Somaesthetics and the Somatic Experience of White Privilege
Editor(s)
Leszek Koczanowicz
Document Type
Chapter
Publication Date
5-2024
Abstract
Recent work in the Critical Philosophy of Race and Critical Whiteness Studies repeatedly calls for new ways of living and being as white. Yet these calls can be frustratingly vague and abstract, lacking practical guidance. When it comes to how to transform whiteness without merely perpetuating white privilege, key questions and challenges remain. This chapter builds on recent work developing the social and political significance of somaesthetics to examine a site of particular resistance to change: the somatic experience of white privilege. The central claim is that the experience of white privilege can be usefully approached as a somatic social practice. This pragmatic framing has several benefits. First, it directs us to the performative somatic normativity embodied in the experience of white privilege. Second, it establishes the link between the somatic and the social-specifically, how bodily habits not only sustain, but also are the chief focus of ethical norms. Third, it pinpoints the most productive site for developing counter-performative habits and practices, namely, new ways of living and being as white.
Publication
Somapower: Somaesthetics Reads Politics
Publisher
Brill Academic Publishers
Volume
8
Pages
42-66
Chapter
3
Department
College of Arts and Sciences
Recommended Citation
Voparil, C. (2024). Somaesthetics and the Somatic experience of white privilege. In L. Koczanowicz (Ed.), Somapower: Somaesthetics reads politics (pp. 42-66). (Studies in Somaesthetics; Vol. 8). Brill Academic Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004697805_004
