46Exploring Bodies1-20

The three dimensions of the body’s status as a medium for the constitution of society identified in this chapter have been treated separately for
analytical purposes in order to clarify the corporeal realist approach
adopted in this study. They should not be considered mutually exclusive
options or totally separate ‘functions’ of the body, but constitute instead
co-existing moments in, or dimensions of, an ongoing process that manifests itself over time. The advantage of corporeal realism is that it provides
us with an analytical way of gaining access to and examining the flux of
socio-natural life. It is the erasure of certain of these dimensions of the
body that results in the various forms of reductionism that afflict the dominant contemporary approaches examined above and, more generally, is
why neither naturalistic views of the body nor their social constructionist
alternatives can provide adequate conceptions of the relationship between
the body and society (Shilling, 2003).8 Recognizing the body’s significance
as a multi-dimensional medium for the constitution of society is, of course,
only a starting point for further analysis.