According to Chris Barker, another aspect of cultural analyses of the body entails the concept of “body work.” Barker notes: “The body is commonly understood to be the physical flesh and bones of an organism. However, within cultural studies it is commonly argued that the body has been stylized and performed by the workings of culture making the idea of the body as a pre-social, pre-cultural object impossible to sustain” ( Sage Dictionary ). This involves ‘work' done by us in the following areas:

In body work, Chris Barker includes the above aspects related to the body, culture and performance in a bid to show that it is not a pre-social, pre-cultural entity. So all aspects points here show how culture impinges upon the body. There is an increasing culturalization of various domains that come into the appropriation of the body through culture including the medical sciences. This is in an attempt to turn the body into a docile one. Body work is to do with the following:

a)  Disciplinary powers: It leads us to a certain desired standard of the body.

b)  Identity: Transforming the body through stylization in a bid to construct an identity of the body.

The body is therefore something both to be maintained and transformed: body work may also be an act of transcending given identities and thereby body work becomes an area of both control and transcendence: