The Per Embodiment Concept

Embodiment refers to how the body and its processes, such as, perception, effect the development of the human functioning. In the late 1970s and early 1980s focus was shifted from symbolic or interpretive anthropology to practice-oriented approaches. Until then, the body was both a transmitter and a receiver of cultural knowledge. However, the body has been studied as a concept (i.e. a discursive object) than as a material presence. Bourdieu’s work suggests that mediation between the person and their society is based off bodily practises that are lodged in the habitus. Habitus, represents the effects of group culture and personal history in shaping the mind and body and thus effects social action. Per Heidegger, our being is interconnected
with everything around us, and for example when working, our activity is not self-contained but is interconnected with our equipment that was produced by someone else. Essentially our being is nether located in ourselves or in the objects we use; it is found in between within our relationship with the world.
Based off if this concept, our consciousness introduces a new world, in which, we never perceive an object we perceive its location in the world, surrounded by other objects (objects have meanings and this interconnectedness links them to one another). Therefore, per embodiment if one part of the whole is effected it will affect the entire being. This concept is shown with the Aboriginal people. The Aboriginal people, underwent a history of colonialist and paternalistic control, living on the reserve system, forced relocation, racist attitudes, and the forced placement of children into institutions that resulted in many illnesses faced by them
today. Social inequalities cause for a high personal toll in the form of mortality, violence and suicide. Infant mortality is the one of the key indicators of the relative health of the general population.
In Aboriginal populations, the infant mortality (8 deaths per 1000 live births) is 1.5 times larger than the national average (5.5 deaths per 1000 live births). The major indicator of infant mortality is birth weight. Birth weight is affected by socio-economic conditions, maternal age, maternal nutrition, smoking, drugs, and illness. Since the Aboriginal’s do not have access to health services that many take for granted thus infants with low or high birth weights have a higher vulnerability of obtaining life threatening diseases in their future. Personal, interpersonal, and family violence is extremely high in Aboriginal populations and that 39% of the population has reported family violence as a social problem. In a study conducted by Jacobs and Gill, they reported that those who had experienced any form of physical or sexual abuse were more likely to have a substance abuse problem and thus developed violent behaviours. Substance abusers are also most likely to have legal problems, time in jail, as well as high level of psychological distress. Suicide rates are extremely high in Aboriginal people and indicates the severity of social
disruption. These suicides are caused by poverty, powerlessness and depression. This crisis is set in motion through the lack of economic, social, and cultural resources; physical, emotional or sexual abuse. Per Kral and Samson, a long history of inequity combined with rapid change of social and cultural changes, a lack of any political clout, and no apparent end to the inequity leads to highly traumatic events.