Presentación
Bodies in Expression: Life Experiences, Practices, Aesthetics
It is with great joy that we share with you the 20th issue of the Latin American Journal of Studies on Bodies, Emotions and Society. This anniversary issue concretises a great shared effort that the Collective Action and Social Conflict Program from CIECS (CONICET-UNC); the Study Group on Sociology of Emotions and Bodies from IIGG-UBA; and the Latin American Network of Social Studies of Emotions and Bodies have been continuously making on a fourmonthly basis since 2009.
Each of the 20 issues that make up the current status of our publication are the product of having created a ground for inscription, a space for discussion, where each of the issues implies the previous ones and entails the ones yet to come. This is why we say one issue, all the issues.
Twenty issues involve work, systematicity and trust: it is the result of multiple efforts and the consequence of persevering on what has been promised; while based on what the authors who have accompanied us have delivered to the journal and what the readers seek from it.
It is in this sense that the 20 issues of RELACES have gathered a significative amount of contributions from authors and readers around the world. We want to thank all those who have submitted their work from Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Spain, Portugal, Peru, Uruguay, Colombia, the United States, Ecuador, Israel, Australia, Italy, Russia, Germany, France, and England. Thus, 56.1% of the contributions to the magazine and 66.2% of the readers are international.
As plot of RELACES' current inscription, its placement in communication among networks has been achieved and a disciplinary subfield has been consolidated and institutionalized. This, consequently to the insertion of RELACES not only as part of the Latin American Network of Social Studies on Emotions and Bodies, but also due to its inclusion and indexation in important directories and catalogues.
It is in this context that in this anniversary issue we have the joy to celebrate the inclusion of RELACES as Level 1 to the Basic Core of Argentinean Scientific Journals; after a long evaluation process by the Argentinian Centre for Scientific and Technological Information of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council.
We thank all those who in one way or another have participated in these 20 issues (see annex), also the Editorial Council from our magazine and those who have participated as external evaluators.
In the inaugural issue of RELACES we said that that magazine "seeks to establish itself as a space where oblique, transversal and multidisciplinary perspectives explore the potential of the connections among bodies, emotions, conflicts and creativities." 20 issues after that, we present a series of articles that from multiple, transversal and oblique perspectives problematize body, emotions, affections, and states of feeling addressing their subject of study from different contexts of production.
The first article is by Adrián Scribano, Bodies, Emotions and Society in Latin America: A look from our own practices. One hundred and forty (140) articles, twenty (20) issues, and seven (7) years are some of the numbers that lead us to the complex and systematic perspective that a person interested in bodies/emotions can find in RELACES to get an approach to the field of study in the area. The aim of the present work is to provide a possible approach to the topics included in the studies on bodies/ emotions in Latin America through the information we obtain from the 140 articles published by RELACES attempting to schematize the "status of the situation" in these past 7 years. By the end, there is an initiative to take on some of the "persistent" guidelines of agreement/disagreements on research practices regarding bodies/emotions and to systematize some schematic notes of future guidelines presented as questions, challenges, and rejections. It is our intention to take this piece of writing as (another) benchmark to elaborate a mapping on how studies on bodies/emotions provide very accurate hints to inquire about processes of social structuration.
In his article entitled Images of Financial Crisis. Interventions documentary films, Jens Eder (Germany) proposes to problematize the media as shapers of senses. Through the analysis of documentary movies, it examines the way in which the media attract their audiences and contribute to the compression of the financial and global crisis (their causes, consequences and possibilities of resolution) even though those same audiences are the ones that suffer the consequences of said crisis: impoverishment, unemployment, budgetary cuts in housing, healthcare, and education, etc. Jens Eder's analysis takes up four of the most successful documentary movies in Europe, starting off with the positioning of discourse as a rhetorical, aesthetic and affective strategy.
Nayelhi I. Saavedra Solano (Mexico), analyses the conceptualization that emotions have in traditional, alternative, and complementary medicine. Her article, Conceptualization of emotions in three medical systems: traditional Chinese medicine, ayurveda and traditional Mexican medicine, acknowledges the emergence of alternative and complementary medicine to treat mostly chronic malaises. Departing from an analysis of the cosmovisions on traditional Chinese medicine, ayuverda, and traditional Mexican medicine, the author reconstruct the conceptualization of bodies and emotions, where representations of the human being, nature and the universe juxtapose. "The human being is represented as an interweaving of functions manifested materially (organs, tissue, etc.) and also immaterially (energy, emotions, etc.) The comprehension of emotions refers to the explanation of the macro-cosmic path. They are further manifestation of the energies that all forms of life produce. The organic, emotional, and energetic aspects gain equal importance for diagnosis and treatment."
