Ah I see what you’re saying. Thanks for linking the full paper on eidos — it’s much clearer to me now and I can see how and why it is both useful and important for connecting the body to sociocultural phenomena like race and gender in a way that maintains both their interdependence and separateness. There are lots of complications that result from framing gender as a biological thing and a purely constructed thing, and it’s important that science find a way to speak to both simultanously.

Are you familiar with Judith Butler’s theory of performativity? I ask because it is how I learned to connect the body and its movements to sociocultural phenomena, and I am wondering whether it would be useful as a conceptual bridge from gender to eidos. Butler first described performativity in terms of gender by claiming that gender is based in repeated imitation of norms and does not exist prior to or independently of these norms. Repetition and imitation are thus the two conceptual processes that undergird performative identity, and I am wondering what science might have to say about these two processes. There is also some work about racial performativity, but not much (at least to my knowledge).

Butler’s essay “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” is a concise overview of the core concepts of performativity — perhaps it would be useful for your research.

Keep up the good work! It’s been nice engaging with you.