Description: Using work produced from the critical and postmodern arena in social sciences, this book examines three key areas - representation, identities and practice - to explore and interrogate how body and weight management, subjectivities, experiences and practices are constituted within and by the normative discourses of contemporary western culture.
Review Quotes:
'The book demonstrates the persuasive power that inter- and multi-disciplinary discursive research can have when different versions are brought coherently to bear on an interconnected area of research. It will be of use to all researchers, and advanced students, who are interested in food, gender, the body, and, in particular, their pathologization under a medical gaze.' - Joseph Burridge, Discourse& Society
'The editorial group have successfully pulled together a coherent and diverse collection of nine chapters that offer a considerable breadth of material in relation to the, mainly but not exclusively, female body. Size, weight and the practices which produce and reproduce normative and rigid standards of desirable bodies are the central concerns.' - Liz Frost, Sociology of Health and Illness
'Critical Bodies is a well-structured text that presents a set of sophisticated, contemporary analyses of representations, identities and practices of weight and body management. The book contextualises body management practices in current health and gender related discourses, and provides a convincing account of the centrality of socio-political power dynamics in the production of embodiment.' - Lilliana del Busso, Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology