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Sociology of the Body and the Relation between Sociology and Biology

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The Palgrave Handbook of Sociology in Britain

Abstract

Over the last three decades the sociology of the body has emerged as a distinctive field, led by British sociologists. From being ignored or simply taken as given as a biological basis of human existence, the body increasingly came to be seen as socially produced and regulated and as fundamental to social interaction and identity. Yet over the same period new forms of biological determinism have gained prominence, which threaten to reduce not only the body but also the whole of social life to biology. This is particularly true of evolutionary psychology but is also a feature of some essentialist versions of neuroscience and genetics. There have also been calls for a rapprochement between social and biological approaches to the body, from a variety of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives, some of which are productive for sociology, others far less so.

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Authors
  1. Stevi Jackson
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  2. Sue Scott
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Nottingham, UK

    John Holmwood

  2. University of Copenhagen, Denmark

    John Scott

Copyright information

© 2014 Stevi Jackson and Sue Scott

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Jackson, S., Scott, S. (2014). Sociology of the Body and the Relation between Sociology and Biology. In: Holmwood, J., Scott, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Sociology in Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137318862_25

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