DOCSLIB.ORG

Exploring Body Work Practices: Bodies, Affect and Becoming

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Exploring Body Work Practices: Bodies, Affect and Becoming Exploring body work practices: bodies, affect and becoming Julia Elizabeth Coffey Submitted in total fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September, 2012 Youth Research Centre, Melbourne Graduate School of Education University of Melbourne Produced on archival quality paper. i Abstract This PhD thesis explores the body and contemporary body work practices. Through a Deleuzian approach to bodies, this research focuses on how body work and bodies are understood and lived using concepts of affect and becoming. Through interviews, I explore the affective relations involved in body work, including the ways that health and gender, two major ‘forces’ among many, affect participants and impact on the ways their bodies may be lived. The increase in health, beauty and fitness industries is aligned with an increase in attention to the body, and ‘body image’ for both women and men. The relationship between the body and society has long been a key tension in sociology and feminist theory. Because ‘the body’ is central to this study, I argue that it is particularly crucial to look for ways to negotiate and move beyond the core dualism that frames the body; the mind/body dualism. Through the concepts of Deleuze and Guattari and others who have extended their concepts, the body can be understood as a process of connections, rather than an ‘object’ caught in dualisms. The challenge or aim of this research has been to find non-dualist, embodied approaches to studying the body empirically, whilst also critiquing the social conditions which frame the bodies of the participants. The body is understood as a ‘relationship of forces’ which connects to other forces, including social relations such as gender, consumer culture and health discourses. These relations are central in the ways participants manage, understand and live their bodies, and affect but do not determine their bodies. I explore the ways these social relations affect participants’ body work including practices of exercise, weights training and cosmetic surgery. By focusing on the descriptions by participants as to how the body feels through body work practices, I explore the affects or embodied sensations of body work. Through examining the relations and affects between bodies and the world, I am concerned not for what the body is – and how it is determined or dominated – but for what relations and affects enable bodies to do. ii Declaration This is to certify that: i. the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD except where indicated in the Preface, ii. due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used, iii. the thesis is fewer than 100 000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices or the thesis is [number of words] as approved by the RHD Committee. iii Acknowledgements This thesis and research project has involved the support, encouragement and advice of many people. Thank you to my supervisors and mentors, Professor Johanna Wyn, Professor Timothy Marjoribanks and Associate Professor Helen Cahill. Johanna and Tim were so generous in their support and in guiding me throughout the long and winding journey, from a vague idea of interest, through Ethics applications and interviewing, to analysis and writing. Our styles of working have been very compatible, and I have felt from the first week so fortunate to be supervised by such creative, generous and generally wonderful people. Tim’s commitment to see my thesis through despite moving to a different university which meant essentially supervising me ‘for fun’ inspired my own dedication to the writing of this project. Helen also has given me great support and insightful advice in the final stages of writing the thesis, and in providing new perspectives on the project and its future directions. I am so grateful to you Johanna, Tim and Helen, for the guidance and inspiration you have given me. Thank you to my home partners, Aaron and Lily. You have understood and encouraged my commitment to ‘the den’, and have known when to surrender me to it, and when to coax me out into the sunshine. Your presence and support have meant that the process of my PhD has been an enjoyable and rewarding challenge, rather than a lonely and difficult one. In the same vein, I also want to thank my colleagues at the Youth Research Centre, in particular David Farrugia, whose passion for theory inspired and encouraged my own. I doubt I would have approached Deleuze with such enthusiasm if it hadn’t