Techniques of body

 

“Technique is an action, which is effective and traditional. There is no technique and no transmission in the absence of tradition.” (Mauss 75). This is a quote from the article “Techniques of the body” which is written by Marcel Mauss. Mauss believes that, all the human actions are developed by the connate body and people’s acquire practices. Base on this idea, I begin to observe the activities I have done in my everyday life. These activities include every single movement that I’ve done starting when I wake up in the morning. 

Throughout my observation, I found the temperature of the environment is the main element that begins and leads my body to start with the activities of everyday life. Everyday when I open my eyes, my body started to adjust the surrounding temperature, and then report he message back to my brain to by telling whether the temperature is warm or cold. ; If the temperature is warm and decent, I will just pull away the blanket and get out from the bed. But if the temperature is cold, my brain will tell my body to move my arms out of the blanket and search for the jacket, But usually, even I have put on my jacket right after I get out of the bed, my hands will rub back and forth quickly on my arms in order to keeps the warm body temperature in the cold environment. By explaining Mauss’s definition of body technique by using my body’s action as an example; the action of my hand reaching for a jacket and rubbing back and forth around my body goes for the effective, and the feeling of coldness is traditional. But the action of reaching a jacket and knowing to leave a jacket close to my bed is an acquire practices. Because, before, I didn’t know that I would feel cold after I got out of the bed, so I won’t prepare a jacket around my bed. But once, when I got out of the bed and feel the coldness, I will learn that I should prepare a jacket for next time. 

Extending this thought to the question of what and where would I want to have technology to enter or replace a part of my assembly. My answer would be my hair; hair that around my whole body. I would like replace each of my hair into many little temperature conditioner. A temperature conditioner that can balance the surface of my body temperature to the best condition base on inducting the surrounding temperature, which means I would never have problems with freezing to death when the weather suddenly gets cold or putting on and off my jacket while entering to an interior or exterior.

Work Cited :

Mauss, Marcel: Techniques of the body, Economy and Society,2:1,70 — 88