Crossley 2005

Body & Society
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Mapping Reflexive Body Techniques: On Body Modification and

Maintenance
Nick Crossley
Body & Society 2005 11: 1
DOI: 10.1177/1357034X05049848
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Mapping Reflexive Body Techniques:

On Body Modification and
Maintenance
NICK CROSSLEY
Much work in the sociology of the body has been devoted to an analysis of body
modification and maintenance; that is, to practices such as diet, exercise, body-
building, tattooing, piercing, dress and cosmetic surgery (e.g. Crossley, 2004a,
2004b; DeMello, 2000; Entwistle, 2000; Featherstone, 1982, 2000; Gurney, 2000;
Monaghan, 2001; Pitts, 1998, 2003; Rosenblatt, 1997; Sanders, 1988; Sassatelli,
1999a, 1999b; Smith, 2001; Sweetman, 1999; Turner, 1999). In this paper I seek to
contribute to this work on two fronts. First, developing a theme already present
in the literature, I explore the reflexive and embodied nature of practices of
modification/maintenance. It is very easy when discussing this topic to slip into
a dualistic framework, opposing the body to either self or society and seeming
to suggest that the former is transformed by the latter. We talk, for example,
about ‘my body’, what ‘I’ think of ‘it’, what ‘I’ put ‘it’ through and what ‘I’ want
‘it’ to look like. On one level this linguistic habit resonates with our experience.
Our socially instituted capacity for reflexivity allows us to turn back upon and
objectify ourselves, effecting a distinction between what Mead (1967) referred to
as the ‘I’ and the ‘me’; the body as subject and the body as object. On this level
Body & Society © 2005 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi),
Vol. 11(1): 1–35
DOI: 10.1177/1357034X05049848
www.sagepublications.com
2 Body and Society Vol. 11 No. 1
we both are our bodies and we have a body (Crossley, 2001). However, it is
necessary to recognize this split as reflexive rather than substantial in nature. It
derives from our acquired capacity to assume the role of another and thereby to
achieve an outside perspective on ourselves, a process which generates a sense of
our being distinct from the qualities we identify with our self when assuming this
‘other’ role. It does not indicate a substantial distinction between mind/self and
body. It does not often even reflect the emergent stratification between the body
as a biochemical structure and the body as a sensuous, active agent. ‘My body’,
the body I ‘have’, is a moral, aesthetic, acting and sensuous being. I worry as
much about its appearance, performances and transgressions as I do about its
biological structure. The best work in the sociology of the body recognizes this.
It challenges dualism, insisting that ‘I’ am ‘my body’ and that body projects are
therefore reflexive projects (see esp. Crossley, 2001, 2004a; Entwistle, 2000;
Monaghan, 1999; Smith, 2001; Sweetman, 1999; Wacquant, 1995, 2004).
In this article I advance this idea through an exploration of what I call reflex-
ive body techniques (RBTs), a concept which builds upon Marcel Mauss’s (1979)
concept of body techniques (see also Crossley, 1995, 2004a, 2004c) and upon my
own earlier work on reflexive embodiment (Crossley, 2001). The concept of
RBTs, I will show, affords a powerful analytic purchase upon the embodied and
reflexive processes and practices involved in projects of body modification/main-
tenance and, indeed, upon the reflexive separation of the embodied I and me.
The concept of RBTs also frames my second theme: the social distribution and
diffusion of practices of modification. Specifically, I will demonstrate and seek to
explain the fact that the overall repertoire of RBTs belonging to any group can
always be differentiated into: (i) clusters which all members practise, (ii) clusters
which the majority or a large minority practise and (iii) clusters which only a
small minority practise. Furthermore, I will demonstrate and seek to explain the
fact that within the ‘zone’ of less widely practised RBTs we find clusters which
‘go together’ thematically and/or in the sense of being statistically associated.
Recognizing this pattern of distribution is important because it alerts us both to
the different meanings attaching to specific clusters and to their variable
conditions of diffusion and appropriation; their levels of accessibility and the
different balance of costs and rewards that attach to them.
This is an important observation in relationship to our broader focus. General
descriptions such as ‘body modification’ and ‘body maintenance’ can be mislead-
ing because they imply that we are dealing with a set of practices with a common
identity, purpose, accessibility, etc. They fail to distinguish between the social
logic of distinct sets of practices. This can lead to theoretical accounts which do
likewise. Giddens’ (1991) theory of ‘the body in late modernity’, to take one

Mapping Reflexive Body Techniques 3
example, offers a single explanation of practices of body maintenance, based

around the need for social agents to construct coherent self-narratives in an
increasingly detraditionalized and risk-aware environment. This is arguably a
good account in relationship to some practices of modification, perhaps diet and
exercise (although see Crossley, 2004b). But it is far from obvious that it explains
all modification practices. We are forced to ask whether other practices, includ-
ing both more mundane and widespread practices, such as tooth-brushing and
washing, and also more marginal practices, such as scarification and multiple
piercing, can be explained in the same way. And even if they can we must
question whether the difference in rates of uptake between such practices can be
ignored, as it is by those who theorize body modification at a very high level of
abstraction and generalization, in a largely undifferentiated fashion. The fact that
some practices achieve an almost 100 percent rate of uptake in our society, whilst
others are practised by less than 1 percent of the population, and others still by
30 percent, 40 percent or 50 percent is and should be question begging for soci-
ologists of the body, as indeed should the clustering and association of specific
techniques. They suggest the presence of a social dynamic we have not yet recog-
nized or analysed.
There are, of course, many focused empirical studies which explore in detail
the specificities of particular practices, such as bodybuilding, piercing or cosmetic
surgery (Davis, 1995; DeMello, 2000; Irwin, 2001; Klein, 1993; Klesse, 1999;
Kosut, 2000; Monaghan, 1999, 2001; Myers, 1992; Pitts, 1998; Rosenblatt, 1997;
Sanders, 1988; St Martin and Gavey, 1996; Sweetman, 1999; Turner, 1999; Vail,
1999). These are an important antidote to overgeneralized theories and they shed
light upon individual practices. However, their specificity denies us the possi-
bility of a broader, comparative grasp of the spectrum of practices to be found in
contemporary societies. What is needed, to complement these studies, and what
I hope to move towards in this article, is a broad and differentiated framework
for thinking about body modification/maintenance in general; a framework that
can draw a diverse range of practices together, while remaining sensitive to their
particularities. The article will not take us all of the way to this goal but I hope
at least to take a few important steps in that direction.
A thorough analysis of patterns of differentiation, at least insofar as it includes
consideration of different rates of uptake, requires that we integrate the quali-
tative methods and theoretical investigations common in the sociology of the
body with certain more quantitative techniques, designed specifically to enable
exploration of distributions, associations, clustering, etc. Any of a range of such
techniques might be used, from quite basic frequency distributions through to
more complex statistical techniques. In this article, alongside frequency

distributions and cross-tabulation, I will use ‘multi-dimensional scaling’ (MDS),

a technique which allows us to visualize, in the form of scatterplots or ‘percep-
tual maps’, the statistical associations between large numbers of categorical vari-
ables (Canter, 1985; Kruskal and Wish, 1978). On an MDS plot we can see which
RBTs ‘go together’, in the sense that practice of one is associated with practice of
the other(s), because they form visible clusters. These statistical associations and
clusters often reflect thematic clustering. RBTs are statistically associated because
they belong to a common lifestyle, habitus or self-narrative. Their association at
the level of meaning increases the probability that agents drawn to one will be
drawn to the other(s), which in turn generates a statistical association between
them.
Moreover, under certain conditions an MDS plot allows us, simultaneously,
to map frequency distributions. One example of this is a pattern of distri-
bution/interpretation, which I return to later, known as the radex (Canter,
1985). In a radex, variables (e.g. body techniques) which occur most frequently
in a population cluster towards the centre of the plot, or towards a point that
we can treat as the centre. Most people do most of them and this causes them
to congeal centrally on the plot. Less frequently occurring variables spread
progressively outwards from this centre, with the least frequent appearing at the
extremes of the plot. In our attempt to interpret such plots we can represent
these frequency patterns by drawing concentric circles onto the plot which
locate specific sets of variables in different frequency ‘zones’. In addition,
however, as we move out from our innermost circle, we find that the less
frequently occurring variables form distinct clusters in accordance with the
other variables that they are positively and negatively associated with – and with
which, as noted above, they may also therefore be thematically associated. This
allows us to further subdivide our plot. We can mark out clusters at the
‘margins’ of our plot by way of segments. In Figure 1, for example, three
concentric circles demarcate frequency zones into which hypothetical variables
(represented by letters) fall. A and J are variables which occur most frequently
(e.g. they might be very commonly practised body techniques). F, T, G, P and
Q are variables which occur less frequently. And D, I and N are variables which
occur relatively rarely (they might be techniques which very few people
practise). In addition to mapping frequencies, however, the plot allows us to
map out thematic clusters. We can divide our map into interpretable segments.
We might seek to interpret the clustering D, T and G, for example, as evidence
of their belonging to a common habitus or, following Giddens (1991), a specific
narrative trajectory (A is too commonly practised to count). Perhaps they are
all techniques which embody values of ‘health and fitness’, while P, Q and N

F I
T A J
D G N
P Q
Figure 1 A Radex
belong to a ‘modern primitivist’ habitus. How we divide the plot, where we

draw our lines, will reflect our own theoretical judgements. We might wish to
use theoretical understandings to formulate hypotheses regarding clustering
prior to our mapping exercise or may simply use theory for retrospective
interpretation. In either case, however, maps require theoretically based
interpretation if they are to have any sense. We try to match clusters with theor-
etical accounts – always expecting that some anomalies will be thrown up along
the way. What prevents this from being an interpretative ‘free for all’ is the
underlying structure of the map we are working with – which is largely given
by virtue of MDS technique.1 We have considerable room for manoeuvre when
we slice the map up, but we are always restrained by the relative positioning of
the variables (and our understanding of the technique that has produced it). We
cannot pretend that two variables are close if they are not.
Aims, Method and Data

I begin the main body of the article by outlining the concept of RBTs, discussing
certain thorny issues that attach to it, such as the problem posed by the idea of
purpose, and elaborating its relationship to human selfhood. Having established
the concept in this way, I then reflect upon the distribution of RBTs within the
population, returning to the radex concept outlined above, showing how it
relates to reflexive body techniques and positing a preliminary account for
explaining the social distribution of RBTs. Before doing any of this, however, it
is necessary to spell out the four primary aims of the article in a little more
detail.

