Five Bodies: Re-figuring RelationshipsFive Bodies offers an introduction to some of the most urgent contemporary concerns within the sociology of the body. The book was first published in 1985 in the USA by Cornell University Press, and was nominated for the John Porter Award (sponsored by the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association). A path breaking book, it offered a framework for the growing field of the sociology of the body and opened up ′the body′ for sociological research. This new edition (the previous edition was published by Cornell University Press (1985) has been substantially revised and updated to address today′s issues of the body in modern life, community and politics. John O′Neill examines how embodied selves and relationships are being re-shaped and re-figured and how the embodied figures of the polity, economy and society represent the contested notions of identity, desire, wholeness and fragmentation. He focuses upon those cultural practices through which we map our macro-micro worlds: · articulating a cosmology · a body politic · a productivensumptive economy · a bio-technological frontier of human design and transplantation |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 15
... persons, nature, and social institutions may well be approached through our unavoidable interest in the human body. We shall see in some detail how the human body is an intelligent and critical resource in the civic production of those ...
... person. Moreover, civic society strongly sanctions the protection of bodies. Those who inflict deliberate injury upon ... persons are required to know about bodily conduct and comportment in social settings. The communicative body we ...
... persons, preferring to work with quantitative data or interview schedules. It is the function of much sociological discourse to enact a ritual of decontamination between the scientist and his subject. It is essential that professional ...
... persons. Indeed, it is here that we touch upon two very basic aspects of our social life. It is through our senses that we first appreciate and evaluate others, immediately shaping our own positive, pleasurable, and trusting responses ...
... persons of all sorts are involved for a considerable amount of the day, at enormous cost and by means of the strangest of rituals, are a necessary expression of their commitment to prevailing social mores and values. We must think of ...
Contents
1 | |
9 | |
Social Bodies | 22 |
The Body Politic | 37 |
Consumer Bodies | 54 |
Medical Bodies | 66 |
Conclusion The Future Shape of Human Beings | 79 |
Bibliography | 89 |
Index | 95 |