41Dominant Theories of the Body4

Theorists concerned with the governmental environment in which the
body is controlled have not relied exclusively on Foucault, but combined his
insights and methods with those of other thinkers. Turner’s (1984) study, for
example, is heavily steered by Parsons and Hobbes as well as by Foucault.
Similarly, Butler’s (1993) concern with the ‘heterosexual matrix’, which
positioned the body as an object and target of gendered power relationships,
drew on Austin and Althusser in arguing that individuals are ‘hailed’ to perform particular subject positions. Despite their common interest in how the
body is governed, then, such theorists directed their analyses, via an array of
writers, towards a variety of subjects including sexual and ‘racial’ difference,
medicine, and the performativity of identity (e.g. Diamond and Quinby,
1988; Sawicki, 1991; Case et al., 1995; Turner, 1995; Gatens, 1996; Phelan,
1997; Richardson, 2000). Social constructionist analyses tend to be united,
however, by a political concern with the subjugation of bodily diversity and
creativity in the contemporary era.