chapter 37
...................................................................................................................................................POLITICIZING
THE BODY:
PROPERTY,
CONTRACT, AND
RIGHTS
...................................................................................................................................................moira gatens
1 Body as Metaphor
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The human body has long been used as a source of metaphor for political
theorists. The very notion of a ‘‘body politic’’ leans on the image of a unified
and discrete entity that has commanding parts and obeying parts, that may
be robust or ailing, strong or weak. One of the better known depictions of
‘‘the body political’’ in early modern political thought appears in Hobbes’
Leviathan( 1991 ), where he describes the sovereign in terms of a gargantuan
‘‘artificial man’’ whose body parts correspond to the various functions
of government (seeLeviathan, Introduction). Foucault drew attention to
the central but problematic role of the body as metaphor in modern and