Cartographies of the Body in Pandemic Times

Abstract

As Fox and Alldred (2020) note, culture/nature dualism has supplied post-Enlightenment philosophers, scientists and social scientists with a neat way to set limits on the respective concerns of the social and natural sciences (see also Barad, 2007; Braidotti, 2013; Fullagar et al., 2019). This dualism has also enabled the creation of distinctions between “modern” (read “civilised”) and “traditional” (read “primitive”) bodies and ways of being-in-the-world. Yet, when critically exploring issues of embodiment, the influence of the built environment on well-being, climate transitions and/or the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic such distinctions start to become problematic, as eloquently argued in the last three decades by feminist, post-human, new-materialist and political ecological –among others– debates and propositions.  Giving continuity to an ongoing dialogue started in 2018 between scholars and activists from Latin America and Europe, we organized the online seminar “Re-assembling the nature-culture-body nexus: practices and epistemologies”. In this two-parts online event was explored how the interrelated domains of health, physical activity, and education can look like from perspectives that de-stabilise established ontological boundaries between nature, culture, the body, and their relationship. This paper is the transcription of the second session, called “Cartographies of the body in pandemic times”, and present the dialogues between Alice del Gabbo, Carla Panico, Gianluca De Fazio, Alexandre Fernandez Vaz and Eduardo Galak, researchers from Brazil, Italy Portugal and Argentina.   Keywords: Body; COVID-19; Education; Physical Activity; Culture.