The envelope of the body has this difference with the envelope which girdles our organs that it contains it more or less tightly according to several factors: age, accidents of the life or under the effect of practices or changing hygiene of life. This envelope can become deformed, shrink, stretch and not return to its initial size. This change can be voluntary and sought (body art, …) or involuntary (accident, lifestyle, …), it can be related to diet, sport, or old age. For example, with advancing age and the associated loss of collagen and therefore elasticity, the daily work of gravity inexorably distends the skin (Vigarello, 2008). Similarly, a sudden loss of weight does not give the skin enough time to retract naturally, thus causing a surplus that falls off, as is the case with large, muscular bodies. The gender component is also important in the apprehension of this excess. Women concerned by pregnancy or subject to dietary restrictions are apprehensive about the potential creation of an abdominal apron. Men also see their bodies being transformed, some say feminized, by the creation of sagging breasts due to the reduction of pectoral muscles or pectoral fat. The self-image, of this wrinkled body, is particularly affected (Le Breton, 2003) and beyond that also transforms the psychic construction (Anzieu, 1985).

How can we imagine that an excess results from a loss? How is this excess of skin induced by a loss experienced by individuals? How does the skin that traces the biographical history become a memorial marker of the past? How do gendered perceptions influence the acceptance or apprehension of this excess skin? How does this extra skin handicap and stigmatize in everyday life (Goffman, 1975)?

This issue of La Peaulogie thus questions the representations and the physicality of this excess skin when it is due to a loss of mass or for any other reason but not intentionally. She thus concentrates on the excess by the loss when this one is located in accidental configurations. It is not, therefore, a problematic oriented towards intentionality. Anthropologically, the representations concerning intentional additions and withdrawals do not necessarily correlate with compensation for imponderables (Zbinden, 1997). The use of the surplus through the gap, the void, and the devices that fill it is different from that of the overflow (Le Breton 2002). This issue will approach this problematic of the surplus of skin in a multidisciplinary optics, is convened thus the glance of the various human and social sciences.

Ghislaine GALLENGA, coordinator of the thematic issue