TELO AKO PRIESEČNÍK PRÍRODY A KULTÚRY

Until certain time, in social sciences and humanities the human body has usually been conceptualized as a universal biological basis on which culture performs its infinite diversity. In recent decades, the perception of the body primarily as a biological organism has been replaced by a more complex view: the body as an object of research is seen as a result of the interaction of different discourses, institutions, practices, technologies and ideologies. A shift in this understanding can be observed from the late 1970s onwards; and in the mid-1980s, the study of the body grew into a separate branch of research – the anthropology of the body. This period also saw the development of medical anthropology, in which the body occupied a central position. At the same time, representations of the body became important in the anthropology of gender. Thus, in recent decades, social science research has witnessed a sudden “rise” of the body to the position of an important theoretical category. The aim of this paper is to look at this theoretical shift from the perspective of the perennial debate about the opposition of nature and culture. This dichotomy is directly related to other oppositions of Western academic discourse: individual-society, reason-emotion and body-mind. The article discusses theoretical considerations that most explicitly reflect their interplay and are ultimately aimed at overcoming the nature-culture dichotomy. The author also refers to relevant ethnographic studies in Slovakia. It is concluded that social science research has shown that the body is not only a biological object: it is part of social relations and an inherent part of culture.