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07-05-2020 | Theoretical / Philosophical Paper

When Body Image Takes over the Body Schema: The Case of Frantz Fanon

Authors: Yochai Ataria, Shogo Tanaka

Published in: Human Studies | Issue 4/2020

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Abstract

Body image (BI) and body schema (BS) refer to two different yet closely related systems. Whereas BI can be defined as a system of perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs pertaining to one's own body, BS is a system of sensory-motor capacities that functions without awareness or the necessity of perceptual monitoring. Studies have demonstrated that applying the concepts of BI and BS enables us to conceptualize complex pathological phenomena such as anorexia, schizophrenia, and depersonalization. Likewise, it has further been argued that these concepts play a crucial role in our ability to grasp our bodily experiences in the socio-cultural world according to various factors, such as gender, social class, and ethnicity. Referring to the insights of Frantz Fanon, the author of Black Skin, White Masks, this paper suggests that under certain conditions the BI can take over and reshape the BS (or the BI is assimilated into the BS). Based on an examination of Fanon’s writings, the paper suggests that not only the BI can truly remold the BS but that the gaze of the other can directly influence the BI.

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There is an ongoing debate regarding whether neglect really demonstrates clear-cut double dissociation between BS and BI (de Vignemont 2018).

The concepts of both BS and BI have a long history. As is well known, the first English translation of Phenomenology of Perception, published in 1962, translated the French term “schéma corporel” as “body image”. This conceptual confusion mainly derives from early twentieth century neurology, in which scholars argued about the nature of neural representation of the body. As Gallagher (1986, 2005) also highlighted, the neurologist Paul Schilder (1935) generated confusion with regard to the use of these concepts. On the one hand Schilder inherited the usage of “body schema” referring to postural cognition from the studies of Head and Holmes (1911), but on the other hand he equated this concept with “the picture of our own body which we form in our mind,” (1935:11) that is, body image.

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Title: When Body Image Takes over the Body Schema: The Case of Frantz Fanon
Authors: Yochai Ataria
Shogo Tanaka
Publication date: 07-05-2020
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Published in: Human Studies / Issue 4/2020
Print ISSN: 0163-8548
Electronic ISSN: 1572-851X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-020-09543-6

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