Making Bodies: Sexed and Gendered Bodies as Social Institutions

ISBN-13: 9783031454769 / Angielski

Irene Rafanell

Spis treści

Chapter 1. Introduction. Genesis and Overview

Part I. General Overview. Introducing the Debate on Social Constructionism of the Body.

Chapter 2. Sociology and the Body

2.1. Sociology and socially constructed reality

2.2. Social constructionism and the body

2.2.1. Feminism, gender and the body

2.2.2. The new sociology of the body

2.2.3. Symbolic Interactionism: interacting bodies

Part II. Two Social Constructionist Models: Bourdieu Theory of Practice and the Strong Programme. 

Chapter 3. Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice: The Embodiment of Social Reality

3.1. Habitus in focus: a reconstruction of dispositions.

3.2. The logic of practice: dispositions, power relations and the ordering 

of symbolic violence             

3.3. The social constructionism of Bourdieu’s model            

Chapter 4. The Performative Theory of Social Institutions: The Social Theory of the Strong Programme. 

4.1.Barnes’ Performative Theory of Social Institutions

4.2. From the nature of social reality to the social bases of ‘nature’ categories

4.3. Rules as social institutions and the interactive bases of social life

4.4. Kusch’s further development of the theory of social institutions                   

4.5. Conclusion: the collective interactionist view of social institutions

Part III. Critical Comparison of Bourdieu and the Performative Theory sociological accounts. 

Chapter 5. Reassessing Bourdieu’s Contribution to the Debate on the Social Construction of the Body.

5.1.Introducing the body

5.2.The embodied habitus and sex identity: the social nature of an embodied

sex and gender identity in Bourdieu

5.3. Bourdieu’s structuralist model: the force of ‘things’ or a social 

ontology of externality

Chapter 6. Discursive Feminism Evaluating Bourdieu: The Structuralist Controversy within the Sex and Gender Debate. 

6.1. Introducing Butler’s examination of Bourdieu’s model

6.2. Butler’s discursive model: the force of ‘words’ or a social 

ontology of internality

6.3. Reviewing Butler’s evaluation of Bourdieu’s model

Chapter 7. Sex Habitus as an Artificial Kind: a Critical Reconstruction of 

Sexed and Gendered Bodies.

7.1. Sex habitus and the nature/culture debate: a synthesis

7.1.1. Sex habitus as an artificial kind: the social bases of an 

embodied sex

7.1.2.  Sex habitus as an artificial kind: the natural bases of an 

embodied sex

7.2. Social sanctioning and its constitutive role for individual formation

7.3. The micro-dynamics of identity formation: sexed habitus and the 

formation of an inner sense of identity.

7.4. Reconstructing habitus as an artificial kind

Chapter 8. Identifying Power: ‘to have’ and ‘to be’ power.

8.1 Bourdieu’s extrinsic view of power: to have power and power 

as repressive

8.2. Barnes and Foucault: an intrinsic conception of power

8.3. Concluding remarks: extrinsic versus intrinsic conceptions of power

Chapter 9. Conclusions. New Avenues for a Sociological Enquiry of Sexed 

and Gendered Bodies

9.1. Sex habitus as an artificial kind: a synthesis between ‘nature’ 

and ‘culture

9.2. Reconsidering the ‘logic’ of practices: a synthesis of micro and

macro social phenomena, agency and structure

9.3. Methodological implications: researching mechanisms

9.4. The Structuralist Debate: Extrinsic versus Intrinsic Structuralisms

O autorze

Irene Rafanell is a lecturer at the University of the West of Scotland, UK where she teaches on gender theory, sociology of the body and social theory. Her work explores the connections between social theory, social constructionism, sociology of knowledge and the body. She has also published on the role of micro-affective dynamics on the constitution of social phenomena.

Blurb

"Irene Rafanell's study is extremely important and timely: the book offers bold and original reflections on theories of kinds, the body, sex and gender - from Butler to Bourdieu, and Foucault to Barnes. The book should be compulsory reading for scholars working on social construction, on the sociology or philosophy of the body, on gender studies and on issues of LGBTQIA+."

-- Martin Kusch, Professor of Philosophy, University of Vienna

This book presents a novel theoretical account of the claim that sexed and gendered bodies are socially constructed. In order to do so it critically reconstructs and combines existing theories of the embodiment of social identity (Bourdieu, Foucault, Butler) with the constructionist account of the Sociology of Knowledge (Strong Programme). This allows the author to develop a detailed conceptual apparatus which helps to analyse the nature of sexed and gendered bodies as social institutions. This book argues for a view of the body as an ‘artificial kind’ of entity which is the effect of contingent and localized practices and that incorporates both social and natural determinants. In doing so, the book reformulates key sociological dichotomies such as nature/society; structure/agency and domination/resistance, critically analysing different structuralist positions and advancing an ‘intrinsic’ structuralist model which foregrounds the importance of human relations in the constitution of social phenomena. This theoretical investigation has important methodological implications for empirical research into the formation of sex and gender identities and practices, enabling a more objective and naturalistic approach to empirical data concerning social phenomena.

Irene Rafanell is a lecturer at the University of the West of Scotland, UK where she teaches on gender theory, sociology of the body and social theory. Her work explores the connections between social theory, social constructionism, sociology of knowledge and the body. She has also published on the role of micro-affective dynamics on the constitution of social phenomena.