The Mouth and Society

This paper takes as its core problematic the extent to which the mouth has been constituted as a theme for sociology. The aim this paper is to review existing perspectives on the mouth and evaluate the possibilities for further work on the mouth as an object of enquiry. The paper begins by exploring the mouth as a metaphor before going on to explore how the mouth became separated from the body through the techniques of power and knowledge associated with dentistry. We then explore how the mouth has become recognised as a symbol of one’s citizenship status. How the mouth has been evaluated through the perspective of historical anthropology is then studied, especially in relation to its function as a permeable boundary. The paper concludes by exploring further possibilities for work on the mouth specifically in relation to embodiment and the production of the mouth in social space.