The rise of body studies and the embodiment of society: A review of the field

During the last few decades there has been a pronounced ‘turn to the body’ within sociology and social thought. Exploring the background to and the parameters of this development, this paper explores how this focus on embodiment has been used to develop new perspectives within social and cultural analysis, and can be assessed as an essential means of avoiding the Cartesian bias within much Western thought. Revisiting sociology’s heritage, it then identifies important resources for this project within classical writings, before analyzing why the body has become such a contested phenomenon within social analysis and society. As developments in science, medicine and technology have made the body increasingly malleable, so too have they made it subject to debates and disagreements about what is normal, desirable and even sacred about the physical identities and capacities of embodied subjects

The vocationalisation of the school curriculum: society, state and economy

This thesis is concerned with the vocationalisation of the school curriculum in Britain from the late nineteenth century to the present. It consists of three sections. The first section constitutes the major theoretical component of the work, and develops a view of society as a dialectically interrelating totality whose parts are invested with differential causal force. The social whole is seen as consisting of micro, meso and macrolevels, which correspond respectively to Inter-individual, interorganizational, and the social relationships which constitute the mode of production. This theory is then used to criticise certain existing approaches towards the sociology of education and develop an alternative which is utilised in the rest of my study. The second section examines the social and economic forces existing on micro, mesa and macro societal levels which were central to the formation and development of school-based vocational schemes. Here, I examine the relationships which have existed between individual career routes, the education system, state, economy, and class struggle. This facilitates an examination of the shifting determinations which constituted vocational education, as they have been located both diachronically and synchronically. The points of interconnection between the forces which impinged upon the progress of vocational education changed between the 'entrepreneurial' (late C19th to WW1), 'collective' (inter-War), and 'corporate' (post WW2) periods of education-industry relations. During these stages, a combination of factors reduced gradually the autonomy of the school system, served to increase the influence of the state over the curriculum, and enabled the introduction of a number of vocational schemes In the 'corporate' period. The final section moves between societal levels in a case-study analysis of the operation of two vocational schemes in a local education authority. This examines how the relationship between micro, meso and macro-levels can introduce disjunctions between the official aims and the actual consequences of vocational schemes. The case-study Is also used to refine elements of the earlier theory and identify the areas of autonomy which remain within micro and meso societal levels. The introduction of the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative, and the Schools Vocational Programme is traced, and their operation is examined. Here, I focus on the subject options process, a school-based vocational course, and the attitudes and approaches of Industrialists, teachers and students to work-experience

The Fate of Social Character in an Age of Uncertainty

This paper develops the longstanding sociological tradition of ‘character studies’ (Riesman, 1969 [1950]), arguing that the accelerated change and associated uncertainties central to late modern life have been accompanied by a new opportunity-directed form of individuality. Engaging with Sayer’s (2019) agenda-setting return to the subject, we acknowledge the ideological uses to which the promotion of this characterological form may be put, but argue that its core qualities can help suitably situated persons negotiate radical uncertainty via a reflexive, future-oriented commitment to agency. Despite the advantages of this orientation in the contemporary era, however, we conclude by suggesting that opportunity-directedness is associated with certain ‘pathologies’, involving psychological costs and social inequalities, that raise questions about its desirability and sustainability

Body Pedagogics, Transactional Identities and Human-Animal Relations

The sociology of the body developed as a reaction against Cartesian conceptions of homo clausus that haunted disciplinary thought in the late twentieth century but exhibited anthropocentric tendencies in neglecting non-human animals. Building upon recent attempts to address this situation, I develop a transactional approach towards body pedagogics that explores how the shifting borders governing human-animal relations influence people’s embodied identities. Transactions between humans and (other) animals have been an historic constant across contrasting societies, but the patterning of these exchanges is framed by specific cultural body pedagogics. Focusing on the institutional means, characteristic experiences and corporeal outcomes of ‘civilizing’ and ‘companionate’ human-animal body pedagogics, I explore the identity-shaping impact of these different modalities of inter-species inter-corporeality and demonstrate the sociological utility of this transactional approach

Embodiment

The “rise of embodiment” has been one of the most significant developments in social theory over the past thirty years, and this chapter examines the historical context for this (re)turn to carnality before interrogating the ambiguities of recent perspectives that risk losing sight of the enfleshed actor. Identifying the need for a counterweight to these strong constructionist and materialist orientations, I suggest that revisiting creatively the notion of the body schema enables us to pursue different theoretical options, while saving from analytical conflation the facticity of embodied subjects

