Body-Environment Transactions: A Standard Model for Cross-Cultural Analyses

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Abstract
A paradigm is given of the major portals of the body which are physically conspicuous and physiologically fundamental. These portals or orifices locate a series of material transactions between the body and its environment. Each transaction seems, both analytically and culturally, to have 3 components: orifice, activity, and material substance. Body-environment transactions on the whole permit appreciable individual or local variation in behavior as well as in the beliefs, values, and symbols that attach to them. Orifices and transactions not only permit but effectively engender cultural elabora- tion that varies from group to group. The paradigm includes all material transactions to which crucial significance has been assigned in major theories (such as the "Freudian triad") current in the behavioral field. A paradigm of related but highly distinct features and functions, which are organic and innate to which, a large degree of intercultural variability attaches, may have much utility for the analysis of cultural differences. This would be true to the extent that the variables have recognizable theoretical importance. A number of theoretical contexts in which intercultural variability in body-environment transactions have recognized or potential importance are suggested.

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