Beyond Cultural History? The Material Turn, Praxiography, and Body History

Abstract

The body came to be taken seriously as a topic of cultural history during the "corporeal" or "bodily" turn in the 1980s and 1990s. Soon, however, critique was raised against these studies' conceptualization of the body as discursively shaped and socially disciplined: individual bodily agency and feeling were felt to be absent in the idea of the material body. This article critically analyzes new approaches in the field of body history, particularly the so-called "material turn". It argues that the material turn, especially in the guise of praxiography, has a lot to offer historians of the body, such as more attention to material practices, to different kinds of actors and a more open eye to encounters. Potential problems of praxiographical analyses of the body in history include the complicated relationship between discourses and practices and the neglect of the political and feminist potential of deconstructive discourse analyses. However, a focus on the relationship between practices of knowledge production and the representation of the body may also provide new ways of opening up historical power relations.

Evaluating the design of hospitals within a practice order network

“…However, whilst there are resemblances, praxiography is distinct from analytical ethnography in several respects: foregrounding the innate heterogeneity of the ontology of practice theory, and the materiality of practices, as already discussed, being some of them (Littig, 2013;Clever and Ruberg, 2014). Praxiography also resonates with Pink's critique that ethnography based on social interactionism is inadequate for the study of everyday life.…”

Coaching the beautiful game: an actor-network theory study of sport coaching

“…A praxiography was employed given ANT's empirical focus on practices (Law 2008). Praxiography coincides with the 'material turn' (Clever and Willemijn 2014), as it is more interested in praxis (practice) and 'graphy' through description, recording and writing than ethno (culture), which is commonly associated with ethnographies (Bueger 2014, 385). According to Mol (2002, 158) '[t]he praxiographic approach allows and requires one to take objects and events of all kinds into consideration when trying to understand the world'.…”

Capturing Gendered Mobility and Street Use in the Historical City: A New Methodological Approach

“…In recent years, cultural historians have developed 'praxiography' to study activities and practices in places previously reserved for analysis of discursive structures. 21 This method has successfully been applied to the history of the body, where it has shown how discourses of the body do not automatically overlap with bodily practices. This insight has allowed the study of historical bodies as enacted entities, causing attention to shift from what the body is to what it does.…”