The review examines the works of sociologists and so-cial anthropologists that explore the understanding of the body in the context of the growth of genetic knowledge and technology. The fol-lowing main issues are considered: how biological and social knowledge is related; how the body is defined through knowledge about genes in science and routine representations; how digital imagery technologies represent the body; how ordinary people participate in making sense of genetic information; how new technologies of bio-identification provide social control. It is concluded that social research can enrich the limited mechanistic genetic model of body description.
body; sociology of the body; genetics; genomic medi-cine; biology; embodiment; health and illness; social regulation of the body.