Bodies are socially constructed: "The new organ, he explained, was a thin layer of dense connective tissue throughout the body, sandwiched just under our skin and within the middle layer of every visceral organ." thedailybeast.com/meet-the-inter…
For those asking, what do I mean that bodies are socially constructed? Not that bodies don't exist only as ideas, but how we imagine them to exist is socially constructed.
What IS an organ?
How many organs are there?
Why am I a body or why do I have a body?
What IS an organ?
How many organs are there?
Why am I a body or why do I have a body?
Why do we often imagine a body to one singular thing when there are billions of bacteria in us at all times that would leave us dead if they left?
What will it mean to imagine another organ?
These are all questions with interesting philosophical & practical implications.
What will it mean to imagine another organ?
These are all questions with interesting philosophical & practical implications.
Naming something brings it into being; this is ontology.
When we didn't know about cells or heartbeats or DNA or RNA, it didn't mean they weren't there. But naming them allowed us to imagine them, study them, learn from them, live differently.
When we didn't know about cells or heartbeats or DNA or RNA, it didn't mean they weren't there. But naming them allowed us to imagine them, study them, learn from them, live differently.
The social construction of the interstitium begins with seeing, and naming it, and imagining what makes it an organ. It will now be debated and studied. Medical knowledge and effects will come from this. But only because it was first named and imagined!
That's the social construction of the body. And what a body is, and if/how its parts exist, are always socially constructed, debated, and willed into existence.
For more on the social construction of the body, check out 
The REALLY fascinating thing to me is that the idea of the body IS a philosophical concept, with really concrete ramifications.
We can imagine someone inhabiting a body, citizenship, personhood, or a combination therein...these are all related but different ideas.
We can imagine someone inhabiting a body, citizenship, personhood, or a combination therein...these are all related but different ideas.
And then, we make law & science & culture around these ideas...& these ideas affect our very bodies in very material ways.
"Is a fetus a body part of a parent, or a sovereign citizen?"
"Is a Black person 3/5 of a human, or a body that can be bought or sold?"
Big questions!
"Is a fetus a body part of a parent, or a sovereign citizen?"
"Is a Black person 3/5 of a human, or a body that can be bought or sold?"
Big questions!
It's so easy to laugh at the idea that scientists just discovered a new organ—but the naming of our bodies & its parts is not "natural," is never static & is always evolving. We make them up as we go along, understanding them better & affecting our makeup as we do.
Indeed, @mcjuancito— what makes me me & you you? Where do I end & you begin? Why are we both individuals & not, like a colony of ants might be considered, just parts of a larger organism? (Human cultures have seen human groups as single organisms before.)
Indeed, @lepcyrus— we now think thought is in the brain. Some once thought it was in the gut (& we still say "I have a gut feeling"). Love is now located in the heart. But these relationships between feeling & organ haven't always been so.
And how we imagine all this being, that affects how we study the body & its parts, how we know them, and how medicine & care is developed to treat them...which can have real material affects on our bodies.
Another great read on all these things is The Social Life of DNA by @alondra. Think of DNA, existing all along...then it got named...then it shaped our social world...then our social world shaped DNA itself, a building block of life... beacon.org/The-Social-Lif…
How our world has changed since we discovered DNA and then willed into being a whole new way to think about our bodies, our histories, and our selves... And now, we can change our DNA through genetic engineering or through space travel. cnn.com/2018/03/14/hea…
We know little of the interstitium now, nor even if enough science and culture makers will agree on its existence to will it into existence as an organ. But oh, the things it COULD mean in our world we haven't even dreamed of yet!
