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Encyclopedia entry: body decoration
- Article from:
- The Oxford Companion to the Body
- Author:
Copyright© The Oxford Companion to the Body 2001, originally published by Oxford University Press 2001. (Hide copyright information)
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body decoration
From signs of honour to stigmas, what is drawn on skin or written in flesh is much more than mere body decoration, or a mark of status in the community. The human body and its surface are filled with hieroglyphs telling one of the stories of corporeality in history. The raw material, the ‘natural’ body itself, seems not to be an anthropological constant, but rather a canvas to be painted or a lump of clay to be moulded: a form and surface to be intentionally elaborated.
The ways in which the body is taught to be used and held and the artifacts supplementing the body have irreversible effects on its constitution and shape, from certain kinds of
shoes
to, say, ...