Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Diverse theoretical traditions have been influential in the development of the contemporary sociology of the body, such as philosophical anthropology, Marxist humanism, and phenomenology. However, Michel Foucault (1926–84) has been a dominant influence in late twentieth-century historical and sociological approaches. His research on sexuality, medicine, and discipline gave rise to a general theory of the government of the body. The distinction between the discipline of the individual body (“the anatomo-politics of the body”) and regulatory controls (“a bio-politics of the population”) in The History of Sexuality (1978) stimulated a general sociological investigation of “governmentality” (Burchell et al. 1991). Systematic sociological interest in the body began in the 1980s with The Body and Society ( Turner 1984 ) and Five Bodies (O'Neill 1985). The journal Body and Society was launched in 1995 to cater for this expanding academic market. Taking a wider perspective, there has been a persistent but erratic and uncertain interest from symbolic interactionism in body, identity, self, and interaction. Erving Goffman in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) demonstrated the importance of the body for identity in disruptions to interaction. Recognition of the need to manage bodily functions to avoid embarrassment was an important consequence of Goffman's approach. ... log in or subscribe to read full text