A Jurisprudence of the Body

This book explores the fundamental assumptions that underpin medico-legal knowledge claims about bodies, focusing on embodiment as a perspective that understands bodies to be shaped by their institutional contexts. It highlights the idea that medical practitioners not only respond to healthcare issues but also create them through their own understandings of 'normality' and 'fixing,' and emphasizes the importance of understanding bodies outside of their medical and legal contexts.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 316 pages
Publication date: 07 August 2021
Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland AG

This book brings together a diverse range of theoretical perspectives to explore fundamental questions of health law and the place of the body within it. Health, and more recently health law, has long been driven by discussions of particular bodies, whether they are deemed disordered, diseased, or disabled. However, each of these classification regimes claims some knowledge about the body. This edited collection aims to uncover and challenge the fundamental assumptions that underpin medico-legal knowledge claims about such bodies. This exploration is achieved through a mix of perspectives, but many contributors look towards embodiment as a perspective that understands bodies to be shaped by their institutional contexts. Much of this work alerts us to the idea that medical practitioners not only respond to healthcare issues but also create them through their own understandings of 'normality' and 'fixing.' Bodies, as a result, cannot be understood outside of, or as separate to, their medical and legal contexts. This compelling book pushes the possibility of new directions in health care and health justice.

Chapter 5 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Weight: 510g
Dimension: 235 x 155 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783030422028
Edition number: 1st ed. 2020