ARTICLE ONE: PURPOSES

The International Sociological Association (ISA) is a non-profit association for to scientific study purposes. The aim of WG03 within the International Sociological Association is to promote the body as the key actor of the global knowledge including into the social sciences a variety of new areas of research as such medical technology, sociology of emotion, sociology of time, sex, gender, the problem of pain, sleep and dreams, and the relationship between the body, art and society.

The body is defined as "research area" linking nature and culture, present and past in all human activities. The notion of an "embodied" sociology is put forward, one which puts minds back into bodies, bodies back into society and society back into the body. The methodology accepted by the Board Members is concerned with the ways in which the physical organisms create the intercorporeal nature of everyday social life re-ordering time-space boundaries in which local and global are realigned.

The WG03 studies are extended to all societies, all cultures in the present and the past, all religions, without any exclusion of races, ethnicities, human practices and beliefs. The chief aim of the Board is in fact to examine, in different cultural contexts, the practices of the body as medium of construction of social temporalities (in dance, gesture, posture, games, etc.) and to review available techniques of research and notation.

ARTICLE TWO: OBJECTIVES

2.1. The goal of the WG03 is to advance sociological knowledge of the body throughout the world. In its structure, it recognizes the aspirations of sociologists in all parts of the world and endeavours to support and strengthen the free development of sociology in cooperation with similar associations of social scientists studying the same subject.

2.2. To achieve these ends, the WG03 supports the following activities:
(a) to secure and develop institutional and personal contacts between sociologists and other social scientists throughout the world
(b) to encourage the international dissemination and exchange of information on developments in sociological knowledge
(c) to facilitate and promote international research on the body
(d) to convene meetings and regularly scheduled world congresses

ARTICLE THREE: ELECTION AND FUNCTIONS OF ITS MEMBERS

a. Election

3.1. The WG03 guarantees full representation of all members and provide for the election of officers at all levels with definite terms of office, according to democratic procedures as approved by the Research Council.

3.2. The Election of the steering Board with a definite term of office, carried out by democratic procedures as approved by the ISA Research Council takes place every three year.

b. Functions of the Officers

3.4. The President represent the Group both internally and externally and have responsibility for its scientific Programme within the framework of proposals approved by the Steering Board.

3.5. The Secretary is in charge of the administrative affairs of the Group to which makes periodic reports on organisation, membership, programmes and activities.

3.6. Every Member of the steering Board is actively engaged in the organisation of the scientific activities of WG03 in accordance with its specific research field working in connection with every component of the scientific set. The group follows norms established in the articles First to Twelve of the ISA Statute last revised in Bielefeld in July 1994.