This book explores the diverse ways of researching and theorizing the body. It draws together a range of empirical work on different themes, each taking the body and its study as its central problematic. It creatively combines contributions on disability, illness, scars, sleep, complementary medicine, and running, as well as the lifecourse themes of childhood, youth and death. The different approaches to reaching the body examined through these contributions include autobiography, case studies, interviews, and participant observation.

Interest in the sociological study of the body has increased dramatically in the 1990s. This book builds on this work by bringing together theory and research which examines the social and cultural processes involved in the construction of gendered bodies and sexual practices. Contributors explore these issues in a variety of settings ranging from the workplace and leisure industry to the social regulation of medicine.

This volume explores diverse ways of researching and theorizing the body. It draws together a range of empirical work on different themes, each taking the body and its study as its central problematic. It creatively combines contributions on disability, illness, scars, sleep, complementary medicine, running, as well as the lifecourse themes of childhood, youth and death. The different approaches to researching the body examined through these contributions include autobiography, case-studies, interviews and participant observation.