ABSTRACT
Recent writing and research on the body (Amour 1999; Bordo 1989, 1992; Frost 2001; Grosz 1995; Kirk 1993) suggests that bodies are both inscribed with and vehicles of culture. This implies that what we eat, how we dress and the way we move are not only inscribed and ‘learned’ but also serve as mechanisms of social control. As Arthurs and Grimshaw (1999) point out:
. . . the body is itself the subject of constant social inscription; it is discursively constructed and ‘written’ on by innumerable forms of social discipline: there is no possibility of a sharp distinction between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’.
