Learning to Fly. A trans-spatial ethnography on body suspensions in Europe

Learning to Fly. A trans-spatial ethnography on body suspensions in Europe

By Federica Manfredi

Tutor: Chiara Pussetti

Co-tutor: Cristiana Bastos

FCT grant: SFRH/BD/131914/2017

People transform their bodies in order to empower themselves in multiple ways.

Some use make up regularly, establish routines such as visiting the hair-salon or the local gym, while others adopt more sporadic treatments, for example, in cosmetic plastic surgery clinics.

Sometimes procedures can be perceived as “normal”, because they are shared by a large group of individuals or because strategies for the recruitment of professionals or material are cheap and well known. In other cases, the practice of body enhancement can be less conventional.

THE PROJECT

This is the case of the research that I’m developing at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon, thanks to the support of the Foundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) from 2017, dedicated to the exploration of a practice called body suspension.

A body suspension consists in the elevation of a person through metal hooks: they are temporarily inserted in the skin, as piercings, and connected to an above scaffolding. Pulling the main rope, the protagonist is hung up for as long as he/she desires. The main goal of the project is the exploration of meanings associated to the practice, defining reasons, expectations and effects related to suspensions as well as which conditions framing the experience are signified as positive or not.

Even if people can be paid for exhibitions, especially during tattoo-conventions or disco-parties, the research project “Learning to Fly” is interested in exploring suspensions achieved for non-economic reasons by those people who regularly travel around Europe in order to attend suspension events and festivals.

A MULTI-SITED PERSPECTIVE

The research showed that the body suspension community gather primarily in Norway and Italy, where annual-based events constitute a point of reference for regular performers: 4-5 day-festivals, with a hundred of participants, are the most popular occasions to practice suspensions with the best suspension-crews of the continent. Adopting a comparative perspective, Portugal offered an interesting pole of reflections: without popular annual events, the country is characterized by daily events through the year, especially during the summer time and in open-air locations, where intimate groups of 5-8 people sporadically gather. They rarely know each other before the meeting and personal connections between practitioners seem weaker compared to suspension festivals in the rest of Europe. An other characterizing element is a weaker connection between Portuguese suspension practitioners and members of the tattoo community: if in the rest of Europe people gradually get to the suspension practice after years of body modifications, such as tattoos, piercings and implants, Lisbon based informers often discovered suspensions as first body intervention

A TRANS-SPATIAL APPROACH

Beside Italy, Portugal and Norway, suspensions are discussed and signified on social media, especially Facebook, that I conceived as a precious space where people keep in touch between gatherings. SPACES if for me a key word. In the title of the dissertation I used the term “trans-space” to stress my focus on the circulation of meanings, values, materials, people and practices in different spaces of interaction (digital and offline), because online and offline are not unit of analysis rather than actors shaping the social experience.

ENHANCING THE SELF

Preliminary results showed that suspensions are signified as intense body practices, usually performed once or twice a year, in order to create an exceptional and positive experience aiming to regenerate the protagonist. People suspend to feel better, to improve the idea they have of themselves and their perception of the everyday life. A suspension is often described as an altered state of mind, a mental trip caused by “the kick of adrenaline” stimulated by the hook insertion and the body elevation. In my opinion, beyond the hormonal stimulations, the social environment co-produce a suitable context for a transformative experience. The friendly and understanding environment makes each attendee feel as comfortable as possible, to the point that people define themselves not only as members of a community, but as a second family. The affectivity shapes the frame of the suspension experience.

Through suspensions people can challenge themselves, can elaborate complicated feelings from their private life, proving that they can achieve extraordinary objectives relying only on themselves. They regenerate and empower the perception of self-awareness. Additionally, suspensions create bounds, enhancing social relationships: people who are suspended together or who help someone during a suspension, define their connection as intense, powerful, out of the ordinary and enhanced by the practice.

A body suspension can be many things and sometimes practitioners change the meanings associated to it throughout their life course. Nevertheless, they constitute regenerative and powerful events shaping the perception that the individual has of himself, of his social connections and his everyday life. When hooks are removed, the trace remains in a deeper level than the skin, turning the practice into an intense and enhancing experience still in course of discovery.