Episode 37 Sand in my teeth

I’m still dreaming, in this episode, of a society in which unique selves are possible. Such a dream goes beyond ideas about social inclusion. Inclusion is about fitting in to a pre-existing system – with all the rules and prescriptions such a system holds. My vision is of a social structure that welcomes uniqueness, indeed, one that expects uniqueness, that allows itself to be transformed by each expression of a unique self.

Such a vision makes me dubious about all the imagery that’s been showing up in these podcasts. Comparing social structure to computer codes and choose-your-own-adventure novels makes it seem like the selves society constructs are all decided in advance, which furthers the idea of social structure as a closed system.

I also start to become a bit suspicious of the personified Society I keep talking to. Despite its claims to the contrary, I’m certain Society is perfectly capable of making space for unique selves. If I’m going to keep this dialogue going, I’m going to have to be more cunning in my cross-examination. I draw inspiration from – where else? – Reese Witherspoon’s performance  in the court scene of Legally Blonde. Like Witherspoon’s character, Elle, I’m going to have to catch Society in the act of making space for a unique self, even when making space takes the form of an attempt at exclusion.

I get my chance through an analysis of a conversation between three first-year university students, teammates on a field hockey team. Read the transcript and see if you notice anything about the selves that show up in the grammar of Sammy’s story:

Now have a look at the clauses of the narrative that are only Sammy’s:

today, when we came out of the athletics centre it was eight-thirty in the morning and she threw sand in my face yeah and so she skimmed sand chucking it at you and it was like, ‘Nemo, no’ I had sand in my teeth and it was disgusting I had a good breakfast and I had sand in my teeth and she just ran off laughing and I’m like- ‘oh, I’ve got sand on me’

Did you notice the shifts in Sammy’s story between the impersonal selves (the generic second person in clause 5, the impersonal dummy subject in clause 6), and the individual selves (such as the first-person singular and the third-person female singular in clauses 3 and 10)? What I find so interesting here is that the unique, individual selves show up – because they have to – whenever the body comes into the picture. It’s not possible, in other words, to throw sand into an impersonal, non-individualised face. It’s also pretty hard to imagine impersonal, non-individualised sandy teeth.

When unique selves show up, they’re represented as embodied.

It’s no good, then, thinking of social structure in terms of something disembodied, like computer code. We need a new metaphor for social structure. Maybe by next podcast we’ll have one.

My analysis of this extract comes from my forthcoming book with Palgrave: Selves, Bodies and the Grammar of Social Worlds.