Description
In popular debates over the influences of nature versus culture on human lives, bodies are often assigned to the category of "nature": biological, essential, and pre-social. The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Body and Embodiment challenges that view, arguing that bodies both shape and get shaped by human societies. As such, the body is an appropriate and necessary area of study for sociologists. The Handbook works to clarify the scope of this topic and display the innovations of research within the field.The volume is divided into three main parts: Bodies and Methodology; Marginalized Bodies; and Embodied Sociology. Sociologists contributing to the first two parts focus on the body and the ways it is given meaning, regulated, and subjected to legal and medical oversight in a variety of social contexts (particularly when the body in question violates norms for how a culture believes bodies "ought" to behave or appear). Sociologists contributing to the last part use the bodily as a lens through which to study social institutions and experiences. These social settings range from personal decisions about medical treatment to programs for teaching police recruits how to use physical force, from social movement tactics to countries' understandings of race and national identity.The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Body also prioritizes empirical evidence and methodological rigor, attending to the ways particular lives are lived in particular physical bodies located within particular cultural and institutional contexts. Many chapters offer extended methodological reflections, providing guidance on how to conduct sociological research on the body and, at times, acknowledging the role the authors' own bodies play in developing their knowledge of the research subject.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: Toward a Sociology of the BodyKatherine Mason and Natalie Boero2. Methodologies for Categories in MotionMaxine Leeds Craig3. Pregnant Embodiment and Field ResearchJennifer Randles4. Sensory Experience and MethodKelvin E.Y. Low and Noorman Abdullah5. Mixed Methods in Body and Embodiment ResearchSamantha Kwan and Trenton M. Haltom6. YouTube Vlogs as Illness Narratives: Methodological ConsiderationNatalie Kay Fullenkamp and Kristin Barker7. Representations of Fatness by Experts and the Media and How This Shapes AttitudesAbigail C. Saguy8. Health at Every Size (HAESTM) as a Reform (Social) Movement within Public Health: A Situational AnalysisNatalie Ingraham9. Fat as a Floating Signifier: Race, Weight, and Femininity in the National ImaginarySabrina Strings10. Animal, Mechanical and Me: Organ Transplantation and the Ambiguity of EmbodimentGillian Haddow11. Aging, Gender, and the BodyLaura Hurd Clarke12. Beyond Binary Sex and Gender IdeologyCary Gabriel Costello13. Male Breast Cancer in the Public ImaginationPiper Sledge14. The Labor of Consumption -or- What Does It Take to Make Men Beautiful?Kristen Barber15. Feeding and Fasting BodiesJaita Talukdar16. Contrasting Scientific Discourses of Skin Lightening in Domestic and Global ContextsCeleste Vaughan Curington and Miliann Kang17. Unruly Bodies: Figurative Violence and The State's Responses to The Black Panther PartyRandolph Hohle18. Race, Phenotype, and Nationality in Brazil and the United StatesTiffany D. Joseph19. The Aesthetic Labor of EthnographersKjerstin Gruys and David J. Hutson20. Bodies That Don't Matter, But Labor That Does: The Low Wage Male Migrant in Singapore and DubaiLaavanya Kathiravelu21. Embodied Spatial Practices and the Power to CareElise Paradis, Warren Liew, and Myles Leslie22. Contesting New Markets for Bodily Knowledge: When and How Experts Draw the LineRene Almeling23. Managing Risky Bodies: From Pregnancy to VaccinationJennifer A. Reich24. The Artificial Pancreas in Cyborg BodiesAnthony Ryan Hatch, Julia T. Gordon, and Sonya R. Sternlieb25. Contesting Lyme DiseaseSonny Nordmarken26. "Laying Hands" and Learning to Touch and Grab in the Police AcademyBrian Lande27. The Place of the Body in Resistance to Intimate Partner Violence: What Do We Know?Valli Rajah and Meg Osborn
