Is it possible to demonstrate that a sociological analysis of the body and its varied states shed ‘light’ on the experiences of embodiment?

In order to value the cessation in which sociological summary sheds light on the birth of build it is essential that we first break bring down the meanings behind the doubtfulness. The concept of condition is derived from the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, who make dodthat to the cognise the world, we support to perceive it. the embodiment of the compassionate being is fundamental. (cited in Reber & adenine Reber 2001. p115).Reber & Reber (2001) go on to explain embodiment as the mode by which charitable beings practi recally engage and interact with the world. The experience of having a em be alters in proportion to the particular condition, or commonwealth, of the consistency at any one eon. These change states hobo include differences in long or short-term sanitaryness or, for example, whether the em soundbox is in pain or non at a particular time. Other states hind end include diversity in age, or just altered states much(prenominal) as pregnancy.Th e sociological analysis of any capable matter involves having the ability to trace think in the midst of the wider edict and the lives of the individualists within it, having an ken of mixer structures. In air to sociological theories be those within the biological essentialist paradigm, whose definitions invalidate the instinct of the body into terms of the physiological and absolute. This essay impart attempt to lucubrate the importance of the sociological explanation in collar the body and its varied states, whilst spotlight the limitations of the more(prenominal) than essentialist approach.The health and ailment of the military man beings body has traditionally been de evokeualised in terms of the biomedical model, which is based upon the assent of scientific concomitants. The body is seen as a primarily biological entity thusly ignoring external, surround itemors, such as the family and the instruction system, moldable our bodies and minds. The idea that the mind and body ar separate entities emanates from Descartes, dating back to the ordinal century. A time, know as the enlightenment, when societies would hap to depend more and more on scientific and rational explanations at the put down of religious explanations. in that location was an app atomic number 18nt bring towards a more physiological and essentialist discretion of everyday lifetime and a out staying decline in more ghostlike and less scientific explanations. Health and illness is traditionally described in a medical expressive style. Pregnancy, for example, although a natural state for the egg-producing(prenominal) body, has undergone extreme medical intervention. Martin (1987) suggests that better-looking birth is in incident so medicalised that it gutter be described as drill done by the uterus. She goes on to create a persuade analogy between the job of having a luxuriate and the ability of women as workers to resist their conditions.The essen tialist lineage is argued to be both narrow in its assumptions regarding the body and the individuals ability to engage let off will. The theorists ignore the doctor of external factors, lay out that all mankind behaviour is inbred and fixed. In juvenile times, largely out-of-pocket(p) to a more sociological dread of the mind and body, it is understood that they in fact work together much more closely than ever realised before, and thus the concept of mind-body dualism is introduced.White (2002) argues that on the groundwork of empirical research sociologists demonstrate how the interactions of affectionate class, military group, sexual practice and ethnicity enter into the formation of familiarity just about the treatment of a unhealthiness or indis coif. The hearty production and dissemination of diseases and illnesses, illustrate how these varied states could be otherwise understood, treated and experienced by demonstrating how disease is produced out of a micable organisation sort of than nature, biology or individual lifestyle choices. White (2002) also suggests that our cognition of health and illness, the organisations of the professions which deal with it and our own responses to our bodily states are general anatomyd and formed by the chronicle of our society and our place in it. He criticises medical explanations, stating that they only serve to obscure, or completely c everyplace, the genial shaping and statistical distri bution of disease, disease categories and health services.Firstly we mustiness consider more traditional sociological theories such as functionalism, mostly illustrated by Parsons concept of the sick power, a social office that is shaped by the social res checks of modern society. The guidance is on how being ill must take a specific form in clement societies in order that the social systems persistentness and cohesion can be maintained. Parsonian sociology emphasises the role of euphony in mainta ining social harmony, pointing to the non-market grounding of professional groups. Highlighting the social declare of medicine in enforcing compliance with social roles in modern society.Marxist approaches accentuate the causal role of frugals in the production and distribution of disease, as closely as the role of medical knowledge in sustaining the class structure. Marxists are concern with the relationship between health and illness and capitalist social organisation.Feminists key leaning is that the path in which we are interact into masculine and feminine social roles will reach a determining rig on our health and illness. They argue that medicine plays a vital role in enforcing conformity because insureling womens ability to be sick is central to a patriarchal society. Feminists argue that the majority of medical attention compensable to women is around their reproductive organs and their life cycleMarxist-feminists identify the agencys in which class and patria rchy interact to define the subordinate position of women in society and the central role that medical knowledge plays in defining women.In contrast to these more structural approaches the interactionists would argue the focus should be betokened at the itinerary illness is a social acquisition between actors rather than merely a matter of physiological malfunction (Bilton et al 1997). Self-identity has fail more fluid and negotiable, detached from social structures, which are often claimed to be just a figment of the sociological imagination. For some theorists the discovery of the body, linked to these thinned structures, has led to the argument that we construct our bodies as we see fit. White (2002) emphasises the openness of the body, and of the individuals that shape it.More recent notions of the body have examined the cultural meanings placed upon it, desirable body size, weight and shape etc. there has been much sociological research into thought the ideas behind the individuals concept of the self. Much of this work is revolving around bodily appearance and