hand differ markedly from those of the left. The body gives societies a cue – left-handedness is everywhere less common than the dominance of the right. It is a convenient marker on which cultures have created symbolic associations that are as nearly universal as any symbol can be. When associations of left and right are compared cross-culturally, Hertz noticed that there is a striking uniformity. He also observed that, among the Maori, the right side is regarded as male and the left side as female and profane. For example, he states:
Among the Maori, the right side is the sacred side, the seat of good and creative powers, the left is the profane side, possessing no virtue other than certain disturbing and suspect powers … the right side is the ‘side of life’ (and of strength) while the left is the ‘side of death’ (and of weakness). Fortunate and life giving influences enter us from the right and through our right side. Inversely, death and misery penetrate to the core of our being from the left. ([1909] 2008: 45)
When asking himself why these polarities exist between left and right, Hertz suggests they derive from an attempt to link the human body to the natural world and to religion. The asymmetry between the right and left hand reflects the fundamental polarity of the spiritual world – that between the sacred and the profane – and this in turn reflects man’s dual nature. ‘It is because man is a double being – a natural/profane being and a social/ sacred being’ ([1909] 2008: 112). With Hertz, the body is no longer seen as a mere biological given, but is shown to carry the imprint of culture. What appears to be natural, the opposition between right and left, is in reality a social fact. Fiona Bowie (2006) suggests that it is the human ability to use the body as a symbol, to think with and to impose meaning on the world that makes handedness so relevant. Therefore, cultural rules can be made to appear natural. The symbolic weight given to right–left polarity is decreasing in Western societies, but this does not mean that categories associated with left- and right-handedness necessarily disappear. They may become attached to new meanings. This may reflect secularization or a reduction in gender role differentiation.
handedness A preference for using one hand as opposed to the other
ACTIVITY
What does handedness tell us about the power of culture as a means to control our bodies?
Summarize the ways in which the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ have been characterized in different societies.
Think about your own experiences of handedness. Were you encouraged to be righthanded?
Think about others that you know. Are left-handers advantaged by being left-handed – say, in sport?
In your exercise book, try writing out your name and date of birth and the courses that you are taking in the opposite hand to the one you usually use. Can you read what you have written? How long did it take compared with writing with your usual hand? Do you think you could improve with practice?
What does this tell us about handedness?
Body techniques
Marcel Mauss describes ‘techniques of the body’ as the ways in which the body is trained within any culture: ‘In every society, everyone knows and has to know and learn what he has to do in all conditions’ (2007[1934]: 66). Every biological and physiological skill of which the human body is capable, such as eating, washing, sitting, swimming, running, climbing, child-rearing and so on, has to be learnt. Mauss provides many examples of culturally varying body techniques, including the following observations:
Polynesians do not swim as the British do.
The French army does not march as the Germans do.
Girls who have been raised in convents, unlike other girls, tend to walk with their fists closed.
These techniques can change within one person’s lifetime. Mauss used the concept of ‘habitus’ (habit or custom, acquired ability) to describe these learnt techniques of the body. All humans have to eat in order to survive, but the way they eat, whether with a fork, with chopsticks or with their fingers, is a cultural construction. Mauss extends the study of society to include physiological experience and emphasizes both the point that the body is symbolically constructed and that the way in which it is used is as much a product of culture as it is of nature. The body must therefore be studied in the context of wider symbolic systems, and the way in which it is used and represented provides us with a mirror of society. Each society has its own special habits. Humans are conditioned in using the body in different ways through the process of socialization. The body is a person’s first and natural instrument, according to Mauss.
Gregory Bateson studied the people of the Balinese village Bajoeng Gede (Bateson and Mead 1962[1942]). He explains how children’s body positions are socially constructed. In order to separate themselves from animals that walk on all fours, the Balinese do not allow children to crawl. They separate themselves from animals and teach their children from the moment they are born how they should use their bodies. Babies grow up ‘vertically’ and are never allowed to crawl. From birth the body position is created by culture.
social construction The view that the phenomena of the social and cultural world and their meanings are created in human social interaction
Every culture teaches young ones how to use their bodies. Here, children are taking part in a school sports day in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. (© Liana Chua)
Habitus
Pierre Bourdieu (1977) elaborates on the concept of habitus by explaining its dependency on history and human memory. For instance, a certain behaviour or belief becomes part of a society’s structure when the original purpose of that behaviour or belief can no longer be recalled and becomes socialized into individuals of that culture. According to Bourdieu, the body is the most certain reflection of class taste – for example, in the way that someone’s hairstyle, clothing, diet, or even their manner of walking, functions to signal social class position within the structure of society. Bourdieu places bodies within modern consumer culture, arguing that the body bears the imprint of social class based on habitus (an internalized framework or set of guidelines for social action, taste and social location). The body is a resource for, and can be converted into, economic, cultural and social capital. Bourdieu conducted fieldwork in Algeria and studied the culture of the Kabyle people. Their main habitus is based on honour, which underpins their basic schemes of thought and action. This provides them with a model of action even in new situations. The lifestyle, values and expectations of Kabyle people that are learnt through the activities and experiences of their everyday life are reflected in their body language. Bourdieu suggests that habitus can be changed throughout the lifetime of an individual.
habitus The lifestyle, values, dispositions and expectations of particular social groups that are acquired through the activities and experiences of everyday life
The ‘social skin’
Terence Turner (1995) conducted his anthropological research on the Kayapo people of the grasslands of the Mato Grosso, south of the Amazon region, who live in scattered villages comprising several hundred people. He suggests that dress and bodily adornment is a cultural
