Making Bodies: Sexed and Gendered Bodies as Social Institutions (Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology)

This book presents a novel theoretical account of the claim that sexed and gendered bodies are socially constructed. In order to do so it critically reconstructs and combines existing theories of the embodiment of social identity (Bourdieu, Foucault, Butler) with the constructionist account of the Sociology of Knowledge (Strong Programme). This allows the author to develop a detailed conceptual apparatus which helps to analyse the nature of sexed and gendered bodies as social institutions. This book argues for a view of the body as an ‘artificial kind’ of entity which is the effect of contingent and localized practices and that incorporates both social and natural determinants. In doing so, the book reformulates key sociological dichotomies such as nature/society; structure/agency and domination/resistance, critically analysing different structuralist positions and advancing an ‘intrinsic’ structuralist model which foregrounds the importance of human relations in the constitution of social phenomena. This theoretical investigation has important methodological implications for empirical research into the formation of sex and gender identities and practices, enabling a more objective and naturalistic approach to empirical data concerning social phenomena. Acknowledgements Contents List of Figures Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Genesis 1.2 Content Description and Outline Bibliography Part I: General Overview: Introducing the Debate on Social Constructionism of the Body Chapter 2: Sociology and the Body 2.1 Sociology and Socially Constructed Reality 2.2 Social Constructionism and the Body 2.2.1 Feminism, Gender and the Body 2.2.1.1 The Body from de Beauvoir to Butler 2.2.1.2 Early Feminist Theory and the Body 2.2.1.3 Ortner and Firestone: Women as the ‘Lower Order’ 2.2.1.4 Mary Daly and Adrienne Rich: The Superiority of Women 2.2.1.5 The ‘Problem of Biology’ and Female Diversity 2.2.1.6 Class, Race and Sexual Orientation: Contesting Universalising Feminisms 2.2.1.7 The Postmodern Turn: Theorising Diversity, Materiality and Essentialism 2.2.1.8 Feminist Ontologies: Woman Versus Women Versus (no) Woman 2.2.1.9 Feminist Epistemologies 2.2.1.10 Feminist Theories of Power and Power Dynamics 2.2.1.11 The ‘Politics of Location’: A Synthesis 2.2.1.12 Feminist Bodies 2.2.1.13 Appraisal of the Feminist Constructionist Debate 2.2.2 The New Sociology of the Body 2.2.3 Symbolic Interactionism: Interacting Bodies 2.2.3.1 Goffman on the Presenting of the Self 2.2.3.2 Sexual Practices as a Social Construction 2.2.3.3 Current Social Constructionist Approaches and the ‘Problem’ of the Body Bibliography Part II: Two Social Constructionist Models: Bourdieu Theory of Practice and the Strong Programme Introducing Two Social Constructionist Views of Reality: Bourdieu and the Strong Programme Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice The Performative Theory of Social Institutions Chapter 3: Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice: The Embodiment of Social Reality 3.1 Habitus in Focus: A Reconstruction of Dispositions 3.1.1 Habitus Dispositions are Social 3.1.2 Habitus Dispositions are Embodied 3.1.3 Habitus Dispositions are Durable 3.1.4 Habitus Dispositions are Transposable 3.1.5 Habitus Dispositions are Inseparable from Action 3.1.6 Habitus Dispositions are Relational and Hierarchical 3.1.7 Habitus Dispositions are Reproductive 3.1.8 Concluding Summary: Habitus