87 (Melucci 1989, 123)

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(Melucci 1989, 123)

Finally, the return to the body initiates a new search for identity. The body appears as a secret domain, to which only the individual holds the key, and to which he or she can return to seek a self-definition unfettered by the rules and expectations of society. Nowadays the social attribution of identity invades all areas traditionally protected by the barrier of ’private space’. Consumption, sexuality, and affective relations are all fields of ’public’ intervention; they are subject to a growing pressure from socially imposed behaviour models aimed at obtaining the productive and social performance necessary for growth, as well as mass consensus for policies of rationalization. Faced with this expanding control, it is as if the body is mobilizing the resources of ’nature’ to safeguard a non-manipulated identity; as if our deepest impulses and needs belonged to us and defined us, as if they were inscribed in the body that is ours, or better, the body that we are. [Melucci, Alberto. 1989. Nomads of the Present. London: Hutchinson Radius.]