Importance of studying the body in health-disease contexts and the ethical responsibility of social researchers

Abstract

This paper seeks to discuss some of the theoretical trends on the body as an analytical category, as well as the social researcher’s ethical implicationsin health-disease contexts. These trends will be initially presented by approaching the body as an object of knowledge, and later the main ethical implications and the social researcher’s responsibility before people’s reality will be presented. It is then necessary to understand the visible and invisible boundaries between researching and intervening, considering that language means action, and therefore the effect of testimony on people’s lives is uncertain, even if the researcher believes it might have a therapeutic effect.