Bodies, with Charlotte Bates

We each have a body, but every body’s story is unique. In this intimate conversation, sociologist Charlotte Bates tells Alexis and Rosie why studying bodies – and how we talk about them – matters in a society where some are privileged over others, and why ableism harms us all.

Charlotte talks about her co-authored work on wild swimming, arguing that despite its commodification, it holds subversive power. She also considers how the unwell body collides with the demands of capitalist life – revealing just how absurd it can be. Plus: what “wellness” fails to capture – and why health is not a lifestyle choice.

Guest: Charlotte Bates
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong
Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker

Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.

Episode Resources

Charlotte, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended

• Nina Mingya Powles’ book “Small Bodies of Water”
• Andy Jackson’s poem “The Change Room”
• Viktoria Modesta’s song “Prototype”
• Mark O’Connell’s book “To Be A Machine”

From The Sociological Review

• “Making Visible: Chronic Illness and the Academy” – Anna Ruddock
• “Race and Disability in the Academy” – Moya Bailey
• “Embodying Sociology” [Supplement Issue]

By Charlotte Bates

• “Vital Bodies: Living with Illness”
• “Conviviality, disability and design in the city”
• Research on wild swimming with Kate Moles – including this article and this forthcoming publication.

Further readings

• “Beyond the Periphery of the Skin” – Silvia Federici
• “Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s” – Donna Haraway
• “Moving Beyond Pain” – bell hooks
• “On Being Ill” – Virginia Woolf
• “Believing Your Pain as Radical Self-Care” – Jameisha Prescod (in this publication)
• “Wellness Culture is Ableism in Sheep’s Clothing” – Lucy Pasha-Robinson
• The Polluted Leisure Project – Clifton Evers and James Davoll
• The Moving Oceans project
• “Illness: The Cry of the Flesh” – Havi Carel 
• Alexandre Baril’s scholarly work
• “Everybody Needs Beauty: In Search of the Nature Cure” – Samantha Walton
• “Why climate justice is impossible without racial justice” – Georgia Whitaker
• On maternal mortality – Divya Talwar