Bodies carrying other bodies while performing other tasks

(to accompany lectures on "culture" or Marcel Mauss's Techniques of the body ([1936])

two ways to carry a child while leaving the hands free

either allow one to carry something on the back or on the front (though wearing on back prevents carrying anything else while wearing on the front limits what can be done with the hands

Carrying a child on one's back

two ways to carry a child on the hip

another way to carry the infant on the hip with a carrier that still requires one hand.

Note that this is child who is carrying

Note also how this might be easier or more difficult depending on how handness is handled in the locality

Carrying a child on one's hip

two other ways to carry a child on one's back

In one case the hands are not available for anything (though the arm can be used to carry the bag)

Carrying a child on one's shoulders is carrying mode is strongly gendered: most pictures on a simple search are of men

Carrying a child on one's hip

WHAT TO ASK:

Of the carrying body:
- who may carry?
- how?
- when and with whom?
- with what consequences (constraints on and openings for further action)?
Of the carrier technologies:
- what is being used?
- how are those produced?
- by whom are they produced?
- how are they distributed?
Of the child:
- contact with other body
- constriction on movement
- possibility for communication
  - As Margaret Mead once put it: "for the babies of each society wriggle in a slightly different way, and one learns from observing the differences" (Mead [1942] 2000: 2). By using the verb "wriggle" she suggests that she is not only talking about babies shaping their body but babies attempting to escape something uncomfortable (artificial, arbitrary, historically specific, etc.)