Abstract

ORTEGA, Francisco. Corporeality and biotechnology: a constructivist and techno-biomedical phenomenological review of the construction of the body. Ciênc. saúde coletiva [online]. 2007, vol.12, n.2, pp. 381-388. ISSN 1413-8123.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-81232007000200014.

This article argues that the body model advocated by different versions of social constructivism has an astonishing affinity with the body in biotechnologies. Both discourses, that of the social constructivism and that of techno-biomedicine, claim that the body is a construction and both insist in recognizing its total malleability and accessibility, contradicting its materiality. Therefore, the discourse of constructivist thought cannot serve as a biotechnological discourse critical instance, as their advocates intend. It will be argued that a phenomenological body has an ethical-emancipating potential that can function as a biotechnological discourse critical instance.

Keywords : Constructivism; Corporeality; Biotechnologies; Phenomenology.