ABSTRACT
The body seems to be a constant bother. It leads the philosopher’s thoughts astray and tempts the religious to sin. It is irrelevant in the social science research field that the early sociologist claimed. Feminists have shunned it to avoid biological determinism, and the disability movement has shunned it to avoid medicalization. In this book, the body is central. It is a source of pleasure and annoyance: it is fast and flexible, it causes pain and leakage. In this chapter I concur with researchers who argue for the necessity of
including the body within sociology, disability research/disability studies as well as feminist theory.1 When the sociologist Bryan S. Turner (2008: 40-1) draws up guidelines for a sociology of the body he claims it has to relate to:
1 the body as part of both nature and culture; 2 the sharp dividing line that often are drawn between self and body in
sociological theory; 3 the body as central in political struggle; and 4 the distinction between the individual’s and the population’s body.
