“Negotiated borders and undocumented bodies” is the working title of my thesis. Sure, but what what does it mean? What is a body? In relation to what, and to whom? Profound questions indeed, and i think that they have to be posed in order for me to continue.
Doing a research project on health care access for undocumented migrants, such things as broken bones, aching teeth, heightened blood pressure, tumours, repetitive strains, psychosomatic pain, and other health related body issues are inescapable parts of my material, my daily discussions and thoughts. I have been accused by fellow geographers for having a medicalized idea of what the body is, and these themes however fit badly into any of the discussions of bodies, embodiment or other bodyisms in the social sciences of our era.
But let me take an example:
Henry Ascher at Rosengrenska stiftelsen tells me that many undocumented migrants that he meets in his volunteer work have bad teeth. The Rosengrenska clinic for undocumented migrants have volunteering dentists come screen the undocumented patients, and offer free dental care to those that are in need of it. These dentists claim that, apart from helping persons with no access to dental care, these screenings are important learning experiences for dentists. Within the undocumented group, they find cavities and deteriorated teeth in a state very seldom seen in the Swedish population. So, what does this mean?
In terms of inscription on the body, we can surely talk about “bad teeth” as having no access to dental care (due to certain political/legal/social/economic or other discriminatory features of society) inscribed on the body. This inscription can then be read by others: ”bad teeth” as a mark of “no access to dental care” or “poor” or “undocumented”. Bad teeth is not only the result of discrimination, but may also lead to discrimination, on the labour market or in society in general.
These two strands of research paying attention to the body are much preoccupied with text and discourse, and I can’t but think that there is more to it worth discussing. What about the pain of having bad teeth? What about other health risks related to bad teeth?
Phenomenology comes some distance with this, by situating the body in the centre of our lives, the lived body as a veichle for emotion, empathy and intersubjectivity. There is also some stuff on phenomenology of pain that i haven had time to look closer at yet. Here then, I should be able to think about pain and suffering (due to bad teeth) as experiences individuals endure as products of discrimination (political/social/economic or what have you). Taking a phenomenological point of view will permit me to talk of the experience of bad teeth as something important.
Fine, but still, there is more to it. How about high blood pressure? Is that stress inscribed in the body? Is that something that can be read on the body? No I’m not sure I’m posing this question right. Lets rephrase: The high prevalence of heightened blood pressure among, often very young undoumented migrants, and the threat that that poses to these persons very lives, how do I discuss that in a way that the important elements in this come to the fore? It seems all to often forgotten or obscured by theoretizations of inscription and body as text, that what that text consists of may snuff the life out of these persons. This can be contrasted with the bluntness of the medical professions.
With all this said, I am absolutely able and willing to see these health issues risks as a legal or political situation manifest and/or inscribed in undocumented bodies, and include other issues otherwise discussed under the headline of embodiment such as viscerality and other stuff i also, to be honest havent read much about.
I’ll end here, because I have to go move my car to avoid getting more parking tickets.
Good that you have turned to writing again, Erika. Profound thoughts need scribblings on paper to thrive, I think.
Do you think equating individuals with bodies runs the risk of being a defintion on the one hand too broad (not excluding what falls outside the further qualifications of ‘[human, living] bodies’) and, on the other, too narrow (excluding seemingly non-corporeal aspects of the individual human)? A basic aristotelian view (body as matter, soul as form) would in fact enable you to maintain bodies as the object of study, without subscribing to a mechanistic understanding of the human individual (in the category “something living”, the genus “body” is i this tradition related to the difference “living” as potency to act).
This is potentially relevant since rights and obligations (which I assume is at the centre of your arguments) is not bestowed on bodies in themselves (if a body is the matter of an individual, not what is attributed to it), nor even to all types of human, living bodies.
Not knowing anything of cultural geography, I am also curious as to what the mainstream understanding of human individual is within the subject: I mean among those who question your ‘medicalized’ view?
Indeed we have to scribble! And I have been thinking about the title a lot in the last couple of days, and that has rekindled my issues with it. “undocumented bodies” – yes indeed, it is both too narrow and too broad. And for one thing, how can I write about undocumented bodies when I’m convinced that body and mind arent separated in that clear sort of way. No, I have to change it.
When I have been accused for taking a medicalized view of the body, it is i think mainly from people with phenomenological tendencies – the body as a basis for experience, the lived body. I mean, I really like the ideas of phenomenology, to situate the individual as the origo of his or her world and experiences. It is truly a view that merges body and mind, but I’m missing something. I have a feeling they dont take the matter, flesh of the body seriously, for a phenomenologist it seems to me, the body is just the home (intrinsically interwoven with the soul/mind that lives in it) for feelings and experiences. If i start talking about tumours and health issues, a hundred times more dangerous to an undocumented person because of political and legal issues, that seems to be too fleshy for them. And, social constructionism can take us only so far, I do believe all those tumours to be “real”.
I see. There seems to be something like a phenomenological orthodoxy within your scholarly field, I take it. To focus on the experience of suffering caused by a tumour is natural, of course (and probably fruitful in analytical terms) but it is probably a foregone conclusion that an equivalent tumour causes the same type of suffering in different bodies, so I think an approach which at least takes into account the medical condition of the tumour itself (outside the “Dasein” or whatever one choses to call it) would be most useful to most fellow scholars, since I guess your thesis would be of interest for people dealing with statistics, social welfare studies, medicine, ethnography and a number of other fields of study. I am looking forward to reading it myself, a total fledling when it comes to social sciences, though I am.
well i dont know about phenomenological orthodoxy, there are just as many orthodox positivists, but very little movement or negotiation between the groups. And, taking this in relation to the tumour, the former is going to focus on the experiences and either ignore or deny the tumour itself, while the latter will only care about the tumour and ignore the experiences. I attempt to care about both, meaning that both groups are going to accuse me of banding with “the others”. I am glad you have faith in me, believing that there’s going to be a thesis =)
Of course there will be a thesis – and a good one at that!