The Body as an Object—a Sociocultural Perspective: The Study of Young Adults’ Narratives

Ewa Młożniak and Katarzyna Schier

Sociological Research Online, 2016, vol. 21, issue 1, 17-34

Abstract: The authors analyse the problem of the objectification of the body, searching for the cultural sources of this phenomenon, and try to outline the consequences of body objectification. When objectified, the body is treated in an instrumental, task-oriented manner, which implies that its value stems from its usefulness in achieving goals. The paper focuses on the ways in which young adults describe their bodies. In the study, responses to the question What does the body mean to you? were collected from 136 young adults. The obtained narratives were examined with the qualitative method of narrative analysis. The results indicate that the objectifying approach to body perception is clearly dominant in the participants’ responses in the following categories: a tool, a connector, a showcase, a machine and an object. The authors discuss some possible ways to change the dominant social metaphors concerning the body.

Keywords: Body; Metaphor; Body Objectification; Somatic Society; Narrative Analysis; Young Adults (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.3865 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socres:v:21:y:2016:i:1:p:17-34

DOI: 10.5153/sro.3865

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Sociological Research Online
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().