The fourth written work of this issue is proposed by Andrieu Bernard (France) and it is entitled Learn about your alive body: An emersiology of the circus gestures. From the case of the National Centre for Circus Arts, Andrieu Bernard analyses the body as venue for learning and knowledge. The body of the circus artist is positioned as condition for the possible discovering of its own body in the incorporation of techniques related to the discipline. Such motor knowledge is acquired at an infraconscious level and through the organization of a body scheme. Nevertheless, the author states that "without a "conscious analysis of certain proprioceptive information (Le Boulch, 1995: 132), that takes place in the dialogue with the teachers and in our philosophy workshop, the function of internalizing learning could not be realized."
The following article is proposed by Diego Benegas Loyo (Argentina) and studies a series of spatial practices related to the inscription of people's names for public spaces whether they be squares, parks, streets, cities, etc. He takes an ethnographic approach from the materialization, cohabitation, and bodily spatial practices concepts. Understanding these type of practices as means of producing situations that materialize relations from the present ones towards the absent ones. The title of the article is Writing their name: tiles, stars, and graffiti as situations of materialization at the entrances to life and addresses three situations where the inscription of names takes on a prominent role: tiles of memory with the names of those disappeared by the dictatorship, yellow stars with the names of those who lost their lives in traffic accidents, and a kind of graffiti with the name of the newborns that is seen in public maternities.
Luis Campos Medina y Paulina Soto Labbé (Chile) are the authors of the sixth article with the title Nomadic Music: body demarcations of sonority in the migrant experience. Work in progress. The article proposes an analysis of the sonority and music in the immigrant Latin American population in Chile. This work tries to contend "a) that sonorities and different usage and musical listening practices take part in the production of body demarcations and individual autocomprehensions; b) that those practices contribute to make the migratory experience conceivable, and c) that they also contribute to make life in the new territory comprehensible and manageable."
Lastly, Warren TenHouten (United States) shares with us his article Embodied Feeling and Reason in Decision-Making: Assessing the Somatic- Marker Hypothesis. The author's proposal is to analyse the connections between reason and feelings given that from his perspective both, the resolution of certain problems and the decision-making process, involve not only somatic feelings, but also emotions which are found on the limbic system. According to the author, if a decision needs to be made quickly and without much information, the reactions on the body may provide important signals that help the decisionmaking process. These bodily signals or somatic markers, comprise affective events that involve excitement, depression, visceral activity, feelings of excitement, muscle tension, change in the pulse rate, etc. Bodily signals as somatic markers is the main focus of the author's proposal.
This present issue ends with two reviews: The first one by Ignacio Pellón, Bodies, worldviews and practices: mediations and tensions surrounding waste collections, conducts an analysis on the book by Gabriela Vergara (2015) Retrievers, Wastes and Mediations. A study from within the interiors of daily nature, management and social structuration; from Estudios Sociológicos Publisher. The second review, by Sharon Díaz (Uruguay), is entitled Contributions to the Sociology of Body and Emotions; explorations of senses and sensibilities in the Global-South. Here she analyses the recently published book by Rafael Sánchez Aguirre (2015) Senses and Sensibilities: Sociological Examinations on Bodies and Emotions, from Estudios Sociológicos Publisher.
We thank the authors and all those who have sent us their manuscripts. We would like to remind you that we are permanently receiving applications of articles for publication.
Finally, we must restate that as from the 15th issue of RELACES we are publishing up to two articles in English per issue. As we have been stating for some time, all of RELACES' editorial team and editorial council believe it is necessary to take each one of our articles as a node that allows us to continue in the path of dialogue and scientific/academic exchange as a social and political task in order to attain a freer and more autonomous society. Therefore, we would like to thank all those who see us as a vehicle to open the aforementioned dialogue.