been for you! I also want to thank my parents and sister Rachel, who have always supported and encouraged me in everything I do. Thank you for everything you have done to help me through all stages of this PhD, particularly all the time you put into helping with editing. I am so lucky to have you as my family. iv Lastly, I want to extend my most sincere thanks to the people who participated in this project, and who so generously gave me their time and trusted me with their understandings and experiences of their bodies. I will always be so grateful for their candour and generosity in telling me about their most personal and confounding experiences related to living their bodies through body work. v Publications The following article was completed during candidacy: Coffey, J. (2012) ‘Bodies, body work and gender: exploring a Deleuzian approach’, Journal of Gender Studies, published online 17th September 2012. I am the sole author of this publication. This article forms the basis of chapter five in this thesis. vi Table of contents Chapter one: The body in contemporary society and sociological theory 5 The body and consumer culture, health, ‘body image’ and gender 7 ‘Body image’ and the media 9 Theorising the body and body work 11 Deleuze’s approach to the body 14 Embodied research 16 Thesis structure 18 Chapter two: Theorising the body 23 Theorising materiality and subjectivity: sex, gender and the body 24 Barad and ‘agential realism’ 27 Unpicking the dualism of representation and materiality in Butler 29 Theorising processes of agency and subjectification through ‘the fold’ 31 The fold 33 Bodies: Deleuze and Guattari and Spinoza 36 Ethology: Deleuze’s understanding of bodies (what can a body do?) 37 The body as an assemblage 39 The body and affect 41 Affect and becoming 43 Binary machines and the molar and molecular 45 Body without organs 47 De/re/territorialisations 48 Deleuze, gender and becoming 50 ‘Doing’ gender: gender and affect 54 Consumer culture, health and what the body can do 56 Consumer culture, images and affect 60 Conclusion: summarising key concepts towards a Deleuzian theory of the body 62 Chapter three: Contemporary studies of the body and society 67 Studies of the body in society 68 Gender and subjectivities 69 Embodiment, gender and body work 71 Studies of the body, gender and body work 72 Studies of exercise and ‘health’ in consumer culture 73 ‘Beauty work’ practices and cosmetic surgery 75 Crossley’s ‘reflexive body techniques’ 76 Studies of body work and agency 78 Feminism, Deleuze and the body 84 Conclusion 93 Chapter four: Methodology 97 Epistemological and ontological groundings 98 Knowledge and the researcher 99 1 Deleuze, ‘ethology’ and the body 101 Methodology and method 103 Experience as methodology 103 Methodology and affect 106 Interviewing and affect 107 Recruitment and participants 110 Interview processes 116 Ethics 119 Ethics, power relations and interviews 121 Deleuzian ethics 123 Analysis 124 What can data do? 125 Interpreting ‘affect’ and ‘experience’ 128 Writing as an ethical analytic practice 128 Analysing bodies and body work 129 Conclusion 131 Chapter five: Exploring gender and body work 135 Unhooking the binary machine: negotiating body work practices 136 Negotiating ‘ideal’ (gendered) bodies 137 Critiquing the dominant ‘skinny’ ideal for women 141 Critiquing the dominant image of ‘muscularity’ for men 144 Participants’ body work practices 146 Negotiating the ‘pressures of femininity’ 148 Femininity, visibility and consumer culture 153 Gender relations and the ‘visible’ male body 156 Embodying ‘ideal’ masculinity and body ‘pressure’ 161 Opening up masculinities and bodies 165 Conclusion 169 Chapter six: ‘Health’, body work and affect 173 Untangling definitions, discourses and experiences of health 175 Health as discourse, ideal and set of practices 175 Exploring boundaries of ‘health’ 179 Health as ‘becoming dangerous’ 181 Health as an image and experience 183 Exercise and embodied sensations 186 Exercise, health and the self: ‘inhabiting my flesh’ 190 Exercise, health and happiness 192 Body work as ‘liberating’ and constraining 194 Conclusion 200 Chapter seven: The limits and possibilities of bodies through body work practices and affect 203 Body work and the limits of ‘health’ 204 Affect, ‘addiction’ and body work 206 Body work, gender and similarities of affect 212 Cosmetic surgery, affect and the (feminine) body 215 2 Kate’s experience of cosmetic surgery: ‘now I can just really live my life’ 216 Isabelle and cosmetic surgery: ‘when will it stop?’ 221 Differences in descriptions of post-surgery pain 225 Affect, gender and becoming in cosmetic surgery 226 