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Acting Bodies and Social Networks analyzes the complex interactions
of body, mind and microelectronic technologies. Internationally
renowned scholars look into the nature of the mind - a combination
of thought, perception, emotion, will and imagination - as well as
the ever-increasing impact and complexity of microelectronic
technologies. The proliferation of these technologies facilitates a
profound change in the boundaries between bodies and technologies.
These technologies expand the temporal and spatial existence of
humans; today, people can instantly communicate all over the world
and overcome time and space restraints by using the latest
available microelectronic technologies. The first volume, The Body
as Social Icon, examines how memory is affected by the new
technology and the related theoretical issues while the second,
Mapping Bodies in a Networked Space, deals with the influence of
the new technologies on everyday life practices. At the
"information portal," the brain's capacity is loosing its ability
to retain information. In 2004, a number of well known
neuroscientists, including Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, wrote a
review about the ethical dilemma computer technologies raise,
stating that "humanity's ability to alter its own brain function
might well shape history as powerfully as the development of
metallurgy in the Iron Age." By introducing the concept of acting
body, this book contributes to discussion concerning the future
development of Homo sapiens. We consider the acting body as a
bridge between technology and working memory, which entails a
radical change in our approach to the social sciences.
The new boundaries between bodies and technologies constitute one
of the most important developments in the last fifty years. Through
technologies we not only change the relations between a natural
given, the body, and a human-made artefact -- the technology but
also change the ways we experience the world. How close are we to a
world in which the abilities of machines are indistinguishable from
those of the species that invented them? Our encounters with the
new technologies change the cognitive processes and influences the
modes of processing information. Moreover, it raises the question
of the nature of human beings. Traversing body as emotive- being-
in- the world and body as location culturally and socially
constructed, there is a third dimension: the dimension of
technological. Are we able to use these new dimension as a creative
interface between the emotional brain, the acting body, and ICTS?
In answering these questions, the book explores the action of
bodies in technology, that is, how the sense of our bodies and of
our orientation in the world are affected by information and
communication technologies. It contributes therefore to the
world-wide discussion and debates on the impact of technology,
especially information technology, on the lives of human beings in
the age of globalization, in particular to the present thinking of
the relationship between technology and embodiment.
Body and Time is an innovative and concise survey of penetrating
essays, conceptualizing the body as a physiological system embedded
in a social network. In its complex and multilayered structure, it
is aligned to and overlaps with other related functions.
Contributors to this publication are members of the International
Sociological Association Research Committee 54 - `The Body in the
Social Sciences', and their contributions specifically refer to the
RC54 Mid-Term Conference - `The Mobile Interface and Social
Change', held at `Sapienza', University of Rome, 6 December,
2012.What distinguishes the architecture of the book is that,
collectively, it constitutes a challenge to the digital media
paradigm in which the body is treated simply as a two dimensional
icon of space and time; a relatively `free form' with all kinds of
narratives generated by the multimedia.Order in sequence should,
indeed, be the key phrase incorporating four incisive problems
dealt with in the thirteen chapters forming the `body' of the book:
identity, temporality, hierarchy and territoriality. In short, the
volume demonstrates how fundamentally different ways of
experiencing time are also determined by the differing cultural use
of bodily rhythms - a `two-sided narration' namely, of space and
time. Central to the understanding of this interdependence is the
study of interpersonal synchronization - increasing knowledge
through the investigation of how rhythm, music, chants, dance,
prayer and other harmonizing practices support social
integration.This book will attract wide interest, especially from
students, researchers and academics in the social sciences,
neurosociology, digital studies and further afield.
This volume introduces sociological knowledge to social reality in
various fields that are especially significant for Southern
European societies, such as education, migration, social cohesion
and political participation. It provides the reader with an
understanding of the new and radical challenges that Europe has
been called to face, and complements academic research with new
conceptualisations of sociology which solve social public problems
in specific territorial contexts. The book focuses on the body as
the vector of social cohesion policies in the awareness that
cohesion revolves around the ability of all people - not just
migrants - to manage conflict and change. With these aims, the
empowered body is suggested as a means able to build up the
timescales of memory as time-windows open to the ethic boundaries
of human life. In today's world, the question of empowerment
crosses borders, not only geographic but also cognitive, linguistic
and cultural ones. Refuting the longstanding notion that culture
alone is responsible for group behaviour, this book confronts the
"moving up" and "getting on" characterizing current immigration
policies, specifically in Europe and the Mediterranean area and, in
general, around the world. Methodologically, all contributions here
pay attention to the powerful connection between the individual
lives and the historical and socio-economic contexts in which these
lives unfold. The brilliant analyses here suggest, at least, the
"borderlands" as the agent making the movement of policy.
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