This chapter draws on the ethico-political idea of the social flesh, developed by Chris Beasley and Carol Bacchi (2007), to explore how social embodiment might be taken more seriously in arts, health, and wellbeing evaluation. It considers the complex ways evaluative practices in theatre, health, and wellbeing can recruit, resist, or ignore notions of social hierarchy, infrastructure, community, and political responsibility. In arts and healthcare evaluation, embodiment and sociality are positioned in starkly different ways. Artistic practice often considers its attention to embodiment, and its collaborative ‘pro-social’ nature, as core affordances and as central to its purpose and values. Discourses of wellbeing and health often attend to the body, but can position bodies either as problematic, vulnerable, or to be recruited and managed as part of a policy or healthcare solution to a problem. If this latter conception is left unscrutinised, arts, health, and wellbeing evaluations can govern bodies in ways that privilege ‘autonomous, rational actors who are held responsible for their lives and health’ (Bacchi 2020). Social flesh orientates evaluative practices towards alternative political, ethical, and aesthetic values, and redirects attention from individual bodies and their deficiencies and to the shared embodied reliance on social space, infrastructure, and resources.

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Fleshy Socialities: Evaluative Practices in Theatre, Performance, Health, and Wellbeing

  • Molly Mullen,
  • Kelly Freebody,
  • Kim Snider,
  • Elise Sterback

摘要

This chapter draws on the ethico-political idea of the social flesh, developed by Chris Beasley and Carol Bacchi (2007), to explore how social embodiment might be taken more seriously in arts, health, and wellbeing evaluation. It considers the complex ways evaluative practices in theatre, health, and wellbeing can recruit, resist, or ignore notions of social hierarchy, infrastructure, community, and political responsibility. In arts and healthcare evaluation, embodiment and sociality are positioned in starkly different ways. Artistic practice often considers its attention to embodiment, and its collaborative ‘pro-social’ nature, as core affordances and as central to its purpose and values. Discourses of wellbeing and health often attend to the body, but can position bodies either as problematic, vulnerable, or to be recruited and managed as part of a policy or healthcare solution to a problem. If this latter conception is left unscrutinised, arts, health, and wellbeing evaluations can govern bodies in ways that privilege ‘autonomous, rational actors who are held responsible for their lives and health’ (Bacchi 2020). Social flesh orientates evaluative practices towards alternative political, ethical, and aesthetic values, and redirects attention from individual bodies and their deficiencies and to the shared embodied reliance on social space, infrastructure, and resources.