Body, Fatness and Health (Discourses on the) by Geneviève Rail
In Canada, obesity is increasingly emphasised as a ‘risk’ to the health of mother and foetus.At a... more In Canada, obesity is increasingly emphasised as a ‘risk’ to the health of mother and foetus.At a time when preg- nant women are under greater pressure to personally uphold the health of their foetus, understanding the impact of the discourse surrounding obesity and health on young pregnant women is critical. Using a feminist poststructural- ist discourse analysis, we explore how pregnant young women construct their subjectivities either within dominant discourse on health and obesity or possibly resistant discourses. Open-ended interviews were conducted with 15 pregnant women between the ages of 18 and 28, coming from various socioeconomic and educational backgrounds in the Ottawa region.The analysis reveals that these women constitute themselves as complex, fragmented subjects who at times construct themselves within alternative and resistant discourses but generally reproduce dominant dis- courses of obesity, of individual and moral responsibility for health, and of maternal responsibility for foetal health. Implications for health promotion and policy strategies are discussed.
Social Theory & Health, 2010
The recent construction of an 'obesity epidemic' has been fueled by epidemiologically-based studi... more The recent construction of an 'obesity epidemic' has been fueled by epidemiologically-based studies recuperated by the media and suggesting the rapid acceleration of obesity rates in the Western world. Studies linking obesity to ill-health have also exploded with more recipes on how to wage 'a war' on obesity and dispose of 'domestic terrorists.' In this paper, we assert that the fabrication of 'evidence' in obesity research constitutes a good example of micro-fascism at play in the contemporary scientific arena. Favoring a particular ideology and excluding alternative forms of knowledge, obesity scientists have established a dominant 'obesity discourse' within which obese and 'at-risk' bodies are constructed as lazy and expensive bodies that should be submitted to disciplinary technologies (for example, surveillance), expert investigation and regulation. Using a poststructuralist approach, we examine the politics of evidence in obesity science and explore the connections between obesity discourses and the ways in which health and the body are discursively constructed by Canadian youth.
Public Health (Discourses on the Body in/or/and) by Geneviève Rail
Canadian Journal of Public Health
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Body, Fatness and Health (Discourses on the) by Geneviève Rail
Public Health (Discourses on the Body in/or/and) by Geneviève Rail
some of our own reflections and, second, we provide an overview of the articles assembled here to advance the critical
interrogation of biopedagogies and/of public health. Our own reflections focus attention on biocitizens and the ill-fated
“rescue missions” to save bio-Others. In brief, we argue that (a) within neoliberal societies, an assemblage of private and
public institutions and organizations circulate the “health imperative”; (b) this imperative leads to the creation of the fit
and productive biocitizen through various market solutions; (c) this imperative leads to biomorality and the construction
of the unfit, unwell, and unproductive bio-Other; (d) public health invests in rescue missions to “save” this bio-Other; and
(e) public health initiatives are instrumentalized within corporate schemes to expand markets in the name of health. We
then conclude our piece with thoughts on the place of cultural studies and critical methodologies in the larger project of
health and social justice, while presenting an overview of the articles selected for this special issue in connection to three
themes: biopedagogies and spaces, identifications, and affects/effects.
in the health sciences is outrageously exclusionary and dangerously normative with regards to scientific knowledge. As such, we assert that the evidence-based movement in health sciences constitutes a good example of microfascism at play in the contemporary scientific arena.
Objective: The philosophical work of Deleuze and Guattari proves to be useful in showing how health sciences are colonised (territorialised) by an all-encompassing cientific research paradigm – that of post-positivism – but also and foremost in showing the process by which a dominant ideology comes to exclude alternative forms of knowledge, therefore acting as a fascist structure.
Conclusion: The Cochrane Group, among others, has created a hierarchy that has been endorsed by many academic institutions, and that serves to (re)produce the exclusion of certain forms of research. Because ‘regimes of truth’ such as the evidence-based movement currently enjoy a privileged status, scholars have not only a cientific duty, but also an ethical obligation to deconstruct these regimes of power.
a space of resistance to heteronormativity. We suggest that the sport space is constructed as a “gaie” space within which a normalizing version of lesbian sexuality is proposed. We investigate how in/ex/clusion discourses are inscribed in space
and how subjects are impacted by and, in turn, impact these discourses.