This special issue, devoted to the question of the body in medicine and biology, brings together a group of authors whose roots lie within the field of science and technology studies (STS), and at the intersections of STS with medical sociology and medical anthropology. As testified by the vitality of Body & Society, ‘the body' is in the center of revived attention in the social sciences and humanities. Medical sociology and anthropology has produced important contributions to the renewal of the body's conceptualisation , and feminist studies have put the construction of ‘sex' and its relationships to gender center stage. Some authors even argue that social theory should be re-centered around the notion of ‘embodiment' or a similar concept. What kind of insights can STS studies bring into this set of interrogations? Briefly said, STS approaches may help escape the pull between two powerful theoretical/philosophical positions that have, for some time, been at work in conceptualizing the body: phenomenological approaches on one side, and constructivist approaches on the other.