Abstract des Autors

Recently, sociological theory has criticized the concept of the ‘rational actor’ from two sides: Practice theory has emphasized the culturalshaping of bodies, Actor Network Theory has promoted artifacts as non-human, but equal actants. This paper argues for exploring ‘bodies’ and ‘things’ in one integrative perspective. It focuses on the
becoming of ballet bodies – asking how other objects are involved here and how they are
practically brought into being together with the singular, highly skilled ballet-bodies. The
author argues that such processes of ‘becoming together’ depends on particular practical involvements, as well as on entanglementstransversal to, and differentiations of everyday units like ‘the body’. In ballet class, wooden bars, music and big mirrors play ‘body parts’ assubstitute limbs, astemporal and energetic regulator and media. The mirror, moreover, is central to how inhabited bodies are dissected into a hapeable object and a shaping artisan who forms a new unit with the teacher as a manufacturing team. Thus, body parts situationally become things here. The paper shows how an open, symmetrical account of social materiality can be achieved by empirically unfolding both sides of the binary fixation human/non-human.