ABSTRACT
This book addresses central medical, cultural and legal debates around corporeality. Before dealing specifi cally with those debates, I want in this chapter to make explicit the theoretical framework which will be elaborated in the following ones. Although I favour phenomenological approaches to corporeality, my philosophical position is eclectic. Scholars seldom draw on phenomenological accounts when dealing with the socio-cultural, legal and technological dimensions of corporeality. Their perspectives, for example poststructuralism, or gender and postcolonial studies, tend to be informed by what can, in general terms, be characterised as a constructionist position. I do not think that phenomenology should replace them, but it can supplement them in important ways, and help bring to light their chief epistemological and ethical assumptions.