First, I aim to advance our substantive understanding of practices of body

modification/maintenance by formulating an approach, centred upon RBTs and
their distribution, which allows us to deal with a broad range of practices, in a
non-dualistic way, without subsuming them into an over-general theoretical
account. Second, following Williams and Bendelow’s criticism that ‘Discourses
on . . . the “reflexive” body continue to be pitched, for the most part, at the level
of broad claims and sweeping generalisations with little concern for empirical
detail’ (1998: 104), I aim to demonstrate a way in which the analysis of body
modification/maintenance can be made more empirical. Moreover, it is my
contention that the framework I posit, centred upon RBTs, lends itself equally
to qualitative and quantitative forms of investigation. Indeed it demands both.
The present article leans in the quantitative direction, but it flags up qualitative
issues and I have researched RBTs in a more ethnographic and phenomenological
way elsewhere (Crossley, 2004a). Third, I aim to advance both my own earlier
attempts to build upon Mauss’s (1979) concept of ‘body techniques’, a concept
which I believe to be crucial for the sociology of the body (see also Crossley,
1995, 2004a, 2004c) and my own earlier theorization of reflexive embodiment
(Crossley, 2001). Finally, I aim by way of a discussion of statistical methods that
have been little used in sociology, to explore a potential methodological inno-
vation for the study of the body, and particularly for the analysis of body tech-
niques.
To allow me to demonstrate this more fully I have conducted a small ques-
tionnaire survey (n = 304), focused upon the distribution and diffusion of a
number of RBTs and ‘ensembles’ (defined below). The questions used in the
survey were drawn from a consultation and piloting exercise, and also a media
search. These preliminary investigations allowed me to build a rough picture of
the current societal repertoire of RBTs and their ensembles. In the questionnaire
itself respondents were asked to indicate whether they had engaged in any of
these techniques within a given time-frame, which varied according to the
practice. In some cases further elaboration was asked for (e.g. What sort of
exercise? How many hours? How many tattoos? Where on your body?). A
number of questions concerning consultation of body-related2 web-sites, maga-
zines and magazine/newspaper articles – all potential sources of information on
RBTs – were also included. Finally, I included a few basic demographic ques-
tions.
Sampling for the survey was opportunistic and snowballed. I approached
friends, family, colleagues and students, asking them both to fill in the question-
naire and to distribute it within their own personal networks. The resulting
sample was relatively balanced with respect to gender – though with slightly

more females3 – and involved representation from a variety of age,4 social class,5
ethnic6 and religious7 groups. I make no claim with respect to representativeness,
however. The sample was convenient and sufficient for my present, preliminary
investigations, but it is far from perfect. Nor do I suggest that the survey results
are particularly startling. I found what I expected to find. The point of the survey,
however, was to allow me to check that my assumptions were borne out amongst
a population whom I have no reason to believe are unusual,8 to consider how we
might move from assumptions to empirically verifiable models, and also to
explore the above-mentioned methodological innovations.
With this said, we can turn to the main arguments of the article. I begin with
a discussion of Mauss’s formulation of ‘body techniques’. My claim, to reiterate,
is that we can conceptualize and analyse practices of body modification/main-
tenance as particular types of body technique, namely reflexive body techniques,
and that there are advantages to doing so.
Body Techniques
Mauss (1979) arrived at the concept of body techniques after having observed
both that certain embodied practices (e.g. spitting, hunting techniques and eating
with a knife and fork) are specific to particular societies, and that others vary
considerably in style across societies and social groups. Women walk differently
to men, the bourgeoisie talk differently to the proletariat, the French military
march and dig differently to British troops and so on. Building on these obser-
vations, he defines body techniques as ‘ways in which from society to society
men [sic] know how to use their bodies’ (1979: 97). This definition is potentially
problematic as it can seem to suggest, in the fashion warned against above, that
‘men’ and ‘their bodies’ are different things. Given the way in which Mauss
pursues his point, however, it is reasonable to assume that this is not his inten-
tion. Indeed, the concept is used to effect a sophisticated, albeit often tacit inno-
vation in non-dualistic sociology. Mauss’s description of body techniques as
‘habitus’ is an important point of entry for grasping this innovation. ‘Habitus’,
he explains, is a Latin rendering of the Greek ‘hexis’ (or ‘exis’), a concept which
is central to Aristotle’s philosophy, wherein it denotes acquired and embodied
dispositions9 which constitute forms of practical reason or wisdom (see Aristotle,
1955). Habitus and thus body techniques have a double edge in this definition.
They are forms of embodied, pre-reflective understanding, knowledge or reason.
And they are social. They emerge and spread within a collective context, as the
result of interaction, such that they can be identified with specific social groups
or networks:

. . . I have had this notion of the social nature of ‘the habitus’ for many years. Please note that
I use the Latin word – it should be understood in France – habitus. The word translates infi-
nitely better than ‘habitude’ (habit or custom), the ‘exis’, the ‘acquired ability’ and ‘faculty’ of
Aristotle (who was a psychologist). It does not designate those metaphysical habitudes, that
mysterious ‘memory’, the subject of volumes or short and famous theses. These ‘habits’ do not
vary just with individuals and their imitations; they vary between societies, educations, propri-
eties and fashions, prestiges. In them we should see the techniques and work of collective and
individual practical reason rather than, in the ordinary way, merely the soul and its repetitive
faculties. (Mauss, 1979: 101)
I will return to the question of how body techniques distinguish and differenti-
ate social groups later. Here I am interested in the manner in which the concept
simultaneously holds together social, corporeal and cognitive elements. In doing
this ‘body techniques’ rejoins the Durkheimian tradition it derives from in two
respects. First, it rejoins the concept of ‘social facts’, integrating it with a
consideration of biological and psychological facts (see also Lévi-Strauss, 1987).
Body techniques are social facts. They vary across societies and social groups.
They pre-exist and will outlive the specific individuals who practise them at any
point in time. Mauss even seeks to show – albeit somewhat problematically
(Crossley, 1995, 2004a) – how they ‘constrain’ agents. At the same time, however,
they presuppose biological structures and embody knowledge, reason and
psychological properties. Styles of walking vary across social groups, for
example, indicating a social basis, but all of these different styles presuppose
bipedalism, not to mention the plasticity and intelligence that allow the organism
to develop and learn different ways of walking. They thus have biological
preconditions. Furthermore, styles of walking embody understanding and
knowledge. Switching to ‘tiptoes’ when silence is required, for example, indicates
a grasp of the conditions most conducive to minimizing noise, while walking a
tightrope, and indeed walking per se, requires a practical grasp of principles of
balance, force, etc. When we adjust our posture to steady ourselves we engage in
practical physics. Finally, certain styles of walking, such as a proud march or
arrogant strut, embody an emotional intention (in the phenomenological sense
of ‘intention’) and may even be employed as a means of generating such an inten-
tion (see Crossley, 2004c). As both Sartre (1993) and Merleau-Ponty (1962) note,
we can generate emotional intentions, putting ourselves into particular moods,
by acting out the mood; that is, by performing the body techniques (partly)
constitutive of it. This is a key function of body techniques within certain rituals
(Crossley, 2004c). Thus, body techniques have a psychological dimension too.
Second, ‘body techniques’ extends the Durkheimian notion of collective
representations, a notion that Mauss himself developed with Durkheim
(Durkheim and Mauss, 1963). It identifies collective forms of wisdom and

reasoning which are pre-representational in form; that is, forms of pre-reflective

