بدن به مثابه رسانه هويت

The Human Body as a Medium of Identity

Within the recent decades, three major themes of theoretical discussions in sociology have been introduced and dealt with human body as a topic of social research and theory. The three themes arc as follows: a) the increasing significance of the concept of self in modern social theories, h) the change in the social structure of identity and its shift from production to consumption areas, together with development of reflective identities in the context of a culture of consumption, c) visualization of symbols of status and identity in metropolitan culture, and the possibility of manipulating and controlling visual configuration, in order to give shape to the from of identity, which basically means controlling and taking care of body as the vehicle of self and as the most significant medium of identity. This article presents an empirical study of the hypothesis formulated about detachment of forms of human identity from structural situations and their connection with cultural features of a sample of 825 residents of Tehran, aged 18 years old and over. The research findings demonstrate that there is a significant relation between various level of body management and the variables which have obvious cultural significations, such as sex, age, education, cultural capital, religiosity. and traditional attitude towards family. However no significant relation was noticed between body management and structural variables such as socio-economic position.