1st Edition

Cuts and Criminality Body Alteration in Legal Discourse

By Theodore Bennett Copyright 2015
274 Pages
by Routledge

274 Pages
by Routledge

274 Pages
by Routledge

This book investigates how and why the criminal law differentiates between different types of body alterations, with particular reference to how they are conceptualised within legal discourse. By drawing connections between types of body alteration that have traditionally been considered separately and discretely, the book allows analytical conclusions to be made about the law’s treatment of the... Read more

Cuts and Criminality

Biography

Theodore Bennett is an Assistant Professor in the School of Law, University of Western Australia. His research interests are in the areas of criminal law, law and the body, law and society, and legal discourse.

'Theodore Bennett has provided a theoretically nuanced, skilful, and compelling account of law’s troubled relationship with body shaping practices. Providing the first sustained account, Bennett’s is a rich and sensitive analysis that deserves in turn to shape how we debate law's uneven and inconsistent responses to these embodied practices.' Michael Thomson, University of Leeds, UK ’This book is an ambitious, cogent and at times provocative study of the authority of legal and medical discourse to define the parameters of criminalisation in relation to bodily alterations. In demonstrating the ways in which law and medicine interact in producing and promoting certain accounts and versions of reality at the expense of others, Bennett offers a powerful analysis of the discursive positioning of material subjectivity that will engage an international and cross-disciplinary audience.’ Sharon Cowan, University of Edinburgh, UK