Torture and Body Knowledge

酷刑和身体知识

• 批准号: 397232855
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Katharina Inhetveen
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Seminar für Sozialwissenschaften
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2017-12-31 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/397232855?language=en
• 关键词: Torture; Body; Knowledge

The project studies the relationships between torture techniques and body knowledge. It argues that torture techniques (as enacted practices and as systematized blueprints for action) and body knowledge (as knowledge about the body and as incorporated knowledge) interact with each other: On the one hand, objectified stocks of knowledge about the human body form the basis for the development and application of torture techniques. On the other hand, experiences of torture by torturers, the tortured and third parties enter into the body-related knowledge of the field. Torture was, and is, a form of political violence that is institutionalized in many societies, but in different empirical manifestations. To enable a comparative study of interrelations between torture techniques and body knowledge, the project combines two methodological strategies. Firstly, it traces the changing forms and meanings of torture techniques in the course of their diffusion through different cultural contexts of application. To this end, the case of the torture techniques developed and systematized by the CIA during the Cold War is examined in their genesis and in their dispersion as mobile and adaptable patterns of action in different cultural contexts. This analysis is carried out with regard to the War on Terror, when US agencies used torture techniques in Afghanistan and Guantánamo, amongst other places, and with regard to torture regimes in Latin America in the second half of the 20th century, namely in Argentina and Chile. Secondly, torture techniques and the body knowledge associated with them are analyzed in a culturally contrasted context. Here, the empirical case will be the torture systematized and carried out by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. This case lends itself to the intended comparison as it offers extensive accessible material as well as a cultural contrast, being embedded in a cosmology different from the European-American context. The project aims to explore the culturally specific and transculturally observable interrelations between torture techniques and body knowledge. Thereby, it examines the tensions between, on the one hand, the differences between torture techniques and the associated body knowledge varying with cultural contexts and, on the other hand, the culture-independent and construction-resistant quality of the vulnerable human body, which limits the degree to which bodies are open to interpretation, use and handling. Thereby, the project facilitates innovative insights into the sociology of violence as well as body sociology. With the comparative study of torture techniques in their cultural contexts, conceptually based on the sociology of knowledge and sociological anthropology, the project aims to contribute to a better sociological understanding of torture, and of extreme violence more generally, as cultural bodily practice.

该项目研究酷刑技术和身体知识之间的关系。它认为，酷刑技术（作为制定的做法和系统化的行动蓝图）和身体知识（作为关于身体的知识和作为整合的知识）相互作用：一方面，关于人体的知识的客观库存构成酷刑技术的发展和应用的基础。另一方面，酷刑实施者、受酷刑者和第三方的酷刑经历也属于该领域与身体有关的知识。酷刑过去和现在都是一种政治暴力形式，在许多社会中已制度化，但实际表现形式不同。为了能够对酷刑手段和身体知识之间的相互关系进行比较研究，该项目结合了两种方法战略。首先，它追溯了酷刑技术在不同文化背景下传播过程中的形式和意义的变化。为此，在冷战期间，中央情报局开发和系统化的酷刑技术的情况下，审查其起源和在不同文化背景下的移动的和适应性强的行动模式的传播。这一分析是针对反恐战争进行的，当时美国机构在阿富汗和关塔那摩等地使用酷刑技术，以及20世纪下半叶拉丁美洲的酷刑制度，即阿根廷和智利。其次，酷刑技术和与之相关的身体知识进行了文化对比的背景下分析。在这里，经验案例将是红色高棉在柬埔寨系统化和实施的酷刑。这个案例有助于进行预期的比较，因为它提供了广泛的可访问材料以及文化对比，嵌入了不同于欧美背景的宇宙论。该项目旨在探讨酷刑技术与身体知识之间的文化特异性和跨文化可观察的相互关系。因此，它审查了以下两种情况之间的紧张关系：一方面是酷刑手段和与之相关的身体知识因文化背景而异，另一方面是脆弱人体的文化独立性和抵抗构造的性质，这限制了身体对解释、使用和处理的开放程度。因此，该项目促进了对暴力社会学和身体社会学的创新见解。该项目从知识社会学和社会学人类学的概念出发，在文化背景下对酷刑手段进行比较研究，目的是促进从社会学角度更好地理解酷刑和更普遍的极端暴力，将其视为文化身体习俗。