Artigo Revisado por pares

Marginality, Sexuality and the Body: Professional Masseurs in Urban Muslim Punjab

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 9; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14442210701822183

ISSN

1740-9314

Autores

Jürgen Wasim Frembgen,

Tópico(s)

South Asian Cinema and Culture

Resumo

Abstract In contemporary Muslim Punjab, massage is an important body oriented practice that highlights the complex relationship between embodiment, sociality, marginality and sexuality. It constitutes a specific culture and technique of the body, not only embedded in systems of indigenous healing and care, but even more associated with feelings of pleasure, ease and wellbeing, with inherent sensory experiences. As such, it is actualised in different situations, milieus and spaces and is open to various dimensions of meaning while retaining a morally ambiguous character. The present paper investigates this discourse on massage as a technique to create a ‘bodily synthesis’, focusing on the liminal practices performed by occupationally stigmatised male professionals in the urban public domain. Invoking notions of both purity and impurity, the masseurs’ service not only conveys bodily enjoyment, but also rids their male clients of polluting waste products and provides sexual pleasure. The emphasis is particularly on the contradiction between the valorisation of massage on the one hand and the inherent moral ambiguity of massage on the other, which becomes especially apparent in the denigration of professional masseurs. These conflicted understandings of massage seem to reflect a dissonance between Punjabi culture and Islam. Keywords: BodyCasteHierarchyIslamMale SexualityMarginalityMassageMoralityMuslim PunjabStrangerStreetwalker Acknowledgements As noted in the section about the nature of my field work, I am particularly grateful to several friends and acquaintances in Pakistan (who wish to remain anonymous) for their most valuable contributions, conversations and discussions. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 14th Pakistan Workshop held in Rook How, Lake District/England (9–11 July 1999). For their contributions to the fruitful discussion, I would especially like to thank Anjum Alvi, Inger-Lise Lien, Pnina Werbner, Peter Parkes and Lukas Werth. I am also grateful to Peter Parkes (University of Kent) for his careful reading of the text and important comments and suggestions. At a later stage, I discussed my findings every year with friends in Pakistan. Notes 1. Dealing with moral and sexual ethics as well as Islamic jurisprudence, but even chapter 9 on La vie intime des époux only has a few references to social reality. 2. Similarly, Abu-Lughod and Lutz (Citation1990, p. 12) suggest examining emotions framed as experiences that involve the body. 3. Compare this with Metcalf (Citation1992, p. 23). 4. Previously, hammams were found, in particular, in cities of the somewhat colder northern Punjab. The largest public bath in the province was the Shahi hammam in Lahore (inside Delhi Darwaza), which dates from the period of emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628–1658 CE). 5. This way of moving has a lot to do with training one's senses, especially the eye, with one's openness to experience a multitude of phenomena and to be ready to communicate virtually at every corner. Much of my own work and that, for instance, of my colleague Karl Wutt from Vienna (on Middle Eastern and Indo-Pakistani aesthetics and material culture) is indebted to this approach. See also the relevant chapter on ‘A Way of Walking’ in Gilsenan Citation1992 (pp. 269–273) as well as Köpping's thoughts on The Fieldworker as Performative Flaneur (Citation2005). 6. In Persian, the respective general terms are masaj kardan and malidan, ‘to knead’ and ‘to rub’. 7. For a full body tel malish, the masseur generally uses ‘cold’ sarson ka tel (mustard oil). In addition, roghan amla, an extract from the green berries of the myrobalan tree, is a ‘cold’ oil, but it is only used for the hair. Similarly, other vegetable oils kept by the masseur in his cruet, such as roghan chambeli (jasmine oil), roghan naryal (coconut oil), roghan zaitun (olive oil) and araq-e gulab (rose water), are specially used for head massage. Tira mira tel is a herbal oil of inferior quality, which is said to remove eczema but can also result in rashes on the body. Almond oil (badam roghan) is used exclusively for the ears. Alternatively, the customer may choose banaula, an aromatic oil made of black cotton seeds, for the ears and for other parts of the body. Other oils, such as karna-tel, made from citrus buds, are less common. At home, ghi (clarified butter) can be used as a means to revitalise the body. 8. Mayne (Citation1956, pp. 63–66) has given a vivid description of a skilful oil massage practiced by such an ustad and wrestler in Sehwan Sharif (Sindh). 9. Apparently this is also related to the association of massage with the bath, the favourite place of evil superhuman beings: ‘The whole complex of fear of the demonic and impure side of the touching of body to body is reflected in a certain way in the idea that the bath, where one has to cleanse oneself from such acts, is regarded as the seat of devils and demons’ (Schimmel Citation1997, p. 269). 10. The concept of ‘marginality’ (with its spatial, economic, social and cultural aspects) has also been successfully applied by Nieuwkerk (Citation1995, pp. 95–115) in her study of the dishonourable professions of entertainers in Egypt. 11. Recently, Tahir Khilji made a documentary film on the life of the masseurs in Lahore entitled After Sunset. The film was first shown at the festival ‘Film South Asia 2001’ in Kathmandu. 12. To my knowledge, in the relevant literature on ‘gay culture’, the malshia/malishwala is only mentioned en passant in one or two sentences without providing any perspective on the relationship between masseur and customer (see Badruddin Khan Citation1992, p. 98). 13. Thus, Aslam writes with reference to Pakistani male sexuality, ‘… homosexuality is viewed as an activity which does not in any way ‘make’ you ‘a homosexual’. It is this crucial distinction—between homosexuality as a state and homosexuality as an activity—that escapes those who look at local sexual mores through pre-conceived models imported from elsewhere’ (Citation1994, p. 32). On the doubtfulness of the term ‘homosexuality’ as a reference to a relatively recent historical construct, see also Foucault (1986, p. 237). 14. People of the Nai caste who move to the cities nowadays also often try to conceal their low origin and claim to be Bhatti (a Rajput subcaste). Regarding the concealability of social stigma, see also Jones et al. (Citation1984, pp. 27–31, 131–137, 202–206). 15. Following Ots (Citation1994, pp. 116–117), the semantically appropriate German term ‘Leib’ refers to the expressive, lived body; it ‘… invites us to keep an awareness of life in which perceptions, feelings, emotions and the evolving thoughts and considerations are all intimately grounded; it is through my Leib that I am inserted into this world; I am Leib-in-the-world” (p. 117).

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