knowledge (know-how) and understanding that consist entirely in a capacity to
do certain sorts of things. The movements of the body, for Mauss, are not, as they
were for the behaviourists and other writers of his time, mere movements. They
are practical and embodied forms of knowledge and understanding. Importantly,
this does not mean that movement is guided by knowledge but rather that certain
forms of knowledge and understanding are inseparable from and consist entirely
in particular forms of acquired, embodied competence. By the same token this
means that certain forms of knowledge and understanding are inseparable from
the capacity to do certain sorts of things, irrespective of whether representations
or propositions are involved. Body techniques are ‘collective pre-representations’
– though, as we will see shortly, not everyone in the collective has equal access
to them.
The ‘mindful’ aspect of body techniques is not very well developed in Mauss’s
work and its lack of development is one among a number of problems. We need
to engage more seriously with the embodied subjectivity and agency he hints at,
drawing upon the work of other writers who have developed this theme
(Crossley, 2001; Merleau-Ponty, 1962, 1965; Ryle, 1945; Sartre, 1969, 1972).
Furthermore, we need to recognize more flexibility and room for imagination
and improvisation in bodily action than he does (Crossley, 1995, 2004a). Finally,
we need to do more to grasp the link between body techniques and the inter-
corporeal contexts in which they are practised. The sociality of body techniques,
for Mauss, consists in their group specificity, but we must recognize also a form
of sociality that consists in the way in which their performance is shaped to meet
the interactive exigencies of specific situations (Crossley, 1995, 2004a). None of
this detracts from the importance of Mauss’s innovation, however. His concept
of ‘body techniques’ gives us a way of thinking sociologically about bodily
activities, a way that prioritizes the social dimension while simultaneously
building links to biology and psychology. This is a gain for theory, but it equally
grows out of and facilitates solid empirical analysis, thereby providing much-
needed means to fill a gap within the sociology of the body.
Reflexive Body Techniques (RBTs)

Much of Mauss’s essay is devoted to an attempt to catalogue different body tech-
niques according to their purposes and attributes. My concept of reflexive body
techniques extends this effort. RBTs, as I define them, are those body techniques
whose primary purpose is to work back upon the body, so as to modify, maintain
or thematize it in some way. This might involve two embodied agents.

Hairdressing, massage, dental work and cosmetic surgery, for example, usually
entail that one ‘body’ is worked upon, physically, by another or by a team of
embodied agents. It might even be extended to include such distanciated and
mediated interactions as those that connect the manufacturers of pharmaceuticals
to those who distribute and use them. Pill-popping is a socially complex, dis-
tanciated and mediated RBT. Equally, it can entail a single ‘body’ acting upon
itself. This might involve one part of the body being used to modify/maintain
another part; for example, when I use my hand to brush my hair or clean my
teeth. It might, however, entail a total immersion of the body into a stream of
activity whose purpose is to modify or maintain that body as a whole. When I
jog, for example, I launch my whole body into action, in an effort to increase my
fitness, burn off fat/calories, tone up my lower body, etc.
Each society or social group has a repertoire of RBTs. This repertoire is one
element in the broader set of collective pre-representations of that society. And
a portion of our daily routine is taken up performing techniques from this reper-
toire. We wash, clean our teeth, brush our hair, dress ourselves, perhaps shave
and/or apply cosmetics. Other techniques from the repertoire are built into
weekly or monthly routines. We exercise, shave parts of our body, have our hair
cut, cut our finger nails, dress up for a night out, etc. And beyond our routines,
we periodically venture ‘one-off’ modifications, such as a piercing, tattoos or
cosmetic surgery, all of which involve bodily manipulation of the body; that is,
RBTs. RBTs are techniques of the body, performed by the body and involving a
form of knowledge and understanding that consists entirely in embodied
competence, below the threshold of language and consciousness; but they are
equally techniques for the body, techniques that modify and maintain the body
in particular ways.
It might seem peculiar to regard the more mundane of these techniques as
acquired aspects of a culture. As Mauss’s work shows, however, they do vary
across societies. And, as Goffman has argued, they only seem mundane to those
of us who have achieved sufficient temporal distance from the process of learning
them to have forgotten that we did have to learn them, sometimes with difficulty:
To walk, to cross a road, to utter a complete sentence, to wear long pants, to tie one’s shoes,
to add a column of figures – all these routines that allow the individual unthinking, competent
performance were attained through an acquisition process whose early stages were negotiated
in cold sweat. (Goffman, 1972: 293)
For practical purposes it also makes sense to refer to ‘ensembles’ of RBTs; that
is, sets of techniques which are practised together for a common purpose. ‘Exer-
cising’, ‘getting dressed’ and ‘putting on make-up’ are each examples of this. Each
refers not to a single body technique but to a set (an ensemble) of techniques. It

may be necessary, for purposes of certain types of research, to break these en-
sembles down into their constituent techniques. If we were studying health and
fitness, for example, we might want to break ‘exercising’ down into finer
categories such as gym work and swimming, or even ‘2 12 reps bench press’
and ‘20 lengths front crawl’. We may even need to tease out the peculiarities of
the way in which the technique is performed: e.g. bench press with arms parallel
and feet touching the ground. It is not always necessary to chase the description
down to this level, however. Identification of the basic ensemble may be
sufficient. My above-mentioned survey includes a mix of specific body tech-
niques and ensembles but for economy of expression I will use ‘RBT’ to refer to
both.
It is my contention that practices of body modification/maintenance are best
understood in terms of RBTs. I have three reasons for this. First, the concept of
RBTs entails that ‘bodies’ are maintained and modified by way of bodily effort
and embodied competence. We thus both avoid dualism and thematize reflex-
ivity. Second, the concept encourages us to identify the ‘mindful’ and social
aspects of embodied activity (e.g. know-how and understanding), not subordi-
nating those aspects to the symbolic meaning bestowed by representations,
discourse, consciousness, etc., and not reducing embodied activity to mere
mechanical behaviour. Third, the concept is sufficiently concrete to facilitate
empirical analysis and sufficiently rich for that to include both ethnographi-
cal/phenomenological investigation of the doing of RBTs, their lived dimension
(see Crossley, 2004a; Wacquant, 2004), and also more quantitative explorations
of them. As forms of practical understanding, RBTs need to be understood quali-
tatively, in a phenomenological manner. And they are also thematized within
projects and narratives which call for qualitative investigation. But qua social
techniques they are diffused and distributed through society. They can be
observed, categorized, enumerated and tested for statistical association both with
one another and with other social phenomena. They thus call for and admit
quantitative analysis also.
Before we can push ahead with this concept, however, we need to reflect upon
the role of ‘purpose’ in relation to RBTs. I have said that RBTs are body tech-
niques whose primary purpose is to act back upon the body so as to modify or
maintain it. At its most basic this entails that RBTs are generic body techniques
which an agent annexes, in a specific context, for the explicit purpose of (perhaps
amongst other things) modifying their body in a particular way: for example, in
an effort to lose weight they elect to take a walk once a week. In many cases,
however, reflexive purposes have generated either dedicated techniques or dedi-
cated variations upon generic techniques. ‘Jogging’, for example, is a form of

running adapted to serve the purpose of exercise. In contrast to a mad dash for
the bus, a jog entails that I pace myself (a temporal modification), adjust my
breathing and ‘settle into’ a comfortable and efficient posture and stride. Jogging
embodies a particular temporal projection (I will run for this long). It is oblivi-
ous to the urgency that animates the person running after the bus. And in these
respects it embodies the purpose of running for the benefit of running. When I
jog I relate to my environment in a different way. Perhaps I lengthen my step,
utilizing my body differently in order to utilize the ground differently; simul-
taneously utilizing the ground differently in order to utilize my body differently,
pushing it towards the ‘burn’ that I am seeking. Street-lights and other random
objects become stage markers, triggering alterations in pace and direction, for a
journey whose only goal is transformation of the ‘vehicle’ itself and whose
success is measured against this goal. In this way, both agent and environment
are instituted10 in a specific ‘jogging-like’ manner by way of a dedicated RBT.
Moreover, in contrast to the person running after the bus, whose fear of missing
the bus and looking silly often leads them to ‘disguise’ their sprint as much as
possible, I commit myself publicly to my jog. My action is accountable. I
embody a social type or role, ‘the jogger’. And I am able to do this because
jogging is not my private invention but rather a socially emergent and publicly
known technique that belongs to my society’s repertoire. I have selected and
learned from this repertoire and for this reason everybody knows what I am
doing when I stagger past them.
Purpose also enters into the analysis of reflexive body techniques in the
respect that the body can be modified for different reasons. One might modify
one’s body for reasons of health, beauty, sporting success, etc. Again, this might
involve significant permutations of an apparently singular technique. Body-
builders, powerlifters and individuals who want to ‘tone up’ and ‘trim down’
might each use dumbbells and barbells, for example, and might even do the same
exercises (bench press, squat, etc.). However, the way in which they do those
exercises will vary. The ‘toner’ will tend to do a high number of repetitions with
weights they can quite easily lift because this is good for toning; the powerlifter
will do relatively few reps with a weight that is very heavy for them because this
increases strength; the bodybuilder, who is concerned to increase muscle bulk but
also muscular definition and ‘rips’, will use a combination of the two. Further-
more, both of the latter two will tend to work out for much longer in any weekly
cycle. We need to be mindful of these differences when studying RBTs.

