February 10, 2004
bodies in the forum
I'm on the road and so posting may be spasmodic. I was watching federal Parliament today and I started thinking of it in terms of the pre-given. It highlights the way the pre-given can be understood in terms of what is densely sedimentated of what is familar and its historicity.
Wilcox
This ignores the sedimented habitual practices, conventions and power relations of the pregiven. The pregiven of this political institution for a journalist, a lobbyist, politician or staffer one etc is strong. The sense is both one of stepping into a big powerful machine that sweeps you along and being bodily in place. Within this institutionalized forum the lived body is continually confronted and connected with the intersubjectivity in the public place.
The politics of negotiations over legislation works through the body language and the reading of its social significance.