Beth and the anorexic body 229 Conclusion 233 Chapter eight: Reflections, conclusions and future directions 239 Reflections on theory and methodology: affect, embodiment and power 245 Towards a Deleuzian, feminist and sociological methodology 250 Future directions 252 What can these concepts do? 252 References 255 3 4 Chapter one: The body in contemporary society and sociological theory This thesis explores the body and contemporary body work practices. Through a Deleuzian approach to bodies, I focus on the affective dimensions of body work through conceptualising the ways engagements and intra-actions between bodies are lived as powerfully embodied sensations. Through interviews, I explore the affective relations involved in body work, including the ways that health and gender, two major ‘forces’ among many, affect participants and impact on the ways their bodies may be lived.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Rise of Body Studies and the Embodiment of Society: a Review of the Field
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Kent Academic Repository The Rise of Body Studies and the Embodiment of Society: A Review of the Field Chris Shilling University of Kent [email protected] ABSTRACT: During the last few decades there has been a pro- nounced ‘turn to the body’ within sociology and social thought. Ex- ploring the background to and the parameters of this development, this paper explores how this focus on embodiment has been used to de- velop new perspectives within social and cultural analysis, and can be assessed as an essential means of avoiding the Cartesian bias within much Western thought. Revisiting sociology’s heritage, it then identi- fies important resources for this project within classical writings, be- fore analyzing why the body has become such a contested phenome- non within social analysis and society. As developments in science, medicine and technology have made the body increasingly malleable, so too have they made it subject to debates and disagreements about what is normal, desirable and even sacred about the physical identities and capacities of embodied subjects. Keywords: the body, embodiment, sociology, structures/agency, social inequalities. Introduction There has, since the 1980s, been an increasing focus within academic re- search and writing on the social significance of the body. This developing recogni- tion represented an attempt to advance the explanatory power of social, cultural and historical analysis, while also seeking to recover from the Cartesian legacy of West- ern thought a subject that had become marginalized within academic writings (e.g.
    [Show full text]
  • Sociology (SOC) 1
    Sociology (SOC) 1 SOC 3708 Political Sociology 3 s.h. SOCIOLOGY (SOC) The social conditions that affect government and politics and that may help to determine political order and regulate struggles for power; associations and SOC 1500 Introduction to Sociology 3 s.h. movements leading to stability or change. An introduction to the science of human societies and groups: analysis of the Prereq.: SOC 1500. structures, functions, and processes that bring about changes in societies, SOC 3720 Applied Sociology 3 s.h. groups, communities, classes, and institutions. Uses of sociology in practical affairs, providing theory and data for public Gen Ed: Social Science. policy, institutional reform, social action programs, and social inventions. SOC 2601 Social Problems 3 s.h. Contributions to architectural design, industrial engineering, community A sociological overview of various contemporary social issues, analyzing planning, and innovative legislation. significant discrepancies between standards of expectation and actual social Prereq.: SOC 1500. behavior, attempting to ascertain possible causes, and discussing trends and Cross-listed: AMER 3720. possible changes. SOC 3731 Social Deviance 3 s.h. Gen Ed: Social Science. Focuses on problems of drug abuse, sexual deviation, crime, and other forms SOC 2630 Criminology 3 s.h. of deviance. Theoretical approaches to deviant behavior; etiologies and Study of the social context of crime in America. Review of historical theories methods of social control are explored. offered in explanation of criminal behavior. Prereq.: SOC 1500 or CJFS 1500. SOC 2640 Gender in Society 3 s.h. SOC 3733 White Collar Crime 3 s.h. Sociological analysis of gender role issues by major institutions of society, Focuses on distinguishing between various types of white collar crime, such including political, educational, economic and legal systems as well as media as corporate fraud, corruption of public officials, and environmental crime.