Body Techniques and Selfhood

Reflexive body techniques play a central role in the construction of a reflexive
sense of self; that is, in the process whereby the agent turns back upon their self,
effecting a split between what Mead (1967) calls ‘I’ and ‘me’. Whenever we dress
ourselves, wash ourselves, exercise, etc., we effect this split. We act towards
ourselves in such a way that we become objects for ourselves. Qua active agent
(‘I’) we act upon ourselves as a passive object (‘me’). The rhythm by which we
vacillate between I and me in these activities will vary according to the body tech-
nique in question. An agent on a long run might lose their self in their run for
long periods, immersed in the pre-reflectiveness of the ‘I’ and never appearing
before their self as ‘me’ until they finish. An agent who is cleaning their teeth, by
contrast, might be rocking constantly between the positions of the brushing ‘I’
and the brushed ‘me’. In all cases, however, as both Mead and Merleau-Ponty
(1962) emphasize, I and me remain distinct. If I touch my own hand, to use
Merleau-Ponty’s (1962) example, I always reach a point at which the experience
shifts from that of touching to that of being touched. The two experiences never
coincide and, as such, I never coincide with myself. I am always split (Crossley,
1996, 2001). So it is with all reflexive body techniques. I and me vacillate and
interact but never coincide. Even as I look in the mirror – the use of the mirror
itself being an RBT11 – the lived I who perceives and the perceived ‘me’ remain
separated. ‘I’ see ‘my body’ (me) but that external image does not coincide with
the lived experience that confronts it. As Merleau-Ponty puts it:
At the same time that the image of oneself makes possible the knowledge of oneself, it makes
possible a sort of alienation. I am no longer what I felt myself, immediately to be; I am that
image of myself that is offered by the mirror. . . . I leave the reality of the lived me in order to
refer myself constantly to the ideal, fictitious or imaginary me, of which the specular image is
the first outline. In this sense I am torn from myself . . . (Merleau-Ponty, 1968: 136)
As the mirror demonstrates, however, this is a separation that is integral to a

developed sense of ‘self’ and, indeed, of self-as-embodied. The mirror, to use
Merleau-Ponty’s expression, tears us away from ourselves but thereby gives us
the distance from ourselves that allows us to see, perceive and form a perspective
upon ourselves. The same holds for other RBTs. They turn us back upon
ourselves, thematize our bodily aspect within our own embodied intentionality
and thereby put us into a relationship with an objectified image of our self.
Learning reflexive body techniques is, in this respect, part of the process
through which our specific sense of self is developed. By means of these tech-
niques we learn to constitute ourselves for ourselves, practically. Learning to
attend to ourselves is learning to posit ourselves for ourselves. It constitutes a

specific experience of self. We learn to play the role of another in relationship to

ourselves, much as Mead (1967) says of play and games in infancy. Indeed, in
many cases where we tend to ourselves in these ways we are precisely taking over
the role of another, a parent or guardian, who once tended and cared for us in
these ways. We do to ourselves what they have done for us at an earlier time and
have taught us to do, applying their standards and techniques to ourselves.
Having said that RBTs facilitate the differentiation of I and me, effectively
thereby constituting the self process, it is important to add that they may be
selected in accordance with agents’ projects of self-development. Specific types
of ‘self’ presuppose particular reflexive body techniques for their ‘practice’. Even
in these cases, however, the effect of practising the technique may be to heighten
the I–me distinction and shape the perception of the me in particular ways, such
that RBTs are more than mere instrumental props. Techniques of weight training
are deployed by the bodybuilder in pursuit of muscular gain, for example, but at
the same time these techniques orient the agent towards their body in particular
ways. They embody a particular attitude towards the body, that of the ‘body
sculptor’, which the bodybuilder appropriates as they appropriate these tech-
niques within their habitus. They heighten body and muscular awareness.
Furthermore, RBTs can have a ritual function, serving to symbolically and ‘magi-
cally’ mark the transition of the self from one situation to another (Crossley,
2004c). As rituals, body techniques have the power to transform imaginative and
affective structures of intentionality (in the phenomenological sense), thereby
situating those who practise them differently. We capture this notion colloquially
when we refer to the Friday-night rituals through which people prepare them-
selves for a night out (washing, making up, applying aftershaves and deodorants,
dressing and doing their hair). Performing these techniques, in the manner of a
ritual, is part and parcel of the way in which agents put themselves ‘in the mood’
for a night out, effecting an existential (affective, imaginative, cognitive) tran-
sition from their mundane, workday mode to their ‘soirée’ self. Similarly,
Sweetman’s (1999) work on tattooing and piercing suggests that these rituals
mark a symbolic transition for those who undergo them, allowing these agents
to effect transformations of their self.
Change, transformation and trajectory are important here; but so too are
conservation and repetition. Many of the above-mentioned techniques are
oriented towards preserving and maintaining a particular aspect of self. Further-
more, they form part of a routine. They are repeated on a daily, weekly, monthly
and/or yearly basis. Certain technical interventions, such as a tattoo or cosmetic
surgery, might serve to mark a new chapter in a life narrative, but others, by
virtue of their repetition, function to structure time in a more familiar and

safe-because-same manner. They invest the flow of lived time with meaning by
punctuating it, but this meaning centres upon continuity and sameness rather
than transition. It is integral to grasp this balance of reproduction and trans-
formation in our understanding and analysis of RBTs, and indeed also the
different temporal configuration that specific techniques can assume. RBTs have
a spatio-temporality that is central to their meaning. This is reflected in the
linguistic duality of ‘body maintenance’ and ‘body modification’, which I have
employed hitherto in this paper. The former denotes techniques used repetitively,
for reproductive purposes, the latter denotes techniques used to effect a specific
transformation.
Why agents engage in this body work is a key question in sociology, about
which most of the major perspectives in the area have something to say (see
Bartky, 1993; Baudrillard, 1999; Bordo, 1993; Bourdieu, 1977, 1984; Foucault,
1980; Giddens, 1991; Shilling, 1993). I do not have the space to address this
question fully here. However, it is my contention that we must approach it in a
way that recognizes the great diversity of RBTs in the societal repertoire and the
very different social logics that can attach to their appropriation. ‘One size fits all’
explanations, such as we get from most of the above-mentioned theorists, are
deeply problematic because they fail to recognize this diversity. In what follows
I will explore this issue of diversity and social logics in more detail in an effort to
lay the basis for a more sophisticated approach to body work, centred upon RBTs.
Group and Technique

One of Mauss’s key contentions with respect to body techniques concerns their
group specificity. This specificity is such that some techniques serve to mark out
group boundaries. Indeed, where they are specifically reflexive techniques they
can serve to cultivate bodily markers of collective identity. Durkheim’s (1915)
famous analysis of aboriginal totemic clans, for example, places great emphasis
upon the role of techniques of body marking in the construction of collective,
clan identities:
They do not put their coat-of-arms merely upon things which they possess, but they put it
upon their person; they imprint it upon their flesh; it becomes part of them . . . it is more
frequently upon the body itself that the totemic mark is stamped . . . (Durkheim, 1915: 137)
The best way of proving to oneself and to others that one is a member of a certain group is to
place a distinctive mark on the body. (Durkheim, 1915: 265)
Likewise, Bourdieu’s (1977, 1984) focus upon distinction and Elias’s (1984) upon
the civilizing process both draw out forms of bodily practices, specific to social

groups, which alter bodily appearance and thereby distinguish and mark out
those groups visually. Furthermore, as Durkheim also emphasized, techniques of
body modification are sometimes employed to mark out categorical distinctions
within a group, for example between males and females or adults and children.
Contemporary western societies differ considerably from the totemic clans
studied by Durkheim. Interestingly, however, my above-mentioned survey
revealed gender to be a key factor affecting appropriation of reflexive body tech-
niques. The survey found statistically significant and often very large differences
for gender in relation to 21 (out of 40) RBTs and 6 (out of 19) forms of
consultation (see Table 1). In particular, practices such as the shaving of armpits
and legs, the painting of toenails and fingernails, manicure and the use of cosmet-
ics (other than soap and shampoo) were sharply gender differentiated.
This finding bears out the claim of those who argue (i) that gender remains an
extremely strong locus of social division in contemporary societies, (ii) that the
body is a key site where this division is constructed and played out and (iii) that
gender identity is something which is ‘done’ or ‘practised’ (e.g. Bartky, 1993;
Connell, 1987). In addition, the arguments of these writers provide a strong and
important lead for the analysis of RBTs, which I will return to later on. Import-
antly, however, the concept of RBTs, as both a theoretical and an empirical
notion, allows us to further elaborate upon and explore these ideas about gender;
to go beyond general theoretical claims about transformations of the body
associated with, for example, ‘emphasised femininity’ (Connell, 1987) by speci-
fying just what transformations are effected, by what means and by what types
and proportions of women (relative to men). Furthermore, as I discuss in more
detail below, we can begin to explore the patterns of clustering of these various
techniques and, by means of this, differentiate varieties within emphasized femi-
ninity.
The low numbers of men practising certain techniques is as interesting as the
high number of women in this respect. Shaved armpits are as much an affront to
‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell, 1987), punishable amongst men, at least in the
absence of extenuating circumstances, as they are an expected standard of
‘emphasised femininity’. And a monitoring of the appropriation of these tech-
niques among men allows us to gauge changes in masculinity. We can speculate
upon all of this without recourse to the concept of RBTs, of course, but the latter
provides an important and workable means for empirically operationalizing such
speculation and recording change. Shifting rates of uptake for particular RBTs
among men and women respectively, allow us to track shifts in dominant models
of masculinity/femininity – although, of course, the meaning of changes is never
self-evident and must be deduced.

