THESIS PROPOSAL

TITLE

A DISCOURSE ON BODY POLITICS FOR RE-VISITING A THEOLOGY OF BODY

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO DISABLED BODY.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Whether the concepts of Body Politics can use for re-visiting a theology of body? How does

the disabled bodies fit into the discussion of body politics and theology of body?

ELABORATION OF THE PROBLEM

Bodies are considered as the sites in which social constructions of differences are mapped onto

the human beings. The body is placed in hierarchised false dichotomies, such as masculine/

feminine, mind/ body, abled/ disabled, heterosexual/ homosexual etc.1 Feminist scholars

argued that bodies are socially shaped, politically constructed and colonised. The second wave2

of Feminism, gave rise to the idea of “body politics”. It refers to the practices and policies

through which powers of society regulate the human body, as well as the struggle over the

degree of individual and social control of the body.3 Politics of the body involves socialisation

involving layers and levels of ideological influences, sociocultural and religious, that impose

knowledge or ignorance and construct bodies as subject or object. In feminist reading, bodies

are given biological identities thus it was mainly focused on the notion of “lived gendered

1
Nadia Brown & Sarah Allen Gershon, “Body Politics,” Politics, Groups, and Identities 5/1 (April, 2017): 2.
2
Second Wave feminism applies to the Feminism that began at the end of 1963 and extended into the 1980s.
It is usually considered to be a 1963 report from the Committee on the Status of Women (CSW), which was
begun by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and which she chaired in 1962. The committee found that women were
not being treated equally in the workplace and recommended mandatory fair hiring and pay, maternity leave
for mothers, and affordable child care. Based on these recommendations, the Equal Pay Act was passed by
Congress on June 10, 1963, making it illegal to pay women less for doing the same jobs as men
3
“Body Politics.” Encyclopedia of Race and Racism. Encyclopedia.com. accessed on July 9, 2019.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/body-politics
body”.4 Thus, a politics of the female body includes the constructions and controls of female

sexuality, its acceptable and censored expressions, its location socio-culturally, even

materially.5

Human bodies are in the discussion of the church history from its early stage.6 Christian

theology emerges in different social contexts, and has a special relationship to the life

experiences.7 The lived experiences in body is the main focus of Theology of body. Theology

of the Body emerged in the latter half of the twentieth century, when the possibilities of human

embodiment and matter were opened in ways that former generations could not have foreseen.

Theology of body is not primarily a theological description of body, nor it is primarily an

ethical perception for how we ought to express ourselves physically. 8 Theology of body is

doing in such a way that it takes body experiences seriously as occasions of revelations.

Theology of body describes as that discipline which reflects upon faith seeking understanding

of the lived body and the material universe.9 The gendered and sexed bodies are in debate for

a long time in developing Theology of body. A theology of body for disabled begins with the

recognition that people with disabilities have been at best a minority voice in the development

of Christian theology and practice and at worst have been completely silenced within the

conversation. In listening to such voices and reflecting on the life experiences of people with

disabilities, it hopes to re-think and recalibrate aspects of theology and practice that serve to

exclude or to misrepresent the human experience of disability.

4
Wendy Harcourt, Body Politics in Development (London: Zed Books, 2009), 17.
5
Ketu H. Katrak, Politics of the Female Body (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2006), 9.
6
Mary Timothy Prokes, Theology of Body (Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), 1.
7
Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,
2014),
8
James B. Nelson, Body Theology (Kentuchy: John Knox Press, 1992), 43.
9
Prokes, Theology of …, 26.
The notion of “perfect body” is a product of body politics. Foucault undertakes the task to

“expose a body totally imprinted by history and by the process of history’s destruction of the

body”.10 Foucault's work challenges the traditional “social model” of disability insofar as it

reifies and naturalizes “impairments” as the transhistorical and neutral foundations of

disability.

As one of the newer disciplines in academia, studies on disability has seen a remarkable

expansion and development in little more than two decades. Disability is a mental or a physical

condition that limits an individual's movements and senses. the topic of disability has been

either largely overlooked or neglected throughout the philosophical history of the west.11 If and

when western canonical philosophers reference physical or intellectual disability, such

reference is often used to contrast between a normative conception of human embodiment (i.e.

rational and able-bodied) and those contingencies that mark a failure to achieve this idea. In

this technological world the embodiment of disabled bodies has become the testing ground for

may technologies.

The disabled bodies not get much importance in the discussion in body politics and in theology

of body. Which bodies are producing knowledge about other bodies? Where do the voices of

people that are disabled fit into the discussion of body politics? Taking disabled bodies as a

point of reference, this study attempts to analyse body politics and embodiment, for a

revisioning Theology of body.

10
Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,”in The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow (London:
Penguin, 1991), 83.
11
Joanna Anuja Saramarla, “The Disabled as Subaltern in India,” YoungBhartiya, accessed on 10 Jun 2019,
https://www.youngbhartiya.com/article/the-disabled-as-subaltern-in-india.
IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM

As mentioned, body politics and theology of body are in discussion for a long term in academic

histories. But the concepts of body politics are not used to define theology of body. And in case

of disabled bodies, that are challenged as imperfect bodies and the voices of disabled are

silenced. Individuals with disabilities have been socially and philosophically marginalized

because such individuals may fail to live up to strict philosophical standards associated with

human nature as a rational and able-bodied nature. Disabled bodies are suppressed in by the

“perfect bodies” because of its biological nature. This study is thus, is important to revisit a

theology of body with the concepts of body politics, with referring the issues of disabled bodies.

METHODOLOGY

This study tries to analyse body politics and embodiment to develop a theology of body in the

contemporary context specifically referring to the issues of disabled bodies. Body politics is

used in the study as the primary lens to revisiting a theology of body. The study uses the

analytical-critical and reflective method based on the available literatures and resources.

PREVIOUS STUDIES

Body politics has been used by a number of scholars in theological and secular disciplines

analysing a variety of subjectivities like gender and sexed bodies.

E Mawdsley used body politics to explain Federalism, Regionalism and the Creation of New

States in India. N. Erevelles used the same idea of body politics to explain Disability and

Difference in Global Contexts: Enabling a Transformative Body.

However, this study tries to analyse the use of body politics in the body theology discourses,

taking disabled bodies as a reference point.

SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

The study intends to seek the possibility to use concept of body politics towards the

development of a theology of body. Yet again it does not provide a comprehensive analysis of

the whole scenario of body politics, but is limited specifically to the issue of physically disabled

bodies. This study not give importance to other bodily dichotomies, such as masculine/

feminine, mind/ body, heterosexual/ homosexual etc. This study only put disabled bodies as

reference point.

OUTLINE OF THE CHAPTERS

Chapter 1 - Debate of body politics

Main focus on body politics and its development using theoretical analysis

Chapter 2- Theological formulations that emphasised theology of body

Discussions on theology of body

Chapter 3- Engaging Theology of body with disabled bodies.