Individual Submission Summary
Share...

Direct link:

Corporeal Activism The Human Body and Communication for Socio-Political Change

Mon, May 28, 14:00 to 15:15, Hilton Old Town, Floor: M, Dvorak II/III

Abstract

From a participatory, interdisciplinary perspective that considers communication for social change to be shaped by combined systemic—political, socio-cultural, economic—forces, this paper proposes a framework to grasp the human body as a fundamental medium of social change, and develops the notion of Communication for Socio-Political Change (CSPC). It draws on the philosophical traditions of biopolitics and phenomenology, and the sociological tradition of creative action, to inform a theory of “corporeal activism” that underpins communication for social change. On a spectrum of low-risk incremental activism to high-risk radical contestation, are various acts in which the human body communicates for social change, in a process of embodied contention and perception. As such, this paper offers theoretical underpinnings for grasping the human body as a medium for global social and political change, bringing the communication for social change literature into issues of activism and social justice.

Author