Contribution of Embodiment Theory to the Body Problem in Anthropology

This article is the summary of the literature review of body arguements which originally makes up the conceptual framework of the writer s dissertation. In this article, after a brief introduction about the history of the concept of body is given, the concept of embodiment relying on a phenomenological paradigm will be discussed. The arguments of the main social theorists from various social science disciplines about the body will be adressed and the epistemological changes such a paradigm focusing on and giving a high priority to the human experience will be put forward. A phenomenological perspective of body is indispensable for not only theories like feminism and post modernism but also for sub disciplines like medical anthropology and sociology. To be able to go beyond the conventional theories of the body those are taking for granted a passive understanding of body usually as an object such as the discursive bodies or symbolic bodies, relying on Cartesian dichotomies such as body/soul or mind/emotion, recent arguments from the literature based on a phenomenological understanding of the body will be introduced.