ABSTRACT
Always seen as the ‘poor relation’ or ‘Cinderella’ of contemporary social theory, the sociology of health and illness is proving a particularly fertile terrain upon which to fashion some of these evolving debates, both theoretically and empirically. From the social construction of biomedical knowledge to the phenomenological experience of pain, illness, disability and death, sociological approaches to health and disease throw into critical relief deep ontological questions concerning the nature and status of human embodiment.1 This, coupled with other recent debates surrounding consumption and risk, the new genetics, the role of emotions and the postmodernist critique of health, highlight once again the fruitful links and mutually informing relations between sociological theory and medical sociology.
