Contested Bodies with Leandro Loriga PhD
Contested Bodies is a podcast about the clash between individual autonomy and institutional authority.
Working from anthropological, moral, and ethical perspectives, the series enters the grey zones where medicine, law, and society decide what counts as legitimate suffering, treatment, and what can or cannot be done to the human body.
Hosted by Leandro Loriga, PhD, a medical anthropologist and bioethicist, and founder of Corpus Sui, an international non-profit network working across borders on questions of body, autonomy, and power.
Body Integrity Dysphoria is not only a rare condition affecting a small number of people. It is a doorway into questions that concern us all.
This final episode of Season One steps back from the detailed line of reasoning developed across the previous episodes and offers a concluding observation: BID forces usto ask who has authority over the body, whose suffering is recognised, and when autonomy is treated as real.
The episode reflects dignity, autonomy, morality, ethics, suffering, and institutional power. It argues that BID is not an isolated problem at the edge of medicine, but a gateway into wider debates about euthanasia, abortion, disability,consent, medical refusal, psychiatric authority, and the limits of bodily self-determination.
The final question is therefore what any society owes to persons whose suffering, choices, and bodies do not fit easily within accepted moral categories.
Contested Bodies is a podcast about the clash betweenindividual autonomy and institutional authority, and the moral and ethical grey zones of body, medicine, autonomy, and power.
Support the podcast:Contested Bodies is independently written and produced. If you want to support the project, you can do so here: https://buymeacoffee.com/drleandroloriga
Book:This season draws on my research and writing on bodily autonomy, medical authority, and contested forms of suffering. Read more here: Body Integrity Dysphoria and the Ethical Dilemma of On-Demand Amputation: RedefiningWholeness: Identity, Autonomy, and the Moral Boundaries of the Human Body
Explore more:Leandro Loriga, PhD:https://leandroloriga.com
Body Integrity Dysphoria project:https://bodyintegritydysphoria.com
Corpus Sui: https://corpussui.com
Credits:Written and produced by Leandro Loriga, PhD.Part of the Contested Bodies project.
Music:Music from Pixabay, used under the Pixabay Content License.
https://pixabay.com/music/mystery-familyx27s-dark-secret-true-crime-soundtrack-loopable-248652/
https://pixabay.com/music/mystery-ethereal-nightmares-halloween-horror-30-sec-403943/
https://pixabay.com/music/pulses-horror-trailer-30s-217439/
https://pixabay.com/music/ambient-marimba-trap-beat-451663/
https://pixabay.com/music/main-title-epic-intro-trailer-257344/
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational and critical discussion purposes. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Rights:
© 2026 Leandro Loriga, PhD. All rights reserved.
Except as expressly permitted below, no part of this episode, transcript, description, or related material may be reproduced, republished, redistributed, adapted, sold,licensed, or used for commercial purposes without prior written permission from Leandro Loriga, PhD.
Short excerpts may be quoted or shared for non-commercial educational, critical, journalistic, or research purposes, provided that clear attribution is given to ContestedBodies and Leandro Loriga, PhD, and that the source is linked to: https://leandroloriga.com
Any commercial use, republication, redistribution, adaptation, translation, training use, or use of substantial portions of this material requires prior written permission.
For permissions or enquiries: info@leandroloriga.com
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Listen to Contested Bodies
A podcast about the clash between individual autonomy and institutional authority.
Hosted by Leandro Loriga, PhD, Contested Bodies enters the grey zones where medicine, law, and society decide what counts as legitimate suffering, what counts as treatment, and what can or cannot be done to the human body.
The series explores bodily autonomy, medical authority, consent, disability, identity, suffering, moral responsibility, and the forms of power through which bodies are interpreted, regulated, and governed.
Season One focuses on Body Integrity Dysphoria, or B.I.D., a condition recognised in the WHO ICD-11, and asks what happens when a person’s experience of their own body conflicts with medicine’s idea of health, society’s idea of normality, and the law’s authority over the body.
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Support the podcast
Contested Bodies is independently written and produced. If you want to support the project, you can do so here