Embodied formation: health and social recognition in military lifeThe soldier’s body represents a space imbued with meanings and symbolic representations oriented toward defense, discipline, and honor. From Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s conception of the Phenomenology of Perception, it constitutes the medium through which the military world is interpreted. It is here that military identity becomes internalized. This article, framed within a philosophical approach, examines how the body in formation within the military sphere is constituted as a medium of expression, discourse, and meaning, and how the pursuit of health and social recognition are interrelated in the construction of military identity. Employing a qualitative methodology with a phenomenological focus and a non-experimental design, the study explores everyday practices that contribute to establishing the soldier’s body as a symbol of social recognition, incorporating practices derived from body cults to achieve an appearance that functions as an instrument of visibility. Within the arguments emerging from this phenomenological approach, it is posited that the soldier assumes the primacy of the social ideal, subjecting himself to disciplinary bodily techniques of endurance, power, strength, and others, in pursuit of desired bodily dimensions. At the same time, power is expressed in relation to alterity, meaning that the body of the other-and the perception we have of it-can be employed as an element of social recognition projected onto another’s body (otherness). This becomes evident in the unequal processes of bodily construction among members of the armed forces.
Keywords:
Cult of the body; health; social recognition; military