BOOK REVIEW - “SOCIOLOGY OF THE BODY” BY DAVID LE BRETON

Abstract

The author of Sociology of the Body, David Le Breton, is a French sociologist and anthropologist, emeritus professor at the University of Strasbourg and member of the Institut Universitaire de France, known for his research on the body, adolescence, risk, and sensoriality. The edition of Sociology of the Body reviewed here has 101 pages, consisting of seven short chapters preceded by an introduction that already anticipates the main themes: the bodily condition, society’s concern with the body, the proposal of a sociology of the body, and the paths for its development.
In the following chapters, Le Breton initially explores the trajectory of the sociology of the body, starting with an implicit sociology and later moving toward a sociology still under construction. He then addresses the ambiguities surrounding the concept of the body, examining its historical, cultural, and symbolic dimensions.
The central part of the work discusses the epistemological foundations of the field and investigates how contemporary society is structured around the body. Three major research axes are presented: bodily practices and norms (such as gestures, techniques, emotions, and inscriptions); social imaginaries of the body (such as gender, disability, racism, and biological theories); and, finally, the body as both a reflection and a product of the social, addressing appearance, political control, social class, and consumption.
The book concludes with a reflection on the role of the sociology of the body as a field in development and its analytical challenges.