individual self-perception, labels given to us by others and ourselves. Tyler (1998) investigated the recruitment and training of distaff flight attendants, last that their workinvolved adhering to culturally positive norms on femininity as well as organisational regulations governing her figureFeminists reactions to the management in which medicine medicalises their bodies have embossed crucial issues at the centre of sociological explanations of disease.Illnesses are not simply deviations from the bodys popular functioning, being ill can have a number of meanings that extend beyond a simple biomedical one. Sontage (1991) shows how TB and AIDS have attached meanings, so that they become dirty and unclean illnesses that invade the body. People who suffer from such stigmatised illnesses may well change the way they view their bodies and their own self-identity is affected, thus an ex ercise of mind-body dualism.Goffman, a key interactionist, theory of the body can be summarised by leash main features. Firstly, that you can view the body as a material, communicating entity, controlled by individuals in order to facilitate and direct social interaction. Secondly, the meanings attributed to the body are situated by shared vocabularies of non-verbal language, such as facial expression and dress, which are not under the immediate control of individuals but which nevertheless categorise and differentiate between people. Thirdly, the body mediates the relationship between peoples self-identity and their social identity, two quite different states. Consequently, these classifications greatly influence how individuals seek to manage their bodies and they way in which their bodies are perceived.In addition to its reflections on economic, social and political changes in society postmodernism is characterised by a hunch of science as the truth. Senior (1996) suggests th at people are more accepting of their own understanding of the world. Post modernists claim that no ace theory can explain such a wide variation of experiences. index number is of crucial concern, not only economic power but also in the form of language, or discourse. Knowledge of the body becomes power, possessors of this knowledge can exercise control over those without, for example the doctor/ patient of relationship.Foucault, an extreme social constructionist, highlights the social role of medical knowledge in tyrannical populations. Similarly to Parsons, Foucault emphasises the diverse nature of power relationships in modern society, describing the emergence of a dominant medical discourse, which has constructed definitions of normality and deviance. For Foucault modern societies are systems of organised watchfulness with individuals conducting the surveillance themselves, having internalised the professional models of what is appropriate behaviour.The usefulness of Foucaul ts position is the way in which he historically locates medical knowledge, especially in allowing for the schooling of the sociology of the body. By showing how the body is historically constructed, Foucault has been accepted and adapted by feminists, known as Foucauldian-feminisms, who show that it is in fact the construction of gender specific bodies that needs analysis.Okely (1993) writes a subjective account of her time spent at an all-girls boarding school, linking her experiences of class, gender and power inequalities, and the continue of these inequalities on the human body. She also refers to Mauss (1936) in her writings and the way in which it is discussed that different societies, groups and even forms of didactics make different uses of the body. These uses may and have often been documented to change over time and in individual variations.Mauss (1936) isolates three factors that are involved in understanding the body those are social, psychological and biological ( as cited in Okely 1993. p111). Okely (1993) talks of her constant attempts to change over the authorities, for example teachers, that she had internalised the institutions way of life, of being a lady however, her body often let her down. She goes on to recall that the minutest gesture could betray a lack of conviction, a failure of convertation (Okely 1993. p112).Children and adolescents are the most vulnerable to these remote influences, which often permanently shape their minds and bodies. Okely cited a former resident that had attempted to train to become an opera singer, but who could not breath deeply enough. She believed this to be due to a constant requirement to stand tall and firm, therefore, leading the chest to become too rigidly encased. The girl evidently saw a connection with her education and her bodily state.In an attempt to defecate attention to the social and individual impact of merely wearing a tag on the left or ripe side of your uniform, Okely highligh ts that in many socialisations the ripe(p) and left sides of the body, for example the hands, are apply to represent symbolic and social oppositions.the mature is given pre-eminence and may be associated with order, legitimacy and the male while the left can be associated with disorder, disruptive forces and the female (Hertz 1960 as cited by Okely 1993. p115.)In an effort to transform society, social constructionists inevitably raise questions about the past and the future, as they call into question prevail ideological frameworks. Social constructionist approaches call attention to the paradox between the historically variable ways in which culture and society construct seemingly stable reality.Social constructionist theory suggests that sexuality is a fluid and changeable entity, the product of human action and history rather than the endpoint of the body, biology or an innate sex drive, as essentialism would suggest. Vance (1994) in her research into female sexuality, whi ch can also be seen as a varied state, uses the example of female circumcision. She illustrates that social constructionists have not cut the body, its function and physiology, and still in fact have the ability to incorporate the body with its theory without returning to essentialism.From a sociological perspective, biology is by no manner the overriding factor in the using of a disease. Rather, as White (2002) suggests, it is the prevailing social and economic conditions that allow a disease to develop which must be accounted for. Furthermoregiven that germs do not speak for themselves, it is our interpretation of events that leads some conditions to be categorised as diseases. (White 2002. p12)But to what extent has the sociological analysis of the body and its varied states shed light on the experiences of embodiment? It is drop dead from the brief evidence summarised above and the rendition available on the subject that the essentialist explanation of the body in incomplet e. As with any aspect of human society the impact of the relationship between the individual and his/her environs must be taken into consideration. There is much work to be undertaken in this area of study and many more links, or dualisms, to be uncovered.