The Social Body; Habit, Identity and Desire

by Nick Crossley

• ISBN13: 9780761966401
• ISBN10: 0761966404
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd

Summary

This book explores both the embodied nature of social life and the social nature of human bodily life. It provides an accessible review of the contemporary social science debates on the body, and develops a coherent new perspective. Nick Crossley critically reviews the literature on mind and body, and also on the body and society. He draws on theoretical insights from the work of Gilbert Ryle, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, George Herbert Mead and Pierre Bourdieu, and shows how the work of these writers overlaps in interesting and important ways which, when combined, provide the basis for a persuasive and robust account of human embodiment. The Social Body provides a timely review of the theoretical approaches to the sociology of the body. It offers new insights, and a coherent new perspective on the body. It will be valuable reading for students and academics in sociology, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and cultural studies.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vi
Introduction	1	(7)
Mind-Body Dualism: Investigating Descartes' Ghost	8	(14)
All in the Brain? A Popular False Start	22	(16)
Beyond Dualism: Exorcising Descartes' Ghost	38	(24)
Meaning, Action and Desire: A Preliminary Sketch of Embodied Agency	62	(29)
Habitus, Capital and Field: Embodiment in Bourdieu's Theory of Practice	91	(29)
Habit, Incorporation and the Corporeal Schema	120	(20)
Reflexive Embodiment: Being, Having and Difference	140	(21)
Afterword: Embodied Agency and the Theory of Practice	161	(2)
Bibliography	163	(5)
Index	168