where my flesh ended and the world began. I had glimpsed something and it was beautiful and I was satisfied. I tried hard to remember how to speak to others in an established cohesive way (instead of the abstractions that were swirling wordlessly around my whole self) and I asked to be brought down. Brett told me to bend my knees and I bent them like I saw Shelby do so beautifully in her photographs on facebook. He told me he was going to bring me down and that when my feet were on solid ground I could unbend my knees. I felt the weight of my whole body shift from my shoulders and upper back to my feet, my ankles, my calves, my thighs. I felt sore where the hooks were hanging and overwhelmed with a feeling of happy accomplishment. I sat down, someone gave me water and someone asked if I was ok. I’m fine, I said, almost surprised that they’d ask, Actually, I’m really great! I said smiling. I took a deep happy breath and when I breathed out I was close to bursting into tears. I was asked if I was good to walk and I said I was. John Johnson asked if I wanted to walk around with the hooks in for awhile or if I wanted them out. I said I wanted them out, and I followed him over to another rock. He told me how to sit and I did. I took another deep breath and my eyes filled with tears, Neil was the first to ask if I was ok and I nodded and then I began to sob. Brett and Tony were also in front of me. Brett got really concerned and started to come toward me, Are you ok? I’m fine, I managed and I was. It was the most glorious release. I was overcome by sadness and joy and everything I had ever experienced and every person I had ever known. I’d bring a sadness to mind and I’d sob harder for a moment and then each and every little heart break was gone. Is it emotional or physical? he asked me. Emotional I said blinking through tears. He was really happy for me. “Cat, if you didn’t have bloody holes in your back right now I’d give you the biggest hug. And then he added, Let it all out.” I felt cold liquid suddenly cascade down my back on one side and heard John, saying Oh, wow, you’re really bleeding. I can feel it, I said. It felt very similar to the tears quickly rolling down my face. He put a gloved hand underneath the bleed and asked for some gauze. He pressed the gauze firmly onto the wound and it hurt, which reminded me of my dissertation and brought me back down to earth, so to speak. Give me a smile! Shelby said, holding my camera. I looked up through my tears into the lense and smiled. John put clear bandages on me and said I was good to go. Shelby stopped recording and gave me my camera.

Kenny had decided to go up from his knees and they were going to start piercing him right away. I was too weak to hold the camera and stand all at the same time and asked Tony to film for me. I sat and drank water until I decided I didn’t care that it was sore, I wanted to keep filming and I took the camera back from Tony. It hurt but I did it anyway. As soon as Kenny was down we were packing up and getting out of there. My camera bag was sore no matter how I wore it over my shoulder and it felt heavier than it had before. The hike back took a little over an hour, it was mostly in the dark and the whole thing was uphill. I struggled a lot and was feeling more and more sentimental. I told Neil I was glad he was there for it, and he said he was too. I really wanted to tell everyone I was really grateful and that they meant a lot to me, but I kept it to myself because no one looked like they were in the mood for it. Once we were in the van parked at the trailhead I felt awesome. And everything that had hurt didn’t matter at all.

Back at the camp, people greeted me with a lot of warmth. It felt like something had changed. People opened up to me. People hugged me. They said, now it’s my turn to ask you questions, and they playfully interviewed me. After a long conversation even Seth said to me, “I’m so glad you understand, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there for it”.

iPad Magic Tricks

Anthropology Overheard in New York…

Anthropology professor: Everyone’s a misogynist. Women attend seminars, “seminar” comes from the word “semen,” which comes from the Latin for “a unit of knowledge.” And this, my friends, is how women get smart.

–Classroom, NYU

Kurt Vonnegut on Anthropology in Slaughterhouse-Five

I think about my education sometimes. I went to the University of Chicago for awhile after the Second World War. I was a student in the Department of Anthropology. At that time they were teaching that there was absolutely no difference between anybody.

They may be teaching that still.

Another thing they taught was that no one was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, ‘You know – you never wrote a story with a villain in it.’

I told him that was one of the things I learned in college after the war.

From pictureisunrelated.com…

My Papers From Anthropology s135: Deviance and Abnormality.