Table 1 Gendered Reflexive Body Techniques
Female (%) Male (%) p=
Reflexive Body Techniques

Big differences (with female predominance)
Shaved leg hair in last 4 weeks 83.2 5 .000
Used cosmetics in last 7 days 84.8 9.2 .000
Shaved armpit hair in last 4 weeks 85.3 11.7 .000
Worn earrings in last 7 days 71.2 7.5 .000
Worn a necklace in last 7 days 74.9 30 .000
Combed hair in last 7 days 95.7 59.2 .000
Worn a ring in last 7 days 81.5 42.5 .000
Had or done a manicure in last 4 weeks 53.6 10 .000
Painted toenails in last 4 weeks 48.9 0.8 .000
Painted (hand) nails in last 4 weeks 44.6 0 .000
Worn a bracelet in last 7 days 56 20 .000
Small but statistically significant differences (with female predominance)

Used anti-perspirant/deodorant in last 7 days 98.4 89.2 .000
Used aftershave/perfume in last 7 days 85.9 71.7 .002
Dieted for weight loss over last 7 days 8.2 1.7 .001
Body piercings other than ears 14.1 4.2 .005
Flossed in last 4 weeks 48.9 30.8 .002
Sunbathed in last 12 months 58.2 43.3 .001
Dyed or coloured hair in last 4 weeks 32.1 5.8 .000
Used ‘Quick Tan’ lotion in last 12 months 29.3 8.3 .000
Male predominance (small but statistically significant differences)

Used bodybuilding supplements in last 6 months 0 3.3 .013
Has 3 or more tattoos 0 2.5 .031
Consultation Practices
Read magazine/newspaper article on beauty tips 57.1 3.4 .000
Read magazine/newspaper article on health tips 50 10.8 .000
Read magazine/newspaper article on skin care tips 48.4 2.6 .000
Read magazine/newspaper article on exercise tips 36.1 16 .000
Read any of the above 69.6 24.2 .000
Read a health-dedicated magazine 21.7 5.8 .034
Consulted a beauty-dedicated website 3.8 0 .032
One might expect to find similar sharp distinctions in relation to the practices
of certain religious groups and perhaps subcultures of various kinds. I found no
statistically significant differences pertaining to class, however. And although
contemporary ethnographic studies of specific working-class communities have

identified aspects of a distinctly working-class body consciousness

(Charlesworth, 2000; Skeggs, 1997), the available sources of secondary statistical
data in this area suggest that differences in uptake of RBTs are relatively small.
The General Household Survey for 1990, for example, suggests that the middle
classes are slightly more likely to engage in a range of forms of exercise (reported
in Social Trends, ONS, 1993). The differences are only slight in most cases,
however, and each of the main forms of exercise is a minority pursuit in relation
to every class, such that linking these forms of exercise to specific class identities
is highly problematic. Clearly this is an area that calls for further research;
research that is sensitive to the details picked up in the more qualitative forms of
inquiry. It may be that we need to specify RBTs very precisely, in terms of
nuances and purposes, to hook into significant class differences. In this article,
however, I want to push the idea of a social distribution of RBTs in a different
direction, and to identify further principles of differentiation governing their
appropriation. However one defines a group, I suggest, whether one focuses
upon national societies, gender and class groupings or highly specific subcultures,
there is always an internal differentiation and distribution of RBTs, with its own
distinct socio-logic.
In what follows I will map this out in more detail, focusing upon the group
constituted by my questionnaire survey. For the purposes of my particular survey
it was necessary to make certain assumptions about the purposes of particular
RBTs, bracketing out further qualitative exploration of those purposes. I opted to
sacrifice depth for the pursuit of breadth in circumstances where the pursuit of
both was not possible. I hope it will be apparent, however, that this both yields
findings not attainable by more qualitative means, and that it raises questions
which, although perhaps best answered by more qualitative approaches, would
not be raised in the first place by means of those methods. What follows is one
half of a story but is no less valuable than the other half.
Mapping Techniques
Consider, first, the frequency distribution for the techniques surveyed by my
questionnaire, as given in Figures 2 and 3. The range of this distribution stretches
from 100 percent, for having washed one’s hands at least once in the last seven
days, through to 0.3 percent, for having had a septum or tongue piercing, or
having ever used anabolic steroids for purposes of building one’s muscles. This
is a continuum and any attempt to demarcate definite lines of division along it
would inevitably be arbitrary. Moreover, we already know that certain of the
practices are heavily gendered, such that some scores represent a mean of high

No. Technique %
1 Washed hands in last 7 days 100

2 Bath/shower in last 7 days 99.7
3 Brushed teeth in last 7 days 99.3
4 Washed face in last 7 days 98.7 Core
5 Washed hair in last 7 days 97.4 Zone
6 Used anti-perspirant/deodorant in last 7 days 94.7
7 Combed hair in last 7 days 81.3
8 Used aftershave perfume in last 7 days 80.3
9 Worn ring in last 7 days 66.1
10 Worn necklace in last 7 days 56.9
11 Shaved armpit hair in last 4 weeks 56.3
12 Used cosmetics in last 7 days 54.9
13 Sunbathed in last 12 months 52.3
14 Shaved leg hair in last 4 weeks 52.3
15 Used any food supplement in last 6 months 48.4
16 Used a breath/mouth freshener in last 4 weeks 46.4
17 Worn an earring in last 7 days 46.1
18 Flossed in the last 4 weeks 41.8
19 Worn a bracelet in the last 7 days 41.8 Intermediate
20 Eaten ‘carefully’ for weight-loss reasons in last 7 days 41.1 Zone
21 Used vitamin supplements in last 6 months 37.5
22 Had or done a manicure in last 4 weeks 36.2
23 Painted toenails in last 4 weeks 29.9
24 Done between 1 and 4 hrs exercise in last 7 days 28.3
25 Painted fingernails in last 4 weeks 27
26 Used a sunbed in last 12 months 25.3
27 Dyed or coloured hair in last 4 weeks 21.7
28 Used ‘Quick Tan’ lotion in last 12 months 21.1
29 Done between 5 and 9 hrs exercise in last 7 days 15.1
30 Ever had cosmetic dental surgery 8.6
31 Got between 1 and 3 tattoos 6.9
32 Had bellybutton pierced 6.7
33 Done 10 hrs exercise or more in last 7 days 6.6
34 Dieted for weight-loss purposes in last 7 days 5.9
35 Had nostril pierced 2.3
36 Had eyebrow pierced 2.3
37 Had cosmetic surgery 1.6 Marginal
38 Got 3 or more tattoos 1 Zone
39 Had genital and/or nipple piercings 1
40 Had a septum piercing 0.3
41 Had a tongue piercing 0.3
42 Ever used steroids for bodybuilding purposes 0.3
Figure 2 Frequency Distribution of Reflexive Body Techniques

Core Intermediate Marginal

Zone Zone Zone
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42
Figure 3 Distribution of Reflexive Body Techniques (percentages)

(bar numbers correspond to RBTs named and numbered in Figure 2)
female and low male scores. I return to this latter point shortly. First, however,
I want to suggest that, although any exact cut-off points would be arbitrary, we
can divide this continuum into three overlapping zones. At one end of the
continuum we have a core zone consisting of RBTs that are statistically normal;
that is to say, which most people (e.g. 90 percent+) practise within a specifiable
time-frame. At the other end of the continuum we have a marginal zone consist-
ing of RBTs that are statistically deviant; that is, which most people (e.g. 95
percent+) do not and never have practised. Between these two zones we have
what we might think of as an intermediate zone, a broad continuum of RBTs
with rates of uptake that vary in the general population but which are neither so
high as to be normal and thus ‘core’, nor so low as to be statistically deviant and
thus ‘marginal’.
In what follows I will be using this concept of ‘zones’ to develop a differen-
tiated account of body work in late modern societies. The appropriation of RBTs
in these different zones requires different explanations, I will suggest. First,
however, I want to push the idea one step further by unpacking the idea of a
continuum. While useful as a point of departure, the image of the continuum is
problematic on account of its linearity. We know, for example, that some body
techniques are strongly gendered, such that they might qualify as ‘core’ for
women, while they are ‘marginal’ for men. Likewise, we can at least speculate
that other techniques in the intermediate and marginal zones will be further
differentiated from one another. Marginal techniques might belong to different

and competing subcultures, for example, such that placing them side by side in a
common ‘marginal’ category paints a misleadingly homogeneous picture. To do
justice to this we can attempt a two-, rather than a one-dimensional mapping of
RBTs, using multi-dimensional scaling (see Figure 4).
As with all forms of multivariate statistics, multi-dimensional scaling offers
contrasting methods for mapping data. As such we are forced to select the most
2 diet
cossurg
manicure
careful eat quick tan
dyehair
floss
bellybutton
paint f nails sunbed
1 paint tcosmetics
nails vitamin supp
leghair
pithair
braceletnecklace food supplement
steroid
bodybuilding supplem
0 breathfreshner 5-9hrs exercise
earring comb
wash sunbathe
after/perfume
wash face
bath/shower
brush
wash
anti/deo
hair
hands
hair
teeth
1-4 hrs exercise ring
–1
1-3 tattoos
eyebrow
tongue
>3 tattoos
–2 other pierce
–3
–2 –1 0 1 2 3
Figure 4 A Radex Model

