1.Introduction31Corporeal real

1.Introduction31Corporeal realism[微笑]Corporeal realism is distinct from its realist counterparts insofar as it identifies the body–society relationship as the core subject matter of sociology.
However, it is based on long-standing realist conceptions of (a) the ontologically stratified character of the relationship between the structural forces,
institutions and roles which constitute society, on the one hand, and the
people who inhabit society on the other; (b) the need for a temporal element to social analysis (which enables one to analyse the interaction over
time of the generative properties of the body and the constraining features
of society without reducing one to the other); and (c) the potentially critical import of this approach towards social analysis. I shall deal with each of
these in turn.