Anthropologists have developed an important corpus of work on embodiment and social agency. But what of the academic bodies involved in the production and reproduction of these ideas? Is an institutional habitus of scholarly disembodiment one consequence of contemporary academic practice? Drawing on research and our own experiences, we describe what we see as the ‘disembodied vocationalism’ fostered by departmental and institutional cultures. Using the case of social anthropology we explore the gendered expectations and silences that continue to exist within British universities.
Berg, M.L. and Mills, D. (2010) 'Gender, Disembodiment and Vocation: Exploring the Unmentionables of British Academic Life', Critique of Anthropology, 30(4): 331-353