Spirituality and the Body in Late Modernity

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine the role of the body in contemporary spirituality. The body is understood here as being simultaneously individual and social, a corporeal phenomenon, that is, on one hand, a ‘lived experience’ that forms the basis of self‐identity and, on the other, an entity affected by the social system. As such, the body plays an important role in mediating the relationship between one's self‐identity and one's social identity. This article focuses on three particular contemporary phenomena: the conceptualizations of the body presented by both the New Age movements and feminism (especially ecofeminism), as well as the trend towards modifying the body in particular ways, primarily through tattooing and piercing. These movements are understood in terms of Anthony Giddens’ broader conceptualization of the conditions of life in late modernity, in particular his discussion of the reflexive project of identity, and his and other theorists’ speculations on the new grounds for spirituality in the face of heightened ontological uncertainty of our times. I will show that, during the processes of both autonomous self‐expression and identity (trans)formation, the body (as well as the self) is being sacralized, in the sense that it is treated as the subject, rather than an object, through which an individual undertakes the quest for spiritual development.