Enumclaw, Washington: Home of The Adult Petting Zoo (Assignment 1)

In Enumclaw, Washington, on July 2nd 2005, a 45-year-old man, later found out to be a Seattle resident, was driven to the community hospital. The staff of the hospital did not realize that the patient was dead until he had been transported into an examination room. By this time his mysterious driver was long gone. The cause of death was found to be “acute peritonitis due to perforation of the colon” , however his death was not investigated, because as it turns out, it was the consequence of something that at the time was legal in seventeen states, and lucky for this man, who had an unusual liking for horses, the state of Washington was one of them. As it turned out, the man’s colon had been perforated by the erect penis of an Arabian stallion.

The story appeared in a local newspaper called The Seattle Times, on July 16th 2005. And although the death was not investigated further, the farm in rural Enumclaw, Washington, which had on its property, reportedly, hundreds of hours of tapes showing acts of bestiality, was further investigated. The reason being that authorities were reviewing the tapes for possible acts of child abuse/pornography or forced sexual violation or rape (because bestiality is legal, but surely they must have done something authorities could charge them for). Rhetorically this suggests that because these acts are all birds of a feather, they are assumed to fly in the same flock. If a man has a sexual interest in animals, it seems that assuming he may have a sexual interest in children would not be far fetched. That logic seems more like a prejudiced and fearful jumping to conclusions about subjects that people do not understand rather than that infallible reason that we pride our society on so highly. Interestingly, animals are compared to children repeatedly in the article, which are said to be our duty and responsibility to protect. However, no animal abuse has been found (nor the abuse of children, and all acts were consensual). Really, only human abuse on the part of animals has been found.

The reason that the article is newsworthy is because a man died, and because of the death, motions for a change of laws would be more likely. Also, because the farm is advertised in online forums as being a bestiality destination, people fear that interest in such sexual acts could spread. Being one of the most taboo topics, it is hard to imagine one could be a deviant of the deviation; However, this man was. Instead of performing an act on the animal, he allowed the animal to perform an act on him (as I discovered in my research this is becoming more popular in bestiality circles).  As Susan Michaels, a local animal rights activist, says in the article, “It’s not natural for animals to do this”.  However, if the animal seemingly performs the act of his own will, and in this case, the man was passively bent over a structure made to resemble a mare for breeding purposes, than what is or is not ‘natural’ is slightly more difficult to pinpoint. Human breeding of horses, in which the stallion would be lead to the same structure minus the naked man, is not ‘natural’. But it is also not seen as wrong, deviant or abnormal. So, perhaps, it really has very little to do with what is or is not natural, and maybe has more to do with a breach of human orderliness and categorization. The act completely alienates what in the collective thoughts of the members of our society (assuming some level of homogeneity of ethics amongst Americans) believe is ‘meant’ to be, which is very different from what is ‘natural’. Not only is it an act of bestiality, it is also an act of homosexual bestiality, it is also a video available to watch on the internet, and beyond that, what might frighten people the most is that the horse was the body performing the act of sexuality. As the author of the article, Jennifer Sullivan, quotes Enumclaw police Cmdr. Eric Sortland saying, “In the rare, rare case that this happens, it’s the person doing the animal. I think that has led to the astonishment of all of the entities involved”.  Perhaps what also scares people is the possibility of social change because of deviance. Similar arguments were used recently against California’s Proposition 8 (gay marriage), Anti-gay parties called their fear ‘the slippery slope’. In this hypothetical course of events, allowing some deviant things to persist will duely escalade to even more unimaginable and horrid change, until all society is ruined. This article and ‘the slippery slope’ theory are the products of a society that panics over a concept it fears nearly irrationally, and how it rationalizes those fears claiming ‘unnaturalness’.

–> (In case you’re wondering, I am not pro-bestiality, by the way. I simply disagree with people’s reasons for fearing it.)

Do I Offend Your Sensiblities? (Assignment 2)

DISCLAIMER

The deviant or abnormal topic I will discuss in this paper will be anorexia. I will focus on an online forum which is ‘pro-ana’, short for “pro-anorexia”, as the group which believes anorexia is appropriate and worth encouraging. Most non-anorexic people seem to believe that anorexia is abnormal. Because of this, it is difficult to pinpoint a specific opposing group. Perhaps a good juxtaposition would be to discuss non-anorexic women of a similar age group to the women engaging in the forum. The expected age of the onset of anorexic behavior is 13 – 20 years of age.  These example “groups” of people who believe that this is normal or abnormal are almost entirely assumptions based on what seems to me be the general thought, and from my own personal experiences. (Partially because an empirical understanding of how many people view something like anorexia would be impossible.) Also, for the purpose of this essay, these groups are assumed to be of harmonious and homogeneous thought and attitude, which though unrealistic, will be useful for my argument.

