Corporeality: The Body and Society (Issues in the Social Sciences)

Regardless of how a person spends her or his day, in a classroom, in work or outside employment, whatever our thoughts, beliefs and experiences of life, all living is embodied. We are of and within our bodies. During the last thirty years, social scientists have increasingly turned their attention to the body as a site of both theoretical engagement and empirical exploration. Recently, public discourse has also become preoccupied with embodied debates: the obesity crisis and the London 2012 Paralympics have located the body firmly in the realm of public interest. The new essays collected in Corporeality: The Body and Society demonstrate some of the unique advantages attainable through studying the body sociologically. Focusing in on a series of embodied fields related to lifestyle media, war, disability, drugs and mental health, the book re-states the fundamental importance of a body-centred approach in the social sciences. Work by established experts in the field sits side by side with new voices to provide an accessible and stimulating snap-shot of the role of the body in society in the early-twenty first century.