Authors:
- Presents unique and insightful analysis of the politics of weight, contributing to and expanding feminist debates on the body
- Draws on and contributes to post-structuralist feminist work on the body in relation to dieting and power
- Combines empirical interviews with dieters and fat activists
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
This book speaks to the politics of weight through an interrogation of dieting, power and the body. In feminist theory, there is no greater site of contestation than that of the body, and Morris explores how these debates often become centred upon a dichotomy between oppression and liberation. Whilst there is a vast diversity of scholarship that challenges this binary including post-colonial, post-structuralist and Marxist feminist work, the dichotomy nevertheless endures. The Politics of Weight argues that the ‘feminine’ body is not simply a site of oppression or liberation by drawing upon the intersections that exist between Foucault’s Discipline and Punish and post-structuralist feminist work on the body. This provides a unique lens for exploring weight. Through in-depth analysis of interviews with women who seemingly sit on either side of the ‘oppression’ and ‘liberation’ debate, members of dieting clubs and fat activists, the book highlights the complexities that surround women’s relationship to weight and the body. Likewise it draws upon the wealth of black feminist scholarship to explore the discourses surrounding Oprah Winfrey’s dieting ‘journey,’ seeking to demonstrate how discipline and race interact and how this plays out in dieting and weight.
The Politics of Weight will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including gender studies, sociology, geography and political science.
Authors and Affiliations
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Independent Researcher, Birmingham, UK
Amelia Morris
About the author
Amelia Morris is a UK-based scholar researching interdisciplinary political science and political economy with an interest in gender, the body, weight, austerity and inequality.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Politics of Weight
Book Subtitle: Feminist Dichotomies of Power in Dieting
Authors: Amelia Morris
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13670-3
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-13669-7Published: 23 May 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-13672-7Published: 14 August 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-13670-3Published: 15 May 2019
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 203
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Gender Studies, Cultural and Media Studies, general, Social Structure, Social Inequality