Embodiment theory in anthropology
Embodiment theory speaks to the ways that experiences are enlivened, materialized, and situated in the world through the body. Embodiment is a relatively amorphous and dynamic conceptual framework in anthropological research that emphasizes possibility and process as opposed to definitive typologies. Margaret Lock identifies the late 1970s as the point in the social sciences where we see a new attentiveness to bodily representation and begin a theoretical shift towards developing an ‘Anthropology of the Body.’Embodiment-based approaches in anthropology were born of dissatisfaction with dualistic interpretations of humanity that created divisions such as mind/body, nature/culture, and object/subject. Within these dichotomies, the physical body was historically confined to the realm of the ‘natural’ sciences and was not considered to be a subject of study in cultural and social sciences. When the body was studied or considered in social science contexts employing these dualistic frameworks, it was treated as a categorizable, ‘natural’ object with little recognition of its dynamic or subjective potentialities.Embodiment theory has been developed and expanded by the work of many scholars, as opposed to being credited to a single thinker.