Key
Reflexive techniques located in the inner circle of the radex. In the last 7 days: washed hair,
used deodorant or antiperspirant, used perfume or aftershave, had a bath or shower, washed
hands, washed face, brushed teeth.
Reflexive body techniques located outside of the inner circle but within the wider oval. In
the last 7 days: worn a ring, worn a necklace, used cosmetics, worn an earring, worn a bracelet,
eaten carefully for purposes of weight management, done between 1 and 4 hrs exercise. In last 4
weeks: shaved armpit hair, shaved leg hair, used a breath/mouth freshener, flossed, had or done
a manicure, painted toenails, painted fingernails, dyed or coloured hair. In last 6 months: used
any food supplement, used any vitamin supplement. In last 12 months: sunbathed, used a sunbed,
used quick tan lotion. Had bellybutton pierced.
Reflexive body techniques located outside of the oval: got 1, 2 or 3 tattoos, got more than 3
tattoos, got an eyebrow piercing, got a tongue piercing, got another more ‘exotic’ piercing, done
between 5 and 9 hrs exercise in the last week, used a bodybuilding supplement in the last 6
months, used steroids for bodybuilding purposes in the last 6 months, ever had cosmetic surgery,
currently on a diet.

appropriate mapping of variables from among a number of possibilities.12

Furthermore, outlying variables can skew maps inappropriately and sometimes
have to be removed from the analysis. Nevertheless, with these points conceded,
it is possible, as Figure 4 demonstrates, to map RBTs in the form of a ‘radex’ (as
described earlier). Concentric circles demarcate frequency zones (from high to
low as we move outwards from the centre), while segments demarcate seemingly
meaningful and coherent clusters of practices. Our core zone is represented on
this map by a tiny circle near its centre, containing a tight cluster of those RBTs
which are nearly universally practised amongst the population surveyed. The
techniques mapped here are so close in space that their labels overlap and are
impossible to read (they are listed in the key to the map along with a fuller expla-
nation of all labels). These core RBTs are less important for present purposes,
however, than those orbiting them. The broader oval drawn around the inner
circle is the boundary between the intermediate zone and the marginal zone.
Those RBTs on the inside of the oval are intermediate, those on the outside are
marginal. Most of the labels in these zones are easier to read but there is a slightly
obscured cluster to the upper left of the central core, to the right of ‘bracelet’ (i.e.
worn a bracelet in the last seven days), which contains ‘shaved leg hair’ and
‘shaved armpits’ (in previous four weeks), and overlaps slightly with ‘necklace’
(i.e. worn necklace in previous seven days).
This arrangement of concentric circles only tells us what the graph in Figure
3 tells us. The two-dimensional nature of the plot allows us to differentiate
further among our RBTs, however. Specifically, we find that, as we move
outwards from the central core, less frequently practised techniques begin to
separate out from and cluster with one another in patterns which can be inter-
preted in broadly thematic terms. I have marked these clusters by way of
segments. Thus, towards the top left of the map we find a cluster specifically
related to the doing of femininity. Certain RBTs at either end of that cluster, such
as exercising 1–4 hours a week, wearing a ring and being careful about what one
eats (for reasons of weight management) are less gender specific but sandwiched
between them we find all of the strongly (feminine) gendered RBTs. Moving
clockwise from that segment we come to a more heterogeneous segment of tech-
niques, which perhaps indicate an elevated level of ‘body consciousness’ relative
to the norm but have little thematic unity apart from that. This segment involves
techniques which serve both exclusively aesthetic (use of sunbed) and exclusively
health-oriented (taking vitamins) ends, as well as techniques which could serve
either/both end(s). It is possible, using MDS, to further differentiate the tech-
niques in this section. Doing so I found that the techniques more closely associ-
ated with appearance tend to separate out from those associated with health, with

the ‘either/and’ techniques falling between, such that we can regard health and
appearance as distinct thematic segments. I do not have the space to explore this
any further here, however.
As we move further round we come to another more distinctive cluster,
comprising 5–9 hours exercise a week, use of bodybuilding supplements and use
of anabolic steroids for bodybuilding purposes. We might be tempted to deem
this a bodybuilding cluster. As with any cluster, however, we can push our
analysis further and differentiate within it. In this case, for purposes of illustrat-
ing MDS technique as much anything else, I have done this. In the first instance
I selected from my sample only those respondents who had done more than five
hours’ exercise in the previous seven days. I then reran the MDS analysis,13
selecting all variables with a direct relationship to bodybuilding: namely, working
out with weights in a gym, reading bodybuilding magazines, visiting bodybuild-
ing web-sites, taking bodybuilding food supplements and taking steroids (for
bodybuilding purposes). The results, displayed in Figure 5(A), suggest a polarity
between gym work and other bodybuilding practices. This indicates, as one
might guess, that working out with weights in a gym is by no means indicative
of ‘bodybuilding’. Many more people ‘work out’ than ‘bodybuild’.
Pushing this further still, I ran the MDS analysis again,14 using the same
respondents and variables, but this time mapping respondents (cases) rather than
the variables. Using MDS in this way allows us to conduct a form of cluster
analysis. We are able to see what sorts of ‘camps’ our respondents fall into when
clustered according to specific variables, and which respondents fall into which
camps.
The results for this analysis are given in Figure 5(B). In all, the 82 respon-
dents who exercised for more than five hours in the seven days prior to filling
in my questionnaire break down into five clear clusters which we can profile
in terms of their relationship to the basic variables we have used in our MDS
analysis (I double-checked this using hierarchical cluster analysis and achieved
the same results).15 Seventy-eight of the respondents fall into one of two
clusters (Cluster B and Cluster C). Cluster C contains all respondents who
exercised for more than five hours but did not work out in the gym or engage
in any bodybuilding-related practice (n = 55). Cluster B contains respondents
who did work out in the gym but didn’t do any other bodybuilding-related
activity (n = 23). Cluster A, to the left, contains two respondents, both of
whom worked out in the gym and used a bodybuilding supplement. Further
left again, in the bottom left corner, we have a single respondent (case 23) who
registered positively for all indicators of bodybuilding, including steroid use.
Finally, towards the bottom right of the plot we have ‘case 52’, a respondent

Figure 5(A) The ‘Bodybuilding’ Segment

(The obscured because overlapping variables at the right of Figure 5(A), are, from left to right,
‘use of a bodybuilding supplement’, ‘use of steroids’ and ‘consultation of bodybuilding websites’
[in identical positions], then ‘readership of a bodybuilding magazine’.)
Cluster B
Cluster A n = 23
n =2
Cluster C
n = 55
Figure 5(B) A Cluster Analysis

who had exercised for over five hours in the previous seven days and had read
a bodybuilding magazine in the previous month, but hadn’t worked out in the
gym and hadn’t done anything else bodybuilding related. In effect then, the
association between five hours+ exercise in a week and the various ‘body-
building’ variables turn out to be more complex than Figure 4 suggests. Most
of the 82 respondents who did a lot of exercise didn’t do it in the gym, with
weights, and the majority of those who did, did not engage in any other
‘bodybuilding’ RBTs. Only three respondents out of the 82 really ‘profile’ like
bodybuilders on the closer inspection that this further analysis affords us. In
addition, ‘case 52’ indicates that a person may do a lot of exercise and read
about bodybuilding but not engage in the central RBT of the bodybuilding
world (i.e. working out in the gym).
Having identified our clusters in this way we could, in a more detailed
analysis, proceed to profile our clusters socially and, if we had the data, perhaps
biographically also. I am not going to push the analysis in this direction,
however. My purpose has simply been to show how we can use MDS to further
extend the analysis of Figure 4. At which point we can return to it.
At the bottom of Figure 4 we have a cluster of tattooing- and piercing-
related variables. These are widely spread, reflecting the fact that the ‘>3
tattoos’ and ‘1–3 tattoos’ variables are coded in a mutually exclusive fashion in
the data set and so could not be positively associated, but their very distinct
location, low on the plot, suggests a genuinely meaningful cluster based around
these less conventional (perhaps primitivist-inspired) modifications. Interest-
ingly, bellybutton piercing, which is also included on the plot, is located at
some distance from this cluster (in the ‘feminine’ segment), suggesting that this
particular type of piercing has a different location within the societal repertoire
of RBTs. It has migrated beyond the bounds of an ‘alternative’ subculture on
the margins into the mainstream (that is, the intermediate zone/feminine
segment).
As my discussion of the ‘heavy exercise’ cluster demonstrates, Figure 4 is just
the beginning of what could be a much more detailed analysis. Each cluster can
be further analysed and mapped. As it stands, however, Figure 4 and my analysis
of it are useful because they allow us to conceive of body modification/mainten-
ance as a structured and differentiated social space. Moreover, they locate
concrete practices in that space in accordance with real frequency distributions
and real statistical associations. As such they invite and facilitate explanations
that will advance our understanding of ‘body work’. In the final section of the
article I offer a preliminary explanatory framework.

