Conceptions of the relationship between mind and body vary across cultures: Discuss with detailed reference to ethnographic examples

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Having an insight on our personal perception of the body and mind, relationship is often revealing. Since I was a child, I strongly felt ‘something' in my body. While practicing dance, I had the feeling that 'I' controlled my body, that 'I' decided the movements 'I' wanted to do. I used to say 'my arms', 'my legs' and 'my head' as if they were separated from me. Referring to my body parts is reifying them, assuming that they are objects 'I' own.

Obviously, I could not define this 'I', but it had definitely nothing to do with my body. As Bordo (1993) argued ''[my] body was experienced as an alien''. The body and mind issue is crucial in our society for several reasons. Firstly, it questions our very essence as human beings, and secondly, this division has built our modern society, since the 17th century. Questioning the relationship between body and mind is questioning the shift between nature and culture, the difference between humans and animals, but also the idea of life after 'material death', for example. However, is this Western view of the body and mind issue shared across cultures? To gain a better understanding of this problem, it seems crucial to define more precisely the philosophical roots of Western dualism that led to the necessity to look at other conceptions.

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[...] Conceptions of the relationship between mind and body vary across cultures: Discuss with detailed reference to ethnographic examples Having an insight on our personal perception of the body and mind relationship is often revealing. Since I was a child, I have strongly felt that I was 'something' in my body. Practicing dance, I had the feeling that controlled my body, that decided the movements wanted to do. I used to say 'my arms', 'my legs' and 'my head' as if they were separated from me. [...]

[...] It demonstrated an obvious discrepancy between implicit knowledge and cultural practice, and Asusti argues that it could be overcome by cooperation of anthropology with disciplines like cognitive psychology. That is why it is interesting to look at tribes in our own Western cultures. Today, the body and mind problem has been examined under the scope of neurosciences, cognitive psychology and other ''scientific” approaches. Thus, as Bruno Latour does in his book Science in Action, it would be relevant to consider scientists not as people who tell the absolute truth, but rather as a sort of tribe that has its own rituals, beliefs and practices. [...]

[...] Nevertheless, even though (as we will see later) shifts between mind and body are found in other cultures, there is often a translation issue. The categories used are not overlapping, the words are obviously different and do not describe exactly what we would call mind or body. However, this pitfall can be overcome by underlining that even if the conceptions do not describe exactly the same categories, these are still similar and comparable, and the theories have the same perspective, that is dealing with the nature of the self.(Lambek, 1998) We will focus now on Dinka people, living in the South of Sudan. [...]

[...] Plato set the first bases for a shift between mind and body, influencing all the post-Platonic philosophers in the Western world. The role of Christianism is crucial as well in the spread of the idea that there is a soul, different from the material body that survives death and goes to purgatory. Soul is then judged, meaning that it is indeed the self, the one responsible for one's action during material life. The shift was also made between the 'dirty' material body and the 'pure' soul. [...]

[...] Following Bruno Latour, it is possible to consider scientists as a particular tribe with its knowledge, beliefs and practices. Thus, sciences also offer an example of a particular conception of the mind that is challenging the Western Cartesian dualism by suggesting that the mind is an embodied multimodal entity. References Astuti, R ''Are we all natural dualists? A cognitive developmental approach'', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Vol 7:429-447. Bordo, S Unbearable weight, Berkeley: University of California Press. [Anorexia Nervosa: psychopathology as the crystallization of culture, pp. [...]