Marcel Mauss “Techniques of the Body”

Marcel Mauss “Techniques of the Body”

Across the world, people belonging to different cultures and races use their bodies in various ways for various reasons. The multiple ways in which human beings use their bodies can be summarized as work. For work to be done, humans have to move their bodies in different styles. Besides work, there are body movements that have to take place for life to be comfortable. It is these types of movements that Marcel Mauss dwells on in his article Techniques of the Body.

As per the author of Techniques of the Body, there specific principles applied in the classification of Body Techniques. Techniques of the Body can broadly be divided into two categories; age and sex—these two criteria of classifying body techniques cut across all members of the society.  Age and sex affect the techniques of the body in both animals and human beings. Before settling for the existing classifications of body Techniques, Scientists researched monkeys, and they observed the same features in humans though at advanced levels.  The first principle through which the author sees body techniques is sexual division.  Mauss suggests that men and women display different body techniques. For instance, how a man folds a fist is very from how a lady does it.  A man folds a fist typically with the thumb remaining outside, but when a lady wraps her fist, the thumb is always inside. Such techniques occur naturally, and any effort to change these techniques as displayed by the two sexes would prove difficult. A second example of the same is how men and women through stones. A man will throw a stone horizontally, but women throw vertically. Some specialists in Psychology tend to associate these differences into two different forms of instructions given to males and females when they are young. In the real sense, psychological and biological factors are involved in the display of such different techniques of the body.  The second variant used to classify Techniques of the Body is age. Children display somebody behaviors that are absent in adults. For instance, when one is a small child, they can squat, but when they grow up, they can’t manage.

Besides the two criteria mentioned above and that cut across all levels of the society, there is the third criterion, and that is the classification of techniques of the body as per efficiency. Such a designation is conceived by training. Just like humans instill some mannerisms in animals, humans also train voluntarily to train themselves some techniques for specific reasons. In most cases, the body techniques that fall under this class have to be learned when one is young. Body techniques of efficiency are affected to a great extent by the culture of the people who practice them. Since these techniques are passed by adults (say a teacher or parents), people tend to be very careful not to display what their elders warned them against. For instance, eating or holding a spoon with the left hand. Since most of the techniques under this class are transmitted through observation, people usually are cautious with them. For instance, some gestures not fit when one is in public.

The last category of body techniques that Mauss discusses under his Techniques of the Body is based on human developmental stages, and he named it Biological Lists. As the name of the category suggests, there is a list of body techniques acquired at each stage of development. For instance, under this category, we have sub-divisions of body techniques such as Techniques of birth, methods of infancy, techniques of adolescence, and techniques of adult life.

In conclusion, therefore, the simple movements of the joints and the whole body of a human or an animal constitutes a crucial part of life. Somebody movements are what make work possible. Human beings cannot survive on earth by engaging in work. Some other body movements are meant for entertainment, while others are intended to save human life. All these movements are governed by some rules and regulations that are specific cultures, as explained in Techniques of the Body. Different body techniques are acquired at different developmental stages.