Materialising bodily matter: Intra-action and the embodiment of ‘Fat’

Colls, Rachel

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2006.09.004

Cited by 128 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Barad's conceptual framework has been used to understand the materiality of the body by several feminist scholars (Colls 2007;Fraser and Valentine 2006). However, inanimate objects have been by and large missing from these analyses.…”

Section: Emphasis Mine)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Security That Matters: Critical Infrastructure and Objects of Protection

2010

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Critical infrastructure protection is prominently concerned with objects that appear as indispensable for the functioning of social and political life. However, the analysis of material objects in discussions of critical infrastructure protection has remained largely within the remit of managerial responses, which see matter as simply passive, a blank slate. In security studies, critical approaches have focused on social and cultural values, forms of life, technologies of risk or structures of neoliberal globalization. This article engages with the role of 'things' or of materiality for theories of securitization. Drawing on the materialist feminism of Karen Barad, it shows how critical infrastructure in Europe is neither an empty receptacle of discourse nor does it have 'essential' characteristics, but emerges out of material-discursive practices. Understanding the securitization of critical infrastructure protection as a process of materialization allows for a reconceptualization of how security matters and its effects.

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Section: Emphasis Mine)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Security That Matters: Critical Infrastructure and Objects of Protection

2010

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“…This is not our point. Nor do we argue that the examples described above constitute the entire critical literature on the obesity epidemic discourse, or comprehensively exemplify its diversity and sophistication (other fine critical work includes Colls, 2006;Guthman and DuPuis, 2006;Boero, 2007). Notwithstanding this range, however, we maintain that, as with the examples discussed above, this broader literature leaves open space for explicit theorisation of the action of emotion.…”

Section: Challenging the 'Epidemic'mentioning

confidence: 88%

Between bodies and collectivities: Articulating the action of emotion in obesity epidemic discourse

2010

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Over the last decade intense concern has developed about what has been characterised as an obesity epidemic in the West. This concern has been accompanied by equally intense debates over the validity of this characterisation. Many critics see the epidemic designation as part of an intensifying 'moral panic' about fat in which emotions about fat shape the public and scientific debate. In this article we explore the critical literature on the obesity epidemic, noting the way in which it draws attention to the role of the emotions in discourse on the epidemic. We argue that the action of emotions in this context invites further theorisation, and that this theorisation needs to be undertaken via concepts that: (1) explicitly integrate the body and the emotions with the materialisation of political discourse, (2) avoid individualising and psychologising accounts of the emotions and (3) analyse the action of emotion in political debate without implying the need to eradicate emotion in generating more just and accurate perspectives. To this end, we turn to the work of Sara Ahmed, who has developed a sophisticated account of the role of the emotions in constructing social collectivities through their engagement with ideas of the body. We