Pedagogies of fat: The social currency of slenderness

Authors: Francombe, J.M. and Silk, M.L.

Volume: 9781439905050

Pages: 225-241

ISBN: 9781439905043

Abstract:

The neoliberal reinvention of "welfare" that promotes choice, personal accountability, consumerism, and self-empowerment as ethics of citizenship while at the same time masking social forces (Ouellette and Hay 2008a, 2008b) that position people into the dejected borderlands of consumer capitalism has culminated in the everyday practices of physical fitness and weight loss becoming implicit within technologies of self-governance and the personalization of health. Within this chapter we explicate the powerful role played by the self-help genre of reality television in the making and remaking of citizens (Ouellette and Hay 2008a, 2008b). We interrogate The Biggest Loser (TBL) as a highly politicized and contested space that educates subjects, disciplines the noncompliant, and becomes part of a moral economy that differentiates between "good" and "bad" citizens.

Source: Scopus

Preferred by: Michael Silk