Pedagogies of fat: the social currency of slenderness

Jessica Francombe, Michael Silk

Research output: Chapter or section in a book/report/conference proceedingChapter or section

3 Citations (SciVal)

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.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSport and Neoliberalism
Subtitle of host publicationPolitics, Consumption and Culture
EditorsM.L. Silk, D. L. Andrews
Place of PublicationPhiladelphia, U. S. A.
PublisherTemple University Press
Pages225-241
ISBN (Electronic)9781439905050
ISBN (Print)9781439905036
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2012

Publication series

NameSporting

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