Subject-Based Discussion by Ayşecan Terzioğlu

“Social Science Perspectives on Human Body”

Ayşecan Terzioğlu

This talk explores how the Social Sciences conceptualize the human body since the 19th century onwards. How do the process of disciplinary differentiation of Social Sciences into sociology, anthropology and “science and technology studies” affected the variations in these conceptions? How did the development of modern medicine influence the Social Sciences in this respect? How do the recent trends of globalization and neoliberalism affect the Social Science studies on the human body? This talk will provide various answers to these questions by focusing on certain concepts, such as Foucault’s biopower and Bourdieu’s habitus. It will also give examples from the studies which relate human body to the issues of gender, identity, belonging, space and memory. Finally, it will explore the recent subfield “anthropology of the body”, and the future research trends that we would have within this subfield.