Medical sociology and the biological body: where are we now and where do we go from here?

More documents from Williams, Simon J.
More documents from Health

[journal article]

Williams, Simon J.

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Please use the following Persistent Identifier (PID) to cite this document:http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-225945

Abstract	In this article I pose the question, 'where is the biological body in medical sociology today?' The first part of the article provides a selective corporeal balance sheet of where we are now in medical sociology, with particular reference to social constructionist and phenomenological approaches and their respective stances or takes on the (biological) body. The subsequent section considers where we might profitably be going in the future in terms of bringing the biological body (back) in, and the broader issues this raises for the sociological enterprise as a whole. Various problems associated with this evolving project and merits of other recent approaches, such as the sociology of translation, are considered. The article concludes with some further thoughts and reflections on these matters, including a revisiting of relations between the sociology of the body and medical sociology in the light of these debates.
Classification	Medical Sociology
Free Keywords	body; biology; medicine; practice; realism
Document language	English
Publication Year	2006
Page/Pages	p. 5-30
Journal	Health, 10 (2006) 1
DOI	http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1363459306058984
Status	Postprint; peer reviewed
Licence	PEER Licence Agreement (applicable only to documents from PEER project)