The Body and Social Theory

Shilling, C. The Body and Social Theory (2nd Edition) London : Sage , 2003 . £60 ISBN 0-7619-4284-X (hbk) £19.99 ISBN 0-7619-4285-8 (pbk) x + 238pp . The second edition of this now-classic theoretical textbook has been published 10 years after the first one (which itself was re-printed no less than seven times - a testament either to the popularity of the book or the scepticism of the publishers as to its value!). The overall numerical difference between the two editions is just six pages, but this hides the more complex work undertaken by the author for the second edition. Whilst most chapters cover the same material, this is in slightly condensed form so as to enable the addition of a foreword and a 33-page afterword without significantly adding to the cost of publication. In this afterword, Shilling reviews ‘some of the major themes of this study in the light of developments in the sociology of the body . . .’ (p. 16). The over-riding value of the text lies in the way Shilling appraises many traditional and modern sociological theories of the body: Douglas, Foucault and Goffman on the socially-constructed body; Bourdieu and Elias on the body as a capitalist or civilising resource; and - perhaps most interestingly - various approaches to the body, self-identity and death, including Berger, Turner, Bauman and Giddens. Each of these approaches is summarised, analysed and criticised in a relatively accessible way which stimulates the thought processes. Although primary sources are always preferable, the reality of financial constraint dictates our access to such treasures; Shilling's work as a secondary resource is an important contribution. I have made use of the first edition in various ways in most of my assorted work - on disability, identity, junk mail, naturism, the lifecourse, public transport and community profiling - since the mid-1990s. Yet the term ‘inform’ is crucial here because Shilling's review - first or second edition - could be defined as neither a ‘last word’ nor a ‘first word’ on the subject of the body. It is, as Shilling himself notes, a ‘contribution’ to what is, in my view, one of the most significant debates in the history of sociology: that of the body as the ‘irreducible source of society’, the ‘corporeal basis on which identities and social relations are consolidated and changed’ (p. 210). For me, Shilling's work actually raises more empirically-based sociological questions than any solutions offered. Many of my personal and theoretical interests lie, for example, in single-issue politics and political campaigning. So I ask the question: how does a sociology of the body explain the power and attractiveness of massed bodies as ‘single voice’: peace vigils or rallies, as in Ireland, Spain, Eastern Europe and the United Kingdom; the well-known activities of members of Greenpeace, or those offering their bodies as ‘human shields’ as a protest against war? Secondly, and perhaps more relevant to this journal, there is the theoretical problem of ‘fragmented bodies’. How, for example, does a sociology of the body explain the current medical fad regarding infant feeding in the UK (where excellent formula alternatives and clean water exist in abundance)? We have moved well beyond the ‘breast is best’ syndrome to - arguably - emotional abuse of women, who are effectively bullied by medical and nursing professionals (through a lack of reasoned alternative information) into breast-feeding their babies. This attitude towards women's breasts seems to represent a return to the ‘naturalistic body’ or alternatively a view of the body as a ‘capitalistic resource’, and flies in the face of the language of choice implied in the ‘socially constructed body’ theories. Yet it is not the body that is abused, but the mind within that body. Again, in terms of ‘fragmented bodies’, how does a sociology of the body begin to explain the willingness to donate one's body parts or fluids (e.g. kidneys, eggs, sperm, blood) whilst still alive? And how do we begin to analyse and reconcile the differences between, on the one hand, the distress caused by hospitals withholding body parts from already-dead babies and children (thereby resulting, sometimes many years later, in a second funeral ritual for the same body), and, on the other hand, the removal of body-parts from clinically, but not functionally, dead carriers of donor cards? These two empirical examples illustrate something of the complexity of trying to define both ‘body’ and ‘life’. A further issue for theorising ‘fragmented bodies’ lies in self-harm, and ultimately in the willing ending of embodiment. Despite Shilling's perceptive comments on embodiment, identity and theory in the afterword of the second edition, we seem little nearer to understanding or explaining suicide sociologically than we were when Durkheim attempted his quantitative analysis a century ago. Such embodied action, of course, has taken on new and chilling importance with the increasing number of suicide bombers, who not only kill or maim others but scatter their own body parts over a wide area. Indeed, such empirical examples tend to highlight the fact that most, if not all, current and past sociological approaches to the body are embedded in a naturalistic philosophy of desire for continuing embodiment (life). And herein lies, for me, the problematisation of Shilling's work. The very fact that any of these questions can be partially - but only partially - explained by a number of different approaches, all of which are to some extent mutually exclusive - highlights the ambiguity of theoretical approaches to the body that fail fully to account for the mind as part of that body. The classic works of Alfred Schutz on phenomenology taught us to be sceptical of attempts to categorise the mind of another. He wrote from within his era - with a philosophical split of mind and body. How do we develop a sociology of the body that engages, not in a mindless body, nor a mind-body split but in an embodied relationship between body and mind

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