The Body as a Social Construct: The Kosovan Context on ‘Beauty’ and ‘Look’ from the Perspective of Women and Girls in Kosovo

Abstract

The inclusion of the study of the human ‘body’ in sociology abandoned the view that ‘nature’ constitutes the absolute premise that explains human interactions and social phenomena. The sociological perspective offered a new project of conceptualising the body, which enabled its reshaping and modification. In the new context of understanding the body, “the life of the body” was transformed from a technical and reproductive mechanism into a way of living, as well as an identity. This paper will address the main theoretical approaches to the study of the body, which at the same time reveals the context of the social realities that built the epistemology of sociological and gender studies in researches related to the body. Further, the paper introduces the results of an empirical research carried out with women and girls in Kosovo regarding the understanding and appreciation of the body, including their position about the image of the body that will help deconstruct the standard of the idolised body of women and girls in Kosovo. The research methodology applied is focused in two main parts: the online survey with 350 women and girls aged between 16 and 65 coming from both urban and rural areas, through a structured questionnaire technique compose of three parts with a total of 42 questions. Data collection and processing were done through the application of the SPSS program No. 24 and Excel. The second part of the research included the qualitative approach, by utilization of two focus groups with 14 girls of different ages and coming from different geographical areas of Kosovo. The research will highlight their attention and sensitivity towards ‘beauty’ as predefined by social, cultural, and the economic context. The overall results of the research show that 55.5 percent of the respondents agree that beauty plays a roles in the success of a woman/girl's life in Kosovo, whereas 22 percent neither agree nor disagree with this, whilst 33 percent do not agree that beauty plays any role. Additionally, approximately 55 percent of the respondents indicated that beauty influences a woman/girl's success in life, 60 percent believe that beautiful women/girls find it much easier to get hired, and about 70 percent stated that beauty affects self-esteem in both women and girls.    Received: 4 January 2024 / Accepted: 9 April 2024 / Published: 5 May 2024