Special Issue "Embodied Action, Embodied Theory: Understanding the Body in Society"

Guest Editor
Dr. Jacqueline Low
Department of Sociology, Carleton Hall, Room 132, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, E3B 5A3, Canada
Website: http://www.unb.ca/fredericton/arts/departments/sociology/people/jlow.html
E-Mail: jlow@unb.ca
Phone: +1 506 458 7439
Fax: +1 506 453 4659
Interests: sociology of health; illness; health policy and health care; in particular chronic illness; disability; and alternative and complementary therapies; deviant behavior; qualitative research methods; sociology of the body

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Claudia Malacrida
Department of Sociology, University of Lethbridge, UHall A-890, 4401 University Drive Lethbridge, Alberta Canada T1K 3M4
Website: http://directory.uleth.ca/users/claudia.malacrida?no_headers=1
E-Mail: claudia.malacrida@uleth.ca
Phone: +1 403 329-2738
Fax: +1 403 329-2085
Interests: sociology of the body; motherhood; disability; policy; eugenics and reproductive knowledge production; all as forms of social control

This special issue follows the ISA World Forum on "The Body in the Social Sciences" to be held in Buenos Aries Aug 1-4, 2012 (http://www.isa-sociology.org/buenos-aires-2012/rc/rc.php?n=RC54), but is also open to submissions of papers not presented at the Forum. This special issue focuses on the interconnectedness of the body and society, thus it will include works that explore how the body is shaped by and constrained through socio-cultural processes, as well as those that focus on how bodies in action affect the societies in which they operate. As Goffman (1972) pointed out in his seminal presidential address to the American Sociological Association, "The Interaction Order," we cannot act without our bodies, meaning sociology must account for the body.

Moreover, accounting for the body and its interconnectedness with society gives rise to recurring debates concerning whether or not a true sociology of the body requires a recasting of sociological theory. Recent sociological writing on the body by such writers as Chris Shilling, Bryan Turner, Arthur Frank, Margaret Shildrick, and Mike Featherstone (to name a few) does more than merely mark out a substantive area for the body that leaves traditional sociological perspectives unchallenged. Rather, this body of work has made monumental inroads in reinserting the body into sociological research and bridging that work into a vigorous theory of the sociological body and of embodied sociology. In this work, the classic works of Goffman and Foucault have been re-examined for their embodied perspectives, the contributions of feminist scholars have been brought into a sociological framing of the body, and the implications of consumerism, aging populations, high modernity and postmodernity have been incorporated into a burgeoning sociological examination of the body. Current scholarship continues working towards linking corporeal experience to social processes, systems, and structures, permitting sociologists of the body to understand the workings of power, interactions between social actors, and the ways that social norms and roles operate in nuanced and analytically powerful ways.

This special issue invites papers that further develop these theories and sociological understandings of the body. We are particularly interested in papers that explore the connections between the lived body and the body as a set of social experiences, insights into the body as a site of social control, and examinations of the body as a vehicle for the expression and consumption of culture.

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed Open Access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. For the first couple of issues the Article Processing Charge (APC) will be waived for well-prepared manuscripts. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

• body
• social body
• embodiment
• corporeality
• lived body
• social theory and the body
• social control of the body