“Half baby and half person!”: an anthropological study with babies through the categories of body and person

Abstract

The body emerges for the baby as the sole possible way of being, of experiencing the world, a sine qua non condition for it to learn about the world and its relationships. Building on this argument, this paper addresses anthropological research with babies through two general reflections. The first is that the body must be considered in anthropological research involving babies as the primary instrument for experimentation, interaction, and communication of these subjects with their caregivers, the spaces they navigate, and the anthropologist. The second pertains to the construction of the baby’s status as a person in our society. In light of these two fundamental categories to anthropology – body and person – we discuss the implications for the practice of research with babies in theoretical and methodological terms.