dc.contributor.author |
Van den Berg, M.E.S.
|
en |
dc.date.accessioned |
2013-10-07T14:18:25Z |
|
dc.date.available |
2013-10-07T14:18:25Z |
|
dc.date.issued |
2011 |
en |
dc.identifier.citation |
Maria Elizabeth Susanna (Elbie) van den Berg (2011) Bodies
as open projects: reflections on gender and sexuality, South African Journal of
Philosophy, 30:3, 385-402 |
en |
dc.identifier.issn |
0258-0136 |
en |
dc.identifier.uri |
http://hdl.handle.net/10500/11697 |
|
dc.identifier.uri |
http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/sajpem.v30i3.69585 |
|
dc.description |
Please follow the URI link http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/sajpem.v30i3.69585 to access the full-text of this article |
|
dc.description.abstract |
This article argues that the social constructivist paradigm falls into the same
dualistic trap as biological essentialism when attempting to respond to questions
of gender and sexuality. I argue that social constructivism, like biological
determinism, presumes a ‘split’ world, where subjective lived experiences
are separated from the world of socio-cultural forces. Following a
phenomenological approach, grounded in Merleau-Ponty’s ontological view
of the body, this article attempts to move beyond the dualistic metadiscourses
of social constructivism in maintaining that identity is a fully embodied process.
I see gender and sexuality as necessarily embodied and corporeally constituted.
In the light of this, I propose an understanding of gender and sexuality
that focuses on the centrality of the body as open project. This approach
sees gender and sexuality as embodied processes that are enmeshed with the
complex fabric of lived everyday experiences and concurrent socio-cultural
and historical processes. Drawing on real-life examples, I conclude that gender
and sexual embodiment are not one-dimensional according to a binary
system of male versus female. Rather, given the documented experience of
the indeterminacy and ambiguity of human existence, there are a variety of
possible embodiments of humankind. |
|
dc.title |
Bodies as open projects: reflections on gender and sexuality |
en |