Dispositions as Social, Collective, Embodied, Durable and Reproductive 3.2 The Logic of Practice: Dispositions, Power Relations and the Ordering Power of Symbolic Violence 3.2.1 Habitus and the Field: The Reproductive Logic of Struggle 3.2.2 Capitals: Forms and Economic Logic 3.2.3 Homology and Heterology: A ‘Relationalist’ Model 3.2.4 Homology and Heterology: Consensus and Reproduction of the Social Structure 3.2.5 Reproductive Unconscious Strategies: Agency in Bourdieu’s Model 3.2.6 Distinction and Field Dynamics as a Struggle: Symbolic Capital and Symbolic Violence 3.2.7 Bourdieu’s Theory of Power: The Violence of the Symbolic Order 3.2.8 Naturalisation: Embodiment, Meritocracy and Doxa 3.2.9 Misrecognition: The Symbolic Violence of the Dominant 3.2.10 Reproduction, Change and Stability 3.2.10.1 Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: The Dialectics of Structural Change 3.2.10.2 Hysteresis: Change at the Level of the Individual 3.2.10.3 Stability, Doxa and Doxic Experience 3.3 The Social Constructionism of Bourdieu’s Model 3.3.1 Habitus and Individual Formation: Embodiment, Agency and Power 3.3.2 Habitus and the Field: An Extrinsic View of Macro-Structural Phenomena 3.3.3 The Political Dimension of Bourdieu’s Model: A ‘Singular’ Symbolic Hierarchical Society, the Logic of Class Struggle and the Embodiment of Power Operations Bibliography Chapter 4: The Performative Theory of Social Institutions: The Social Theory of the Strong Programme 4.1 Barnes’ Performative Theory of Social Institutions 4.1.1 (Di)Visions of the World: Natural Kinds and Social Kinds 4.1.2 Self-Referentiality and Performativity 4.1.3 Individual Inferences as ‘Collective Accomplishments’ 4.1.4 Social Structures as ‘Invisible’ Self-Referential Social Institutions 4.1.5 The Self-Referential Nature of Social Reality: An Intrinsic Account of Social Structures 4.2 From the Nature of Social Reality to the Social Bases of ‘Nature’ Categories 4.2.1 Barnes’ Empiricist Account 4.2.2 The Strong Programme Theory of Meaning Finitism 4.2.3 Normativity and Content Determination: The Collective Bases of Social Phenomena 4.2.4 The Social Constructionism of the Strong Programme: A Collectivist, Realist Social Ontology 4.3 Rules as Social Institutions and the Strong Programme as an Interaction-Based Social Theory 4.3.1 The Constitutive Role of Collective Sanctioning 4.4 Kusch’s Further Development of the Theory of Social Institutions 4.4.1 Kusch’s Notion of Artificial Kinds 4.4.2 Kusch’s ‘Clocks’ Model: Mapping Out Change and Stability 4.4.3 Mutual Susceptibility and the Role of Social Sanctioning 4.4.4 Social Life in Constant Change and Adjustment 4.4.5 Consensus Is Local Rather than Community-Wide 4.5 Conclusion: The Collective Interactionist View of Social Institutions Bibliography Part III: Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice and the Performative Theory: A Critical Comparison Chapter 5: Reassessing Bourdieu’s Contribution to the Social Constructionist Debate of the Body 5.1 Introducing the Body 5.1.1 A Theory of Action through the Body 5.1.2 A Theory of Production of Social Knowledge through the Body: the Constitution of the Doxic Realm 5.1.3 Mechanisms of Constitution of Bodies and Minds, as Cultural Artefacts: Habitus as an ‘Artefact’ 5.1.4 An ‘Embodied’ Theory of Power 5.1.5 Relocating Bourdieu’s Contribution of the Corporeal 5.2 The Embodied Habitus and Sex Identity: the Social Nature of an Embodied Sex and Gender Identity in Bourdieu 5.2.1 ‘Externalising’ the Arbitrary and the Paradox of Doxa 5.2.2 From Class Habitus to Sex