Researchers of anorexia nervosa have attempted to categorize sufferers into an all-inclusive group, or perhaps, rather, they have inadvertently given people with anorexia nervosa a ‘master status’ (Erving Goffman): Anorexics. Effectively they have suggested homogeneity among sufferers. Anorexics are ‘usually’ women between the ages of 13 and 20. The condition carries with it a huge amount of stigma to members of the ‘outside’ world. They are assumed to have problems with control. They are also assumed to not have an understanding of their own body weight. They are also assumed to fit a clear-cut clinical definition.

DESCRIPTION

Anorexia Nervosa (‘objectively’) is a disease that affects a person physically, like most diseases, however it is also a deviant and abnormal behaviour. Anorexia is an eating disorder. It is a disease in that it is characterised by physical symptoms:

Dramatic weight loss.

Hair loss

Amenorrhea

Lanugo

It is a behaviour in that it is characterised by behavioural symptoms:

Refusal to gain weight in order to be of a “normal” weight

Fear of becoming fat

Incongruous body image

Ritualistic eating

THE GROUP FOR IT

http://community.livejournal.com/proanorexia/ is an online forum described as being “pro-ana” which is short for “pro-anorexia”, and is one of many forums which are for anorexic women to support one another. Members self-reference as anorexics, and seem to view themselves as a cohesive group. They support one another suggesting types of dieting, fasting, techniques for purging, et cetera. They also provide each other with “thinspo”, short for “thinspiration”, which can be an image, several images, music, film or video of very slim women and/or anorexic themes in order to inspire them or make them envious and feed their willpower. Various women share their own personal “thinspo” with one another. They also hold weight loss competitions and group fasts. In this particular forum or any like it, it would be unusual (abnormal) to not be anorexic. People against anorexia are shunned from the group. The social relationships within this forum are based on one desire: to be thinner. Because anorexics want to continue to be anorexic, they shun friends and family who disagree and they become women but not ‘women’. That is – they physically appear alien, and they act in an alien way. Perhaps young girls fear it so much because it is so often that models and actresses, which young women are assumed to want to emulate aesthetically, are often either anorexic, or dangerously similar in their level of obsession with their appearance. In high school, when extreme thinness was brought up, a girl was always very quick to say, “Guys don’t even find it attractive”, to an expected chorus of agreement. In a way, it seemed to me that young women were constantly trying to validate their non-anorexicness, and spent time discussing why it was abnormal or deviant. Perhaps this was mainly to (almost ritualistically) convince themselves extreme thinness was abnormal, while simultaneously reasserting their ‘normalness’. Despite the disgust and alienation from others, young women continue to starve themselves, and risk isolation. However, an online forum is a safe place for an anorexic to be social. And it gives her a chance to fit in somewhere, to be ‘normal’ for once.

THE GROUP AGAINST IT

The reason why girls of a similar age seem to react to anorexics with disgust, has very little to do with concern for other girls’ health. Instead it seems like a reaction to the body as a symbol, as Susan Bordo, among others, have discussed. In American culture, thinness is valorised, because the body is seen as a symbol of how someone lives their life. If a person works to make themselves more similar to a cultural ideal, the people of that culture appreciate and/or envy them. Although thinness is valorised, excess is not. In a way, anorexia is as much a symbol of excess as obesity is. There exists a paradox in American culture in which will power is valorised, and yet Americans are revolted by the excess of will power and thinness, evident in their disgust of anorexics.

Anorexic girls offend people’s sensibilities. They are human but not human. Despite alienation non-anorexic women still seem to feel empathy for anorexic women, to the point of contagiousness. A psychologist I spoke with once recounted that after anti-anorexic talks in high schools, the number of anorexic students spiked. Anorexia and bulimia, she told me, are the only mental illnesses which are considered to be contagious, especially among girls of high school and early university age. So, despite general disgust, others become indoctrinated.

