Sociology of the Body: How? Why?

Individual and society had been evaluated with factors which are out of body for the recent past. Individuals who construct and promote social by their economic, social and cultural acts performed these acts as if their bodies are non-exist. On the other hand, society was generally associated with status and roles, hierarchies, various functions and conflicts of individuals. In this manner, sociology missed reality and value of the body and so as if it designs abstract individuals and societies. However, body is an essential level to live and institutionalize basic social relations. Any individuals cannot socialize and create social units without their bodies. In this sense, body nearly equals to social individual and it constitutes one of the smallest parts of the society. Therefore to separate body which has biological as well as cultural character from social individuals and structures and to make sociology without body does not appear possible. Sociology of the body investigates the inseparable association between individual and society. Development of the field is directly related with fluctuations, functions and positions of body in modern society. In this direction, why is body value? What are the measures to determine value of the body? Does body in what kind of change process within historical/social context? Does this actualize with which developments and what does this come with? This kind of questions summarize that how and why have sociology of the body been done?.