Explaining Zones and Segments

Much work in the sociology of the body, as noted earlier, has tended to offer
either very general accounts of body modification/maintenance, treating the
RBTs which fall under this rubric as manifestations of a single phenomenon, or
they have focused very specifically upon particular clusters of practices. The
analysis above allows us to begin to move beyond both of these approaches. It
facilitates an approach which focuses upon the whole range of modifi-
cation/maintenance techniques but differentiates and distinguishes between
them. Or again, which focuses upon the specificity of particular tech-
niques/clusters but seeks, in doing so, to locate them on a broader map. Recon-
figuring the problematic of body modification/maintenance in this way allows us
to consider the different meanings of the techniques in these zones and the
different types of circumstances in which they emerge; their different social
logics. I can only hope to offer a preliminary analysis along these lines in this
article, not least because a full analysis would require much more research.
Nevertheless we can make a fruitful start.
The Core Zone

The core zone constitutes a cluster of practices which are ‘normal’ in both the
statistical sense that most agents practise them and in the sense that they reflect
pervasive social (moral) norms – specifically norms of hygiene in this case. The
techniques belonging to this zone are integral to the construction of a self but
not in the ‘choice’ and narrative-based sense suggested by Giddens (1991). They
are too widely practised to reflect anything distinctive about the self, as Giddens’
conception of distinct narrative trajectories suggests, and their practice is too
much a part of the taken-for-granted texture of the contemporary lifeworld to
appear to agents as a matter of choice. One doesn’t choose to do these techniques
in any meaningful sense. One just does them as matter of course. They are, to
borrow Bourdieu’s (1979, 1989) term, doxic. This was revealed in my survey
through the reactions of respondents to my questions. Several made it clear they
felt it odd that I should ask about such matters as washing one’s face – ‘of course’
they had washed their face in the last seven days! Moreover others jokingly
feigned offence at being asked.
The fact that respondents were able to claim moral injury is important as it
indicates the normative aspect that attaches to these practices and suggests that,
insofar as they play a role in the construction of selfhood, these techniques attach
to a very basic level of selfhood and recognition. Techniques in the core zone
represent a threshold that must be crossed if the agent is to be accepted as a

competent member of their society. Indeed, it is not uncommon for workers in

mental health and other welfare services to take non-performance of these tech-
niques as indications that intervention is necessary because the agent being
scrutinized is unable to ‘care for themselves’. They are deemed ‘incompetent’.
This is another reason why I would say that these techniques are not chosen.
They are enforced and expected. Non-compliance is punished, usually through
the informal sanctions of peers but sometimes through the specialized inter-
ventions of a variety of agents of normalization who collectively comprise the
‘carceral network’ of late modern societies (Foucault, 1979, 1980). The other side
of this is that agents are expected to have a right to perform these RBTs.
Commentators on life in total institutions, for example, often suggest that
restricted access to the equipment required for these techniques and/or loss of
effective control over them is extremely damaging and represents a powerful
assault upon self (Bettelheim, 1986; Goffman, 1961).
The techniques in the core zone are much more likely to be oriented to main-
tenance than modification of the body, at least in the sense that they reproduce
sameness through time. Moreover, their temporal structure is more likely to be
repetitive than transitional. They structure, by punctuating, the lived time of the
agent in a predictable because repetitive pattern. What belongs to this core zone
is historically variable in the longer term, however. A cursory glance at Elias’s
(1984) account of the civilizing process or Nettleton’s (1992) genealogy of
dentistry, for example, indicates that these core practices of contemporary society
have not always been so (see also Gurney, 2000; Mort, 1987). The question of
how these practices emerge and achieve both their extensive diffusion and their
taken-for-grantedness goes beyond the remit of this article. There is no reason to
suppose that there is only one path to the ‘core zone’. And I cannot begin to trace
the many distinct paths that specific RBTs and ensembles have followed.
However, drawing from the accounts cited above one might tentatively suggest
that the core zone identified in my survey is the effect of: (i) a search for distinc-
tion among aspiring groups, whose techniques have then been variously adopted
by ‘the lower orders’ on account of their kudos and/or imposed upon them by
charitable and philanthropic movements representing those (once aspiring now
dominant) groups, extending their dominance; (ii) the struggles of different
professional groups (e.g. dentists and public health officials) and the strong
position they have been able to secure for themselves within the power balances
of welfare societies; (iii) the influence of the hygiene and cosmetics industries.
Struggles for domination and balances of power are central in each case here and,
as such, my designation of the core zone, following Bourdieu (1979, 1989), as
doxic, is doubly apposite. The taken-for-grantedness of the techniques falling

within this zone is an effect of power balances which enforce their normalcy and
involves a forgetting of the historical struggles involved in the achievement of
that state of normalcy.
The Intermediate Zone

As we move out from the core zone, into the intermediate zone, we enter a more
differentiated space (as indicated by the segmentation which cross-cuts the inter-
mediate zone), which cannot be accounted for by a single explanation. What we
find in this zone, on one hand, are techniques that demarcate key categorical
distinctions in our society, particularly those of gender; techniques that, for the
incumbents of these categories, might still be doxic. In fact, as we saw in Table
1, there is a frequency distribution of these RBTs among females too; some are
core, some intermediate and some marginal. Given more space for analysis we
might construct a radex of these RBTs too, drawing out not only their broad
frequency distribution but equally their thematic/associational clustering
(pushing the analysis further as I did for the bodybuilding segment in Figure 5).
For the present it must suffice to say that the doxic nature of ‘core’ feminine tech-
niques is as likely an effect of struggles and power balances as those of the more
general core zone. This is, of course, the argument of many key accounts of the
doing of femininity (Bartky, 1993; Connell, 1987).
The gender segment is only one among a number in the intermediate zone,
however. In addition we find a selection of practices relating variously to the
health and appearance of the body. These RBTs, arguably, are better accounted
for by notions of choice and active self-construction. Fewer people practise them,
so that they can serve to distinguish and mark out a distinct identity. And because
they are less widely practised their appropriation is less likely to be obvious,
taken for granted and expected, and more likely to be a matter of choice.
Although informal pressures may attach to these RBTs no formal institutional
mechanisms exist to enforce them, beyond the seductive allure of the fashion and
advertising industries. Having said this, these techniques may well become
habitual and routinized for specific agents. Moreover, we should not discount the
possibility that an agent’s choices and narratives are affected by their resources
(economic, cultural, symbolic and social), by the exigencies of their situation, by
the particularities of their biographical trajectory and by features of the collec-
tive habitus which they share with similarly resourced/situated agents. As noted
above, the statistical evidence for a class–RBTs association is weak. A wider and
more focused analysis might find differences here, however. And of course other
broad social groupings or categories may mark out their distinction within this
zone too, forming a distinct segment within it – as in the feminine segment.

Like the core zone, the intermediate zone is historically variable. It is subject
to the movements of fashion, and contains practices which might previously have
belonged either to the core or the marginal zone. Indeed, it is not at all
uncommon for techniques from the marginal zone, a zone of innovation and
experimentation, to migrate into the intermediate zone after being appropriated
by the fashion and advertising industries. Likewise, when these techniques fall
out of fashion they will tend to fall back into the marginal zone. And migration
can occur between the core and intermediate zones also. Once fashionable tech-
niques, appropriated because they mark distinction, can, as noted above, be
appropriated by moralizing movements intent on imposing them upon society as
a whole, or alternatively can become so fashionable as to outgrow fashion (and
certainly their power of distinction) to become normal.
The Marginal Zone

The marginal zone too is highly differentiated. It is, as noted above, a site of
innovation and proto-fashion but also perhaps a wasteland for démodé tech-
niques. The techniques in this zone are statistically deviant. Some will belong
to distinct social movements or social fields, such as modern primitivism or
bodybuilding. And some of these, such as primitivism, will represent a current
of resistance against the doxa and orthodoxy of the mainstream and core zones.
They express a resistance or activist habitus (see Crossley, 2002 and esp. 2003).
Some, like bodybuilding, will involve practices, such as the use of steroids,
which are illegal. Some, however, might be socially defined as manifestations of
individual ‘psychopathology’. The practices associated with ‘deliberate self-
harm’, ‘anorexia nervosa’ and ‘bulimia nervosa’ (not included in my survey) are
examples of this (on these practices and the social movements mobilizing
around them see Cresswell, 2003). In some cases these ‘psychopathological’
RBTs are very difficult to dissociate from the more extreme techniques of, for
example, modern primitivism; particularly as the former have become a focus
of social movement mobilization and subcultural elaboration. Mobilization
blurs the distinction, often used by psychiatrists, between individual ‘pathol-
ogy’ and subcultural variation. They are at least distinct, however, in the sense
that they have not achieved the recognition afforded to primitivism, perform-
ance art (another movement at the margin) and bodybuilding. The latter, while
regarded as weird and immoral by many, and often criticized because they are
said to involve damage to the body, have achieved at least a sufficient degree of
acceptance to keep the agents of psy-complex at bay. They are not completely
free of attempts to regulate and police them, on account of the belief that they
often transgress the law (e.g. steroid use) or basic standards of decency, but

