Dynamic Embodiment for Social Theory: I move therefore I am (Ontological Explorations Routledge Critical Realism) - Hardcover

Farnell, Brenda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415781094 ISBN 13: 9780415781091

Publisher: Routledge, 2012

Synopsis

This book presents a series of ontological investigations into an adequate theory of embodiment for the social sciences. Informed by a new realist philosophy of causal powers, it seeks to articulate a concept of dynamic embodiment, one that positions human body movement, and not just ‘the body’ at the heart of theories of social action. It draws together several lines of thinking in contemporary social science: about the human body and its movements; adequate meta-theoretical explanations of agency and causality in human action; relations between moving and talking; skill and the formation of knowledge; metaphor, perception and the senses; movement literacy; the constitution of space and place, and narrative performance. This is an ontological inquiry that is richly grounded in, and supported by anthropological ethnographic evidence.

Using the work of Rom Harré, Roy Bhaskar, Charles Varela and Drid Williams this book applies causal powers theory to a revised ontology of personhood, and discusses why the adequate location of human agency is crucial for the social sciences. The breakthrough lies in fact that new realism affords us an account of embodied human agency as a generative causal power that is grounded in our corporeal materiality, thereby connecting natural/physical and cultural worlds.

Dynamic Embodiment for Social Theory is compelling reading for students and academics of the social sciences, especially anthropologists and sociologists of ‘the body’, and those interested in new developments in critical realism.

About this title

About the Author

Brenda Farnell is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415781094
• ISBN 13: 9780415781091
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176