Anexo
We thank those who have contributed over the years with their writings to make RELACES possible: Aldana Boragnio, Adrián Scribano, Adriana García Andrade, Adriano Gomes de León, Alejandro Damián Rodríguez, Alexander Shkurko, Alexis Patricio Sossa Rojas, Alexis Patricio Sossa Rojas, Alice Poma, Alice Poma, Alicia Lindón, Alina Mazzaferro, Amanda Rutllant da Cunha, Amurabi Oliveira, Ana Graciela Levstein, Ana Julia Aréchaga, Ana Laura Candil, Ana Leticia Fitte, Ana Lucía Cervio, Ana Lúcia de Castro, Ana Rodríguez Granell, Anaclara Mona, Angélica De Sena, Anna Fernández Poncela, Armando Ulises Cerón Martínez, Arnaud Halloy, Begoña Enguix Grau, Belén Espoz, Berta García Faet, Brenda Araceli Bustos García, Carlos Alberto Argañaraz, Carlos Alfredo Marín, Carlos Ospina Cruz, Carolina Emilia Di Próspero, Carolina Ferrante, Cecilia Beatriz Soria, Cecilia Michelazzo, Cecilia Musicco, Cecilia Quevedo, Cecilia Tamburrino, Celso Vianna Bezerra de Menezes, Chiara Piazzesi, Cirus Rinaldi, Claire Terezinha Lazzaretti, Claudia Gandía, Claudia Mercedes Jimenez Garces, David Howes, David Le Breton, De Sousa Nogeira, Denise Osswald, Diego Cuattrini, Diego Galante, Diego Mattos Vazualdo, Dora Barrancos, Douglas J. Davies, Elisabetta Della Corte, Elizabeth Sánchez Garay, Emilio José Seveso Zanin, Esteban Dipaola, Eugenia Boito, Fábio Lopes Alves, Federico Díaz Llorente, Federico Fernandez, Ferreyra Miguel, Flabián Nievas, Florencia Chahbenderian, Francisco Guzmán Castillo, Francisco Jander De Sousa Nogueira, Francisco Javier Cortazar Rodríguez, Gabriela Reta, Gabriela Vergara Mattar, Graciela Magallanes, Graciela Manjarrez Cuéllar, Horacio Machado Aráoz, Hugo Nicolás Sir Retamales, Iara Maria de Almeida Souza, Ileana Ibañez, Ivan Rodrigo Pincheira Torres, Jaime De la Calle Valverde, Jair Eduardo Restrepo Pineda, James M. Jasper, Jenny Marcela Ponton Cevallos, Joanildo Burity, Joaquín Chervero, José Domingo Carrillo Padilla, José Luis Grosso, José Manuel Barreto, José Miguel Rasia, Josefina Leonor Brown, Josefina Ramírez Velázquez, Josep Marti Perez, Joseylson Fagner Santos, Juan Dukuen, Juan Pablo Matta, Juan Pablo Robledo, Julia Bertone, Juliana Gonzaga Jayme, Juliana Huergo, Karina Mariel Mauro, Katrina Salguero Myers, Kelly Maria Gomes Menezes, Laura Echavarría, Leandro Drivet, Liuba Kogan, Loïc Wacquant, Lucas Aimar, Luciana Micaela Ramos, Luis Herrera Montero, Luiz Gustavo Pereira de Souza Correia, Macarena Fernández, Magdalena Águeda Arnao Bergero, Marcelo Córdoba, Maria Beatriz Pacca, María Belén Espoz, María Celeste Bianciotti, Maria Emilia Tijoux Merino, Maria Esther Vega Ocampo, Maria Helena de Paula Frota, Maria Inês Rauter Mancuso, Maria Inés Silenzi, María Jimena Mantilla, María Laura Pellizzari, María Macarena Saenz Valenzuela, María Pilar Lava, María Valeria Emiliozzi, Mariana Isabel Lorenzetti, Mariana Nobile, Mariflor Aguilar, Mario Pecheny, Mario Toboso Martín, Martin Eynard, Matías Artese, Mauro Guilherme Pinheiro Koury, Melina Perbellini, Michael Humphrey , Miguel A. V. Ferreira, Mina Lorena Navarro Trujillo, Mira Moshe, Natalia Magnone Alemán, Nayla Luz Vacarezza, Nicolás Morales Sáez, Olga Alejandra Sabido Ramos, Oliva Lopez Sanchez, Oliver Gabriel Hernández Lara, Paloma Coelho, Patricia Alejandra Collado, Patricia Lopéz, Patrick Cingolani, Paulo Henrique Martins, Pedro Lisdero, Pedro Robertt, Perla Vanessa De los Santos, Rafael Andrés Sánchez Aguirre, Raoni Borges Barbosa, Rebeca Cena, Régia Cristina Oliveira, Roberta Priscila Cedillo, Roberta Sousa Mélo, Rodolfo Puglisi, Romina Laura Del Mónaco, Sandra Emma Carmona, Santiago Diaz, Santiago Joaquin Insausti, Santiago Morcillo, Sasho Alexander Lambevski, Sebastián Gerardo Fuentes, Sebastián Goinheix Costa, Sheila Silva Lima, Soledad Gattoni, Susana Vargas Cervantes, Teresa Cristina Furtado Matos, Tommaso Gravante, Tommaso Gravante, Tova Benski, Túlio Cunha Rossi, Valeria Bula, Victoria D'hers, Victoria Sordini, William Héctor Gómez Soto, Ximena Cabral y Yulia Shkurko.