    [Show full text]
  • Body Projects: Masculinity, Identity and Embodiment
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by LSE Research Online LSE Research Articles Online Body projects and the regulation of normative masculinity Rosalind Gill, Karen Henwood and Carl McLean Articles available via LSE Research Articles Online are protected under intellectual property law, including copyright law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law Cite this version: Gill, R.; Henwood, K.; McLean, C. (2005). Body projects and the regulation of normative masculinity. London: LSE Research Articles Online. Available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/archive/00000371/ This is an electronic version of an Article published in Body & Society 11 (1) pp. 37-62 © 2005 SAGE Publications. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1357034X05049849 http://eprints.lse.ac.uk Contact LSE Research Articles Online at: [email protected] Body Projects and the Regulation of Normative Masculinity Rosalind Gill (1), Karen Henwood (2) and Carl McLean (1) (1) Gender Insitute London School of Economics and Political Science Houghton Street London WC 2A 2AE (2) Faculty of Health and Social Studies University of East Anglia Norwich Abstract Drawing on interviews with 140 young British males, this paper explores the ways in which men talk about their own bodies and bodily practices, and those of other men. The specific focus of interest is a variety of body modification practices, including working out (at a gym) tattooing, piercing and cosmetic surgery. We want to argue, however, that the significance of this analysis extends beyond the topic of body modification to a broader set of issues concerned with the nature of men’s embodied identities.
    [Show full text]
  • Theorizing the 'Leaking, Lacking and Excessive' Bodies of Disabled Children
    This article was downloaded by: [Dan Goodley] On: 09 February 2012, At: 00:52 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/sjdr20 The body as disability and possability: theorizing the ‘leaking, lacking and excessive’ bodies of disabled children Dan Goodley a & Katherine Runswick-Cole a a Research Institute for Health and Social Change, Department of Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan University, Gaskell Campus, Manchester, UK Available online: 09 Feb 2012 To cite this article: Dan Goodley & Katherine Runswick-Cole (2012): The body as disability and possability: theorizing the ‘leaking, lacking and excessive’ bodies of disabled children, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, DOI:10.1080/15017419.2011.640410 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15017419.2011.640410 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and- conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
    [Show full text]
  • Sociology of the Body (SOCY 79.6) MWF 11:15-12:20 Silsby 119 Prof
    Sociology of the Body (SOCY 79.6) MWF 11:15-12:20 Silsby 119 Prof. Piper Coutinho-Sledge [email protected] Office Silsby 109 Office Hours M 12:30-1:30, F 10-11, or by appointment Course Description Can social life exist without bodies? How can attention to the body influence our understanding of social processes of subjectivity, interaction, and practice? While the body has long been an "absent presence" in sociology, multiple approaches to theorizing and researching the body have emerged in recent decades. A sociological approach to the body and embodiment provides an opportunity to bridge the gap between everyday experience and analyses of broad social structures which can seem disconnected from daily life. In this course, we will examine the processes by which individual bodies are shaped by and, in turn, shape social life. Key questions to be explored include: how are bodies regulated by social forces; how do individuals perform the body and how does interactional context influence this performance; what is the meaning of the body in social life; and is there a "right" body? Course Requirements This is primarily a reading seminar. All required readings will be available on Blackboard. Some readings my change over the course of the quarter. All changes will be announced in class and on Blackboard. It is your responsibility to check Blackboard for course related announcements. Students are expected to attend each class meeting and should come to each class prepared to discuss the material in depth. Class time will include full and small group discussions.
    [Show full text]
  • The Effective Sociological Factors on Body Modification Among Tehranian Women Mitra Sarabian1, Dariush Boostani2
    The effective sociological factors on body modification among Tehranian women Mitra Sarabian1, Dariush Boostani2 Journal of Research & Health Abstract Social Development & Health Promotion Research Center Body is center of many debates in sociology during last decades. Vol. 8, No. 3, May & Jun 2018 Sociologists believe that human body is a project of identity. It Pages: 262- 268 seems that women pay more attention to their body; therefore, DOI: 10.29252/jrh.8.3.262 this study investigated the effective factors on body modification Original Article of Tehranian women. Body modification includes weight control, 1. Department of Sociology, Faculty of cosmetic services, using medicines and creams, and medical Literature and Humanity, Sciences and Research University, Tehran, Iran services. Among the theories of body modification, theories of 2. Correspondence to: Department of Social Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, and Brayan Turner were Sciences, Faculty of Literature and Humanity, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, selected as the theoretical framework of this research; then Iran research model and hypothesis were extracted. The statistical Email: [email protected] population was all of the Tehranian women at the age range of 22-44 years. Using multi-stage cluster sampling method, Received: 23 Feb 2016 384 women were selected. A researcher-made questionnaire Accepted: 14 Dec 2016 was used for data collection. The results of the study showed How to cite this article: Sarabian M, Boostani that body modification can have a significant relationship with D. The effective sociological factors on body modification among Tehranian women. J consumerism, media consumption, personal identity, social class Research Health2018; 8(3): 262- 268.