Forum for Anthropology and Culture, 2019, no. 15

BODIES AND TECHNOLOGIES THROUGH THE PRISM OF TECHNO-ANTHROPOLOGY

Sergei Sokolovskiy
N. N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences
32a Leninskiy Av., Moscow, Russia
SokolovskiSerg()gmail.com

Abstract: The paper deals with the interface of the human body and (new) technologies; its aim being an overview of the field with a purpose to include the relevant topics within the legitimate concerns of anthropology. The author discusses the choice from competing theories and conceptual tools, necessary for the study of corporeality and technology, as well as their interaction. The concepts of body schema and body image serve as conceptual tools and examples of various forms of bodily integration with technical apparatus in different types of media, both real and virtual, offline and online. The analogy between the concept of Umwelt, introduced by German biosemiotician Jakob von Uexküll for animal perception analysis, and the concept of technosphere by humans, provides a unique perspective on technical milieu as essential part of various human-machine assemblages. It is argued that lived (phenomenological) body, social body and physical body have their own modi of presence and forms of integration with technical objects in different types of virtual and actual reality.

Keywords: technologies, corporeality, techno-anthropology, body schema, body image, skills, habitus.

To cite:Sokolovskiy S., ‘Bodies and Technologies through the Prism of Techno-Anthropology’, Forum for Anthropology and Culture, 2019, no. 15, pp. 97–115.

doi: 10.31250/1815-8927-2019-15-15-97-115

URL: http://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/eng015/sokolovskiy_2.pdf