Emily Martin, "Flexible Bodies - The role of immunitity in american culture,from the days of Polio to the age of AIDS", contributed by Mohammed Raqib , STS Infrastructures, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 13 May 2019, accessed 24 August 2024. https://stsinfrastructures.org/content/flexible-bodies-role-immunitity-american-culturefrom-days-polio-age-aids
Critical Commentary
his book by Emily martin gives a vivid insight of how our perceptions about immunity changed through different phases and reached at a perception of one's own body as flexible one. it is important to note that this perceptional change is not a sudden one, but it has passed through several phases. for example , in 1947, hygeine was considered as one way to enhance the immunity and protect it from germs . around 1960's and 70's the idea of immunity system and antigens became popular, where the defence of the body was more scrutinized and studied. but at the 1980's , with the arrival of AIDS in the there was a dynamic change in the social imagination which had a greater impact on so called 'scientific' understanding of immunity 'system'. The media and popular culture narrated immune system as something analoguos to the 'military system'. eventhough the scientist believes in a peer group approval and trickle down of scientific knowldge to society after this validation, the observers argues that still the socio-cultural imagination have a great role in defining the immune system. she systematicaly stops in conclusion that, the flexibility as an ideology emerged from flexible economy and neo liberal understanding of macro social setting also affected the micro politics of the ' human body and self