Family Practice Vol. 18, No. 6, 648-649
© Oxford University Press 2001
Book Review |
The body, culture and society: an introduction.
Philip Hancock, Bill Hughes, Elizabeth Jagger et al. (150 pages, paperback £14.99, hardback £45.) Open University Press, 2000. ISBN paperback 0-335-20413-9, hardback 0-335-20414-7.
GP Trainer and Vocational Training Scheme Course Organizer, Thame, Oxfordshire
If you can get past the jargon, this is a stimulating read. But not easy, despite the authors' protestations that they have kept jargon to a minimum. Those readers who have chosen it as an introduction to current thinking on the place of the body in society would do well to keep a dictionary to hand. But if they stick with it, the meat of the book is excellent and worthwhile. If the reviewer lapses into some of the language of the discourse sociology, it goes to prove only that it is a catchy, enthusiastic and fashionable book.
The problem it poses is what is the role of the body in society? How do contemporaries see the body? What meaning is it given in our culture? The way this group of authors responds is to provide six separate essays, each one dealing with a different approach: ‘Medicalized bodies’, ‘Disabled bodies’, ‘Consumer bodies’, ‘Old bodies’, ‘Working bodies’ and ‘Ethical bodies’. In each case, attitudes and prejudices surrounding the different situations are gently probed from a sociological point of view, modestly but ultimately in a very challenging way.
We are reminded, for example, in Bill Hughes' chapter on ‘Medicalized bodies' that biomedicine has long been regarded by sociologists as an institution of social control. For Foucault at least, despite its claim to scientific certainty, modern medicine has been involved in the disciplining and surveillance of populations. But in the contemporary, secular, de-regulated world, a good deal of the policing of human behaviour—which is traditionally in the powers of religion and law—is carried out in the name of health.
Then, Elizabeth Jagger, in the essay entitled, ‘Consumer bodies’ takes the reader deftly through the sociological deconstruction of consumerism, leading us to the conclusion that ultimately we are what we buy or, "we become what we consume". That each act of consumption carefully shores up the image of ourselves, that "identity is chosen and constructed", and social differences are subtly or not so subtly maintained. That worth is inextricably bound up in taste, and taste is a system of social classification. Jagger pursues her point with a nice piece on female bodybuilding and the way it is used by some participants to assert female subjectivity.
In contrast to these body-empowering images, Ken Paterson and Bill Hughes dwell on the oddity that as the working body becomes less physically relevant, the disabled body becomes almost more marginalized in a paternalistic, non-disabled culture. This is challenging stuff. It is refreshing to see that Marxist analyses of social and economic problems are alive and flourishing. And interspersed with a fairly dense sociological prose are lighter, media-influenced, intriguing conclusions. ". . . the question that will face human kind in the future is that of ‘how to make thought without a body possible?’ —a question based on the proposition that the body will become increasingly viewed as a liability, and as such, will be superseded by the computer as the depository of thought and creativity. Indeed, we can already observe how the development of new technologies of communication and entertainment, particularly those associated with computer-generated realties and the emergence of cyberspace as a domain of human interaction, have cast doubt as to the necessity of the material body to our everyday lives . . .".
This is an enjoyable read. And with a helpful index and bibliography, it should become a popular introduction to the serious study of the sociology of the body.
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