they are not officially pathologized as deliberate self-harm as the eating

disorders are.
The politics and deviancy attaching to techniques in the marginal zone sets
them aside from the practices of the intermediate zone – even if some of them
eventually make it into that zone. These techniques are not accepted as legitimate
choices and generally have social sanctions, formal and informal, attached to
them. To engage with them one must disengage from the broader societal
community, whether deliberately or not. As such they betray a different social
logic to that of practices in the intermediate and core zones. On one level it is
arguable, following Giddens (1991), that they reflect existential projects and
choices (see also Monaghan, 1999; Sweetman, 1999), perhaps profoundly so.
However, there is an element of transgression here that is not adequately
captured by a generic and undifferentiated existential account. Electing to be
branded with red hot irons or to push one’s muscular development to the level
of the bodybuilder, given the social stigmatization and other sanctions that attach
to such modifications, and that practitioners know attach to them, distinguishes
them clearly from RBTs which are accepted, encouraged or enforced. They thus
require a different type of explanation. The practices in this zone reflect relatively
closed social fields, which valorize otherwise disvalued practices, offering
alternative configurations of meaning for them, and/or relatively closed indi-
vidual phenomenological fields which do likewise. To fully understand the
segments in this zone we would need to look to a form of social movement or
subcultural analysis and/or methods more sensitive to individual biographical
trajectories and phenomenological fields, such as ‘existential psychoanalysis’
(Sartre, 1969). Moreover, to distinguish between segments in this field it might
also be necessary to focus upon the relative balances of power and social
conditions that allow some (e.g. performance artists and modern primitives) to
successfully pass off their activities as subversive actions, while the actions of
others (e.g. self-harmers) are effectively pathologized.
As noted above, however, the marginal zone too is historically variable. Most
techniques begin life as the practices of a small minority, and some of these prac-
tices will go on to become the techniques of a majority or large minority, perhaps
even normal techniques within a given society or group. Their marginality, at
least qua practices, is in this sense a relational phenomenon. Any account of
RBTs must be sensitive to such historical movement across zones.
There is much more work to be done to fill out this explanatory framework.
I have not even begun to address the fact, for example, that ‘body work’ is located
in a context that engenders all kinds of involuntary bodily changes which, in
turn, agents seek to compensate for and ‘correct’ – the contemporary trend

towards involuntary weight gain and obesity, which has triggered an increase in
dieting and working out, being a clear illustration of this (see Crossley, 2004b).
However, we have here a basic framework which invites further elaboration –
both qualitative and quantitative – and which takes our understanding of body
modification/maintenance forward.
Conclusion
In this article I have attempted to push the sociological analysis of body modifi-
cation/maintenance forward on substantive, theoretical and methodological
fronts. Practices of modification/maintenance, I have argued, can be understood
as reflexive body techniques; social techniques, collectively shared but individu-
ally rooted in the corporeal schemas of agents. The concept of RBTs has many
advantages, but specifically it is important because it emphasizes reflexivity,
refuses dualism and facilitates empirical investigation.
Each society, I have suggested, has a specific repertoire of such techniques but
techniques are not equally or evenly distributed and diffused throughout the
social body. Specifically I have argued (i) that RBTs fall into different frequency
zones (core, intermediate and marginal), and (ii) that further differentiation is
visible in the intermediate and marginal zones, as RBTs cluster in accordance
with specific subcultures, fields and movements (and the concerns associated
with these fields). Alerting ourselves to these distinctions is important, I have
suggested, because different clusters of RBTs have different socio-logics and need
to be explained in different ways. Where some RBTs are strongly encouraged, if
not made compulsory, for example, others are outlawed, and we must account
for this in our attempts to explain these practices.
Alongside this substantive engagement it has been my intention to explore, for
methodological purposes, the utility of multi-dimensional scaling. This method,
like any method, has limitations. What I have attempted to show in this article,
however, is the way in which we can use it to map out the social distribution of
RBTs, identifying their distinct patterns of clustering. Moreover, in relation to
my ‘heavy exercise’ cluster, I showed how we might move from general clusters
of RBTs through to a cluster of social agents themselves, a step which may, in
turn, facilitate a sophisticated form of social and biographical profiling of
particular practitioner communities – e.g. primitivist communities or bodybuild-
ing communities.
Many loose ends remain at the end of the article. Many avenues are yet to be
explored. This is a good thing. It invites and facilitates further analysis. One very
obvious way in which the analysis might be extended, however, is through a

more detailed exploration of the specific clusters marked out on my map (Figure
4). This is an exercise that might use statistical procedures such as MDS, but
perhaps in conjunction with the more ethnographical and qualitative forms of
analysis which the analysis of RBTs also affords.
Notes
1. Things are not quite so simple as this, as there are different techniques for determining
distances, and any mapping exercise involves a process of variable selection – not least because outliers
can throw the map off course. These processes of selection are part of the interpretative process and
do shape the map. Nevertheless, there are still limits built into the use of the procedure about what its
possible output can be.
2. E.g. concerning beauty, health, tattooing, bodybuilding.
3. The sample was 39.5 percent male and 60.5 percent female.
4. In terms of age, 14.1 percent of the sample were 16–19-year-olds, 25.7 percent were in their 20s,
27 percent in their 30s, 14.1 percent in their 40s, 15.1 percent in their 50s, 2.6 percent in their 60s, 1
percent in their 70s, 0.3 percent in their 80s.
5. In the sample, 29.3 percent were students, 4.6 percent retired, 1.3 percent unemployed, 4.3
percent unskilled manual workers, 5.9 percent semi-skilled manual workers, 6.9 percent skilled manual
workers, 14.8 percent clerical workers, 10.5 percent managerial grade workers, 19.1 percent
professionals, and 3.3 percent owned small businesses.
6. In the sample, 88 percent identified as White, 3.7 percent as Indian, 3.7 percent as Pakistani, 1.3
percent as black, 1 percent as Chinese, 1.3 percent as mixed race and 1 percent in other terms.
7. The religious breakdown was: 30.2 percent Protestant, 10.3 percent Catholic, 8.3 percent
unspecified Christian, 5.3 percent Muslim, 2.7 percent Hindu, 0.7 percent Jewish, 0.7 percent Sikh, 0.7
percent ‘other’ religious and 41.2 percent ‘not religious’.
8. Some of my respondents were recruited from the health club I attend and have been studying
ethnographically. They do represent a sampling bias in terms of a ‘body’ questionnaire. However, this
was a minority of the sample.
9. ‘Disposition’ is the usual English translation of ‘hexis’ and ‘habitus’. ‘Habit’ would have
worked but, as Camic (1986) notes, its meaning has been considerably changed and degraded in the
20th century, largely under the impact of psychological/physiological behaviourism.
10. I use Merleau-Ponty’s concept of ‘institution’ here, which is a modification of the phenom-
enological concept of ‘constitution’. ‘Constitution’, Merleau-Ponty argues, suggests that the agent
bestows meaning and order ex nihilo, where ‘institution’ suggests that the agent deploys socially
acquired schemas of meaning and order – ‘techniques’ in this case (Merleau-Ponty, 1979).
11. As Merleau-Ponty (1968) notes, to recognize their image in the mirror infants must first learn
to ‘derealize’ the image; that is, they must learn to see it as an image and not as another person. Then
they must learn to use the mirror to manipulate their own image, matching actions to their inverted
reflections. Much work in child development focuses upon this process whereby children learn to use
the mirror image to manipulate aspects of their own appearance (e.g. Amsterdam, 1971). And
Romanyshyn (1982) notes how this is extended in adolescent and adult life, where we play with and
in front of the mirror, rehearsing anticipated agentic ‘performances’ and fantasizing. Mirror play is a
complex and acquired technique.
12. One can use different measures of ‘distance’ in multi-dimensional scaling, each of which yields
different results. If frequency distribution is important and one is dealing with head counts then Phi-
squared is often a useful measure. I have used Phi-squared here.

13. On this occasion ‘Euclidean square distance’ proved a more useful measure of distance for the
MDS analysis.
14. Again distances were measured using Euclidean square distance. See notes 12 and 13.
15. Cluster membership is not clear from the diagram as cases overlap in the same space. It is
available as output for MDS on SPSS. I have not included it here because the existence and basic profile
of the clusters is more important than their actual composition, and because case numbers are arbitrary
and are only of use to us if we want to further explore the details of cluster members, which we do
not in this context.
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distributions and cross-tabulation, I will use ‘multi-dimensional scaling’ (MDS),

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belong to a ‘modern primitivist’ habitus. How we divide the plot, where we

Aims, Method and Data

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First, I aim to advance our substantive understanding of practices of body

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reasoning which are pre-representational in form; that is, forms of pre-reflective

Reflexive Body Techniques (RBTs)

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Body Techniques and Selfhood

As the mirror demonstrates, however, this is a separation that is integral to a

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specific experience of self. We learn to play the role of another in relationship to

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Group and Technique

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Table 1 Gendered Reflexive Body Techniques

Female (%) Male (%) p=

Reflexive Body Techniques

Small but statistically significant differences (with female predominance)

Male predominance (small but statistically significant differences)

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identified aspects of a distinctly working-class body consciousness

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