BIGGER PICTURE

In order for anorexia to be possible, there must be excess. There must be enough food available for a person to choose to refuse to eat. It also must be possible to avoid strenuous labour. 13 to 20 year old women in the U.S. are usually being provided for and therefore have the power to refuse provisions. The important point to note is that despite the fact that most anti-anorexia campaigns warn of how dangerous it is to one’s health, they actually serve to promote the disease. The American layman is offended by anorexia without necessarily having concern for a certain individual’s health. Perhaps the ‘health’ dialogue revolving around anorexia should be re-examined. Something about the excessive will power and how it can be noticed aesthetically strikes people as being very wrong – the sort of wrongness that has very little real rational or logical reason behind it, but is a gut instinct. I will conclude not with an answer, but a further question. Now that much media is globalized and the ideal image is a very slim one, could anorexia feasibly become accepted as an ideology or an accepted way of thinking?

An Anthropology of Deviance and Abnormality?

I was going to write about this in the summer, but I got distracted. I now have a bit of time on my hands to reflect about things, so here goes. For the second half of the summer I had the opportunity to take an anthropology course of my choosing from UCLA. Anthropology s135: The Anthropology of Deviance and Abnormality stood out to me, so every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon I braved the traffic of the 405 freeway, paid $10 to park and for the first time since high school sat in a classroom full of Americans. (I suppose I could have had the same experience at St. Andrews had I chosen to study I.R. har har.)

The course was structured much differently from social anthropology modules in St. Andrews, but I thought the way this class was run was extremely effective. We had two two-hour classes each week for 7 weeks. (Despite fewer teaching weeks, that’s still 6 more hours of contact per quarter as we have per semester.) All readings were available in .pdf-format online by week they were due, and all films watched in class were available via a site called Video Furnace. The assessment included 2 very short essays, a midterm and a final exam. The first essay topic was to choose an article on something deviant that appeared in a (reliable) periodical in the last five years. The point of the paper was to describe the act, why it was deviant and why it was news-worthy. (I chose to write about a man who, in 2005, died after being anally penetrated by an Arabian stallion which he had purchased especially for sexual acts, and kept at a farm in his home state of Washington. At the time bestiality was still legal in 17 states). The next assignment was to describe a group which was deviant at large in a culture, however within its own circle had its own norms. We were also supposed to mention a group who would find the formerly mentioned group’s norms to be “wrong”. (I wrote about a young women’s online anorexics forum and discussed how they alienated women of similar ages, and labelled themselves with a ‘master status’ [Goffman]). Perhaps I’ll post the papers on this blog later. The midterm and exam were startlingly different from St. Andrews’ exams. The tests included multiple choice, fill in the blank, matching, short answer and short essay.

We covered the following people in our readings in-depth (in no particular order):

Douglas

Goffman

Durkheim

Levi-Strauss

Talcot-Parsons,

Merleau-Ponty
Sontag
Eichelberg
Nichter
Shuttleworth
Davis
Dant & Gregory
Murphey & Rosenbaum
Rosenhan
Hebdige
Gramsci
Winlow
Foucault
Rhodes

When I got back to St. Andrews I was telling somebody about the course, but after hearing the course title, they asked me, “Deviance and abnormality? Are you sure it was anthropology?”. In the class, we obviously discussed the (appropriately) deviant and abnormal nature of the course considering that anthropology is a discipline that is concerned with (if not centered around) what people do normally. Considering that we’ve had at least two tutorials that were concentrated on hammering into our heads that individuality is a bit of myth or that it is at least in separable to its supposed binary, society, abnormality and deviance would seem like topics much too individualistic for anthropology. The professor, Dr. Cynthia Strathmann, however, theorised that in a sense you could not understand what was normal without understanding its binary: the abnormal. Behaviours which are shunned are as important to what a society is as those behaviours which are encouraged. She also explained that often deviants of a society form groups and have group identity, and their own unique ‘norms’. (For example, in a group of furries, a person who was wearing day clothes would be abnormal.) additionally we discussed things like the deaf community and “deaf culture”, gangs, graffiti, sex scandals, sub-cultures, et cetera.

Do you think this is valid? Should there be a sub-discipline of anthropology that focuses on the abnormal? Is this limited to more urban anthropology or is it sustainable also in non-urban cultures far from wherever a given anthropologist calls home?