This thesis research focuses on the social representations of the amputated body fitted with prostheses, in the light of the contemporary collective imagination. The aim will be to observe, compare and analyse the way in which the public and media consider the field of prostheses, and bring these collective projections and imaginations face to face with how the amputees (but also the care givers who surround them) see themselves and construct their own social and bodily identity. The goal is to reveal the existence of a certain gap between what the collective discourse producers (media, scientists) think to know about amputees and prostheses, and the reality observed on site (practical problems, customs and practices of everyday life). The final aim will be to formulate proposals to overcome these ambiguous conceptions, to question the notions of social inclusion and exclusion of disability and the technological repairs of the body, and to put the amputees at the heart of more rational, pragmatic and ethical considerations, far from any prediction, speculation and phantasmagoria.