The rise of body studies and the embodiment of society: A review of the field

During the last few decades there has been a pronounced

‘turn to the body’ within sociology and social thought. Exploring

the background to and the parameters of this development, this

paper explores how this focus on embodiment has been used to develop

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 identifies

important resources for this project within classical writings, before

analyzing why the body has become such a contested phenomenon

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.