Habitus: the Material Bases of Habitus and Masculine Domination as Libido Dominandi 5.3 Bourdieu’s Structuralist Model: the Force of ‘Things’ or a Social Ontology of Externality Bibliography Chapter 6: Discursive Feminism Evaluating Bourdieu: the Structuralist Controversy within the Sex and Gender Debate 6.1 Introducing Butler’s Examination of Bourdieu’s Model 6.1.1 Butler and Bourdieu’s Interpretation of Performativity 6.2 Butler’s Discursive Model: the Force of ‘Words’ or a Social Ontology of Internality 6.2.1 Butler’s Performative Theory of Sex and Gender: Revisiting the Category of ‘Sex’ 6.2.2 Constructing ‘Materiality’: the Realism of Butler’s Social Constructionism 6.2.3 Ontological Commitment to a ‘Non-Origin’ 6.3 Reviewing Butler’s Evaluation of Bourdieu’s Model 6.3.1 Butler’s Ontology of ‘Words’ Versus Bourdieu’s Ontology of ‘Things’ 6.3.2 Butler’s Open-Ended Versus Bourdieu’s Closed/Fixed Nature of Social Phenomena Bibliography Chapter 7: Sex Habitus as an Artificial Kind: a Critical Reconstruction of Sexed and Gendered Bodies 7.1 Sexed/Gendered Habitus and the Nature/Culture Debate: a Synthesis 7.1.1 Sex Habitus as an Artificial Kind: of the ‘Social’ Bases of an Embodied Sex 7.1.1.1 Discursive Materiality 7.1.1.2 The Fluctuating Nature of Sex/Gender Habitus 7.1.1.3 The Collective Nature of a Sex/Gender Habitus 7.1.1.4 The Materiality of a Sex/Gender Habitus as an Artificial Kind of Reality 7.1.1.5 Durability and Stability of Sex Habitus under the AK Framework 7.1.1.6 (per)Formative Actions: the Priority of Action and Actions as Collective Achievements 7.1.2 Sex Habitus as an Artificial Kind: the Natural Bases of an Embodied Sex 7.2 Social Sanctioning and its Constitutive Role for Individual Formation 7.2.1 Two Views of Social Phenomena: ‘Deistic’ Versus ‘Continuous’ Creation 7.2.2 Interaction, Consensus and Mutual Susceptibility: the Constitutive Role of Sanctioning 7.2.3 Thomas Scheff and the Deference-Emotion System 7.2.4 Reconstructing Butler’s Abject 7.2.5 Sanctioning Protects Stability but Does Not Overrule Dissent 7.3 The Micro-Dynamics of Identity Formation: Sexed Habitus and the Formation of an Inner Sense of Identity 7.4 Reconstructing Habitus as an Artificial Kind Bibliography Chapter 8: Identifying Power: ‘To Have’ and ‘to Be’ Power 8.1 Bourdieu’s Extrinsic View of Power: to Have Power and Power as Repressive 8.2 Barnes and Foucault: an Intrinsic Conception of Power 8.2.1 Barnes: Power as Capacity and as a Distribution of Knowledge 8.2.2 Domination, Change, Stability and Dispositional Activity 8.2.3 The Case of Consciously Rejected Coercive Power: a Methodological Proposition 8.2.4 Power Mechanisms and Productive Power: a Reconstruction of Foucault’s Theory of Power 8.2.5 Kusch’s Reconstruction of Foucault’s Theory of Power as an ‘Internal-Essential Relationship’ 8.2.6 Structures as Networks of Power 8.2.7 Foucault’s ‘Political Anatomy’ 8.2.8 The Body’s Dispositional Beliefs, and Calculative Reflexivity 8.3 Concluding Remarks: Extrinsic Versus Intrinsic Conceptions of Power Bibliography Chapter 9: Conclusions: New Avenues to a Sociological Enquiry of Sexed and Gendered Bodies 9.1 Sex Habitus as an Artificial Kind: a Synthesis between ‘Nature’ and ‘Culture’ 9.1.1 Feminist Political Debate Reconsidered 9.2 Reconsidering the ‘Logic’ of Practices: A Synthesis of Micro and Macro Social Phenomena, Agency and Structure 9.2.1 Agency and Resistance Re-Examined 9.3 Methodological Implications: Researching Mechanisms 9.4 The Structuralist Debate: Extrinsic Versus Intrinsic Structuralism Bibliography Index