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Shilling, C. The Body in Culture, Technology & Society . London : Sage Publications , 2005 , + 247pp . (pbk) ISBN: 0-7619-7124-6 For any colleague wanting to have a clear idea of how studies of the body can be empirically grounded as well as theoretically ‘rich’, Chris Shilling's The Body in Culture, Technology and Society, is the book to read. To my mind it offers the best account thus far of not only how social action is embodied and must be recognised as such but also of how social structures condition and shape embodied subjects in a variety of social arenas. In his fascinating and comprehensive account, Shilling examines, in the first part of the book, the somewhat unfathomable nature of embodiment in the work of key social theorists such as Marx, Durkheim and Simmel and why as well as how these theorists’ definitions of ‘the body’ were subsumed historically under other interests. A related examination is his critical delineation of the reasons for diverse agendas on embodiment and the most important theoretical contributions on this agenda. Shilling aims to go beyond existing approaches by developing a view of the body as a multi-dimensional medium for the constitution of society. Throughout the book, Shilling reminds readers that his approach is one of corporeal realism, which he introduces on p.12 in his Introductory chapter. He contends that his theory on the body is realist because while recognising a distinction between embodied action and social structure, he attributes bodies with their own ontology, irreducible to the social; he treats society as an emergent level of reality and he acknowledges the significance of the interaction between bodies and social structures over time. This is wonderful insightful ‘stuff’– the ideas and intricate thoughts of a scholar such as Shilling who has been immersed in thinking about the complexities of the body in society as well as sociology for a number of years. Rather than leaving readers to their own devices or somewhat lost to discover for themselves how thinking about the relationship between bodies and social structures can be facilitated, Shilling helps out. In the second half of the book, he looks at the fate of embodied subjects in the current era and their relationship to, what he calls the structural features of the economy, culture, sociability and technology. His circumspect chapters on working bodies, sporting bodies, musical bodies, sociable bodies and technological bodies offer substantive, fascinating studies from a deep, sociological ‘embodiment’ viewpoint. This is why I view this book as empirically grounded: Schilling argues convincingly why corporeal realism is needed to grasp the idea of the body as a simultaneous biological and social phenomenon. You may ask, ‘Why include a review of this book in this journal? What does a book like this have to say to sociologists of health?’ Firstly, that is a good question and secondly, a lot! What Shilling does is what, in my view, we all should be doing in our studies of health and illness – identifying the body-society relationship as the core matter of our sociological work. Why is it that when I read current medical sociology or sociology of health and illness texts, especially well grounded empirical work, I consistently think where are the embodied subjects? Do these respondents have bodies? Why is this kind of work so dry and lifeless at times, displaying little emotions from the researcher or researched? I am not saying a perspective on embodiment brings emotions into our work. But, it does help enormously. To me a lot of our work still has the effect of making our respondents ‘disembodied’, almost lifeless on the page. That is why for me Shilling's book has a crucial message: social action is embodied for those involved in studying contemporary society. We can carry his message further into our own embodied lives as researchers and reflect: social action around health and medicine as well as healthy and sick bodies should be viewed in embodiment terms. Furthermore, sick or healthy bodies should become more in focus as we interrogate why and how healthy and sick experiences are embodied as well as how social structures surrounding health and medicine condition and shape the embodied subjects we seek to investigate. While I am sure all readers would agree that there wouldn't be sociologies of health and illness without bodies, I wonder how many of us in our work have attempted to investigate the ontology of sick and healthy bodies, somehow linked with but irreducible to the social. Yes, this may be a daunting task. But perhaps it is one which is long overdue and would benefit our work immensely. At least, we have Shilling's expert guidance to follow.
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