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    1 Introduction This book is intended to be a theoretical contribution to the sociology of the body and the rapidly expanding field of ‘body studies’. In what follows I examine the changing status of the body in the discipline, evaluate and build upon the major perspectives utilized by sociologi- cal studies of the body, explore the implications of these perspectives for key social issues, and offer my own analysis of the relationship between the body, self-identity and death in the contemporary period of ‘late’ modernity (Giddens, 1991). In this analysis I argue that, in the current era, there is a particular tendency for the body to become central to the modern person’s sense of self-identity. Against this background, the prospect of mortality assumes an importance that only recently received the sociological attention it deserves, yet is key to understanding people’s contrasting engagements with the shifting boundaries that delineate life and death. This opening chap- ter introduces these issues, familiarizing the reader with the main themes informing this study. In recent decades there has been a large growth of academic inter- est in the body. The sociology of the body is now firmly established: the international journal Body & Society was launched in 1995, the British Sociological Association and the American Sociological Association contain study sections on body matters, and there have been calls for the body to serve as an organizing principle for sociol- ogy. Bryan Turner (1992a: 12, 162) has coined the term ‘somatic society’, for example, to describe how the body in modern social systems has become ‘the principal field of political and cultural activity’.
    [Show full text]
  • Post-Ageism Or the Renaturalization of Gender?
    Societies 2012, 2, 222–234; doi:10.3390/soc2040222 OPEN ACCESS societies ISSN 2075-4698 www.mdpi.com/journal/societies Article The Embodied Life Course: Post-ageism or the Renaturalization of Gender? Barbara L. Marshall * and Stephen Katz Department of Sociology, Trent University, Peterborough, ON K9J 7B8, Canada; E-Mail: [email protected] * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: [email protected]; Tel.: +1-705-748-1011; Fax: +1-705-748-1213. Received: 30 August 2012; in revised form: 4 October 2012 / Accepted: 16 October 2012 / Published: 25 October 2012 Abstract: This paper argues that the sociology of the body must take more account of embodiment as an ongoing process that occurs over the life course, and it suggests that a critical perspective is required that emphasizes the material processes of embodiment by which physical changes in age and time are culturally mediated. We take the concept of the embodied life course as a starting point for probing the temporal aspects of bodily life, for exploring the ways in which biological, biographical and socio-historical time intersect, and for grasping the ways that temporality is materialized and mobilized through bodies. Taking the example of the biomedical reconfiguration of sexual function across the life course, we demonstrate how aging bodies have been opened to new forms of intervention that situate them within new understandings of nature and culture. Conclusions reflect on the contradictions of ‗post-ageist‘ discourses and practices that promise to liberate bodies from chronological age, while simultaneously re-naturalizing gender in sexed bodies. Keywords: aging; biomedicine; embodiment; gender; life course; post-ageism; sexual function; temporality 1.
    [Show full text]
  • The Body Line Controversy": a New Direction for Disability Studies?
    "The body line controversy": a new direction for Disability Studies? (This paper was presented at Hull Disability Studies Seminar in 1996. The exact date of the presentation is unknown). Tom Shakespeare (University of Sunderland), Nicholas Watson (University of Edinburgh) Introduction Disability Studies is a theoretical and research approach which derives from the practical political experiences of the disability movement over the last two decades. While the social model of disability represents a paradigm shift within sociology, it draws upon thinking at the grassroots, as exemplified by documents such as UPIAS' Fundamental Principles of Disability. This paper seeks to develop a comparison between Disability Studies and feminist theory, on the basis of an assumed comparison between the disabled people's movement and the women's movement. It contrasts the DS approach with the academic trend known as Sociology of the Body (SOB), and explores the notion of theory in both these areas of sociological investigation. We will conclude by raising some questions about the strengths and weaknesses of DS theorisation, and reasserting the comparison with feminist thoery. Socially constructing difference Disability Studies, then, puts its emphasis squarely on disability politics. That is disability is viewed as being the product of a disabling society, not the individual pathological body. Being disabled by society is about the twin processes of discrimination [Barnes 1992] and prejudice [Shakespeare 1994a], which restrict individuals with impairment. This is a structural analysis, based on the notion of disabled people as an oppressed minority group, and disablement as a collective experience. Disability is viewed as a problem located within society and the way to reduce disability is to alter the social and physical environment.
