Bodies spoken by the other: A reading of Michel de Certeau

Abstract

This article aims to schematize a reflection of Michel de Certeau regarding the various meanings attributed to the body by Ocidental culture, pointing out the resignifications of these meanings by the Christian religion. For this, in methodological terms, attention was given to interdisciplinary dialogue furthered by this author who easily moved among the fields of psychoanalysis, history, linguistics, philosophy, theology, and spirituality.  As a first hypothesis, it postulated that for De Certeau the body is configured as a viable fiction of social practices, that is, an instance of authority capable of provoking agreements, conflicts and transformations. This is because, according to the aforementioned Jesuit, the body is constituted simultaneously both as a symbolic contribution to institutional powers as well as a mediation for political and cultural bricolage, departures and transgressions advanced in daily life.  Concomitantly, it is considered, as a second hypothesis that, as indicated by De Certeau, the body in the Christian tradition was lived as a mystic instance, that is, as enunciating, by its manifestations, the desire to be habited by the other/Other. It is then suggested that an actualization of this existential and political condition now enables subjects to turn positive their intrinsic incompleteness and fragile humanness, favoring, as a result, historical and social experiences shared and felt.