40Dominant Theories of the Body3

Social constructionist analyses of the ordered body view human physicality as an object produced and regulated by political, normative and discursive regimes. They focus on the body as a location for society, implying
that it is only through such an approach that we can appreciate the overwhelming structuring powers of the social system. Studies which developed
this view did much to initiate and consolidate the form taken by the corporeal turn in social theory. Thus, Bryan Turner’s (1984) structuralist The Body
and Society, and later post-structuralist studies such as Judith Butler’s (1990) Gender Trouble and (1993) Bodies that Matter, established the governmental management of the body as key to the external environment in
which social action occurs. The influence of Michel Foucault is readily
apparent in such studies. Foucault (1977) conceives of the body as ‘the
inscribed surface of events’ and as ‘totally imprinted by history’. There are
no irreducible ‘essences’ that define people’s identity or actions for all time,
just ‘inscriptions’ of identity which change over time.