Body pedagogics, transactionalism and vélo identities: Becoming a cyclist in motorised societies

Sociological research into the body pedagogics of occupational, educational, religious, and sporting groups focuses on cases in which the social and material environment reproduces these ‘ways of life’, yet devotes little attention to how cultures are maintained within circumstances hostile to their maintenance. Developing a transactionalist approach to body pedagogics, I explore this gap by investigating the case of cycling within societies dominated by automobility. Cycling, in these contexts, requires individuals to engage creatively with challenging physical and environmental exchanges. Such exchanges frequently alienate but can involve the development of ‘outsider’ mobile status, have been reorganised into stable practices by vélo cultures, and highlight embodied processes relevant to general sociological investigations into marginalised cultures

Body pedagogics, culture and the transactional case of vélo worlds

During the past two decades, there has been a significant growth of sociological studies into the ‘body pedagogics’ of cultural transmission, reproduction and change. Rejecting the tendency to over-valorise cognitive information, these investigations have explored the importance of corporeal capacities, habits and techniques in the processes associated with belonging to specific ‘ways of life’. Focused on practical issues associated with ‘knowing how’ to operate within specific cultures, however, body pedagogic analyses have been less effective at accounting for the incarnation of cultural values. Addressing this limitation, with reference to the radically diverse norms involved historically and contemporarily in ‘vélo worlds’, I develop Dewey’s pragmatist transactionalism by arguing that the social, material and intellectual processes involved in learning physical techniques inevitably entail a concurrent entanglement with, and development of, values

Edgework, Uncertainty and Social Character

This paper proposes a novel conceptual understanding of ‘edgework’ – a term denoting the voluntary embrace of risk - by drawing on the longstanding sociological tradition of character studies. In so doing, it addresses the paradox that while first-generation research into high-risk leisure suggested that these activities provided identity-affirming escapes from bureaucratized capitalism, second-generation writings argued that edgework exists in harmony with the norms of ‘risk societies’, raising questions about its continuing appeal. Developing a new analytical perspective with which to assess these views, we argue that the former studies should be understood in the context of challenges to ‘other-directed’ characterological forms prominent within the post-War era, while the latter signal the embodiment of edgework within emergent ‘opportunity-directed’ modalities of social character. This interpretation explains the enduring attractions of edgework alongside its changed social role, and also signals its utility as a prism through which to observe broader characterological changes

Arbitrage, uncertainty and the new ethos of capitalism

This paper examines the arbitrageur as a figure who both embodies the new ethos of uncertainty central to ‘financialised’ capitalism, and exemplifies the issues of ethics and innovation raised by those who now personify what Weber called the ‘devotion to the calling of making money’. We begin by providing a brief background to financial ‘abstraction’ in the economy, and the issues of dissimulation with which this has been associated, before suggesting that engaging creatively with Weber’s writings can help us identify uncertainty as key to the character of contemporary financial decision-making. It is against this background that we analyse the arbitrageur as an ideal-type personality who embodies a newly abstract approach to capitalism. This approach is frequently portrayed as unethical, but we suggest it can be associated with an ethics of managing the unknown through an innovative commitment to overcoming limits that has consequences for human life in general

On Children (Editorial)

So, what does it mean to compose a journal issue that attempts to look at our relationships with children under the problematic title ‘On Children’? The writing between these pages undoubtedly carries with it an attendant anxiety about objectifying, naming and otherwise categorizing children. Yet, at the same time, the focus of the title ‘on’ children deliberately sets out to occupy agap in theatre and performance scholarship that Nicholas Ridout called to our attention over a decade ago: ‘the question of children as theatrical performers is atopic in its own right, and awaits further study’ (2006:98‑9). Extending Ridout’s invitation to take seriously the appearance of children in a theatrical setting, ‘On Children’ hopes to foreground this problem of writing about children without reducing them to research objects. It does this by exploring the multiple roles that children occupy in relation to performance: children as collaborators, researchers, philosophers, activists, artists and political agents. In naming children as such, the contributions presented here cannot escape the violence of categorization. However, the process of creating this issue puts into practice the tension at the heart of performance research ‘on’ children, pushing back at the very boundaries of academic practice by actively including children as co‑editors, contributors, designers and ‘peer’ reviewer