ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the key debates within a consideration of conformity and resistance and the place of the body within these dynamics. In early European culture physical torture was a common form of punishment and a means of controlling and disciplining people. Such was the popularity of torture that there were professional torturers employed to invent new and horrific means of inflicting unbearable sensations on the victims’ bodies. A panopticon is an amphitheatre of prison cells, surrounding a central warden’s tower. A teenager’s first act of rebellion, against parental or school authority, will nearly always be manifested via the body. Challenging the ‘norm’ poses three problems. The very act of resistance demonstrates a respect for the authority against which it is rebelling. Transgression moves the body into another subculture in which this body is now simply the ‘norm’. Mainstream culture will adopt codes and conventions of resistance and, through processes of revision, will normatise them.
