Regulating Bodies

Regulating Bodies by Bryan S Turner

Bryan Turner's book provides a framework for the development of a new sub-field, namely the development of the body. Through an examination of various philosophical traditions (phenomenology, philosophical anthropology, structuralism and postmodernism) the book shows how the human body has been ignored or neglected by mainstream social theory. In attempting to integrate these different traditions, Professor Turner demonstrates how the absent body has impoverished, not only the sociology of health and illness but the very foundations of sociology itself. There are three major aspects to this argument. Firstly, it is impossible to develop an adequate theory of social action without a conception of the embodied social agent. Secondly the idea of embodiment offers a fundamental critique of the positivistic side of the medical model of illness, and thus offers a new theoretical basis for medical sociology. Thirdly, following the work of Michel Foucault, Turner demonstrates that medical practice functions as a moral discourse which produces a regulation of the body.

Kyung-Sup Chang is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for Social Development and Policy Research at Seoul National University. His research interests include: developmental politics and social policy, comparative modernities (compressed modernity), post-socialist transitions in Asia. His work on these issues has appeared in journals including Economy and Society, World Development, Journal of Development Studies, International Sociology. He is also author of South Korea under Compressed Modernity: Familial Political Economy in Transition (Routledge, 2010).

Bryan Turner is the Presidential Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Committee on Religion at the City University of New York. He has published extensively in this area, and books include Muslims in Singapore (Routledge, 2009), and The Body in Asia (Berghahn, 2010). He has also edited The Routledge International Handbook of Globalization Studies (Routledge, 2010), The Routledge Handbook of Body Studies (Routledge, 2012), and is the founding editor of Citizenship Studies.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780415082648
ISBN 10	0415082641
Title	Regulating Bodies
Author	Bryan S Turner
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Taylor & Francis Ltd
Year published	1992-10-01
Number of pages	304
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable