Il dolore che ti entra nella carne. Una lettura antropo-poietica tra decostruzione e creazione di umanità

Experiencing pain—especially when it could be avoided—is often delegitimized, as it is seen to harm the integrity of the body and a culturally produced sensory normativity. The ethnographic case of European body suspensions—namely the lifting of a participant through metal hooks temporarily inserted into the skin—reveals a meaning-making process in which pain becomes a tool for intervention and for producing an ideal Self. Through the alteration of the state of consciousness, the individual engages with their capacity to perceive the body, the self, others, and the environment, creating an opportunity for regeneration through a new, self-produced sensorium. The symbolic exchange with the limit allows for the production of an enhanced Self, harmonious and explicitly shaped as an intentional poietic object. The person who suspends themselves thus gives form to their own being through pain and through the disruption of ordinary perceptual abilities: pain deconstructs the sense of self and opens a space for constructing a new form of humanity.