    [Show full text]
  • The Body & Society
    The Body & Society Theory, Culture & Society Theory, Culture & Society caters for the resurgence of interest in culture within contemporary social science and the humanities. Building on the heritage of classical social theory, the book series examines ways in which this tradition has been reshaped by a new generation of theorists. It also publishes theoretically informed analyses of everyday life, popular culture, and new intellectual movements. EDITOR: Mike Featherstone, Nottingham Trent University SERIES EDITORIAL BOARD Roy Boyne, University of Durham Scott Lash, Goldsmiths College, University of London Roland Robertson, University of Aberdeen Bryan S. Turner, National University of Singapore THE TCS CENTRE The Theory, Culture & Society book series, the journals Theory, Culture & Society and Body & Society, and related conference, seminar and postgraduate programmes operate from the TCS Centre at Nottingham Trent University. For further details of the TCS Centre’s activities please contact: The TCS Centre School of Arts and Humanities Nottingham Trent University Clifton Lane, Nottingham, NG11 8NS, UK e-mail: [email protected] web: http://sagepub.net/tcs Recent volumes include: The Media City: Media, Architecture and Urban Space Scott McQuire The Dressed Society: Clothing, the Body and Some Meanings of the World Peter Corrigan Informalization: Manners and Emotions Since 1890 Cas Wouters The Culture of Speed: The Coming of Immediacy John Tomlinson Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, Second Edition Mike Featherstone The Body & Society Explorations
    [Show full text]
  • Medical Sociology and the Biological Body: Where Are We Now and Where Do We Go from Here? Simon J
    Medical sociology and the biological body: where are we now and where do we go from here? Simon J. Williams To cite this version: Simon J. Williams. Medical sociology and the biological body: where are we now and where do we go from here?. Health:, 2006, 10 (1), pp.5-30. 10.1177/1363459306058984. hal-00571417 HAL Id: hal-00571417 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00571417 Submitted on 1 Mar 2011 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi) DOI: 10.1177/1363459306058984 Medical sociology and the 1363-4593; Vol 10(1): 5–30 biological body: where are we now and where do we go from here? Simon J. Williams University of Warwick, UK ABSTRACT In this article I pose the question, ‘where is the biological body in medical sociology today?’ The first part of the article provides a selective corporeal balance sheet of where we are now in medical sociology, with particular reference to social constructionist and phenomenological approaches and their respective stances or takes on the (biological) body.
    [Show full text]
  • The Sociology of the Body Sarah Nettleton
    3 The Sociology of the Body Sarah Nettleton In Tom Stoppard's (1967) play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead the two central characters lament the precariousness of their lives. Rosencrantz seeks solace in life's only certainty when he comments that ``the only beginning is birth and the only end is death ± if we can't count on that what can we count on.'' To this he might have added that he could reliably count on the fact that he had a body. The ``fact'' that we are born, have a body, and then die is of course something that does seem to be beyond question. It is something that we can hold on to, as we live in a world that appears to be ever more uncertain and risky (Giddens 1991; Beck 1992). But is this fact so obvious? Ironically, the more sophisticated our medical, technological, and scientific knowledge of bodies becomes the more uncertain we are as to what the body actually is. For example, technological developments have meant that boundaries between the physical (or natural) and social body have become less clear. With the development of assisted conception, when does birth begin? With the development of life extending technologies, when does the life of a physical body end? With the development of prosthetic technologies, what constitutes a ``pure'' human? It seems the old certainties around birth, life, bodies, and death are becoming increasingly complex. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that attempts to understand the social and ethical significance of the body have become central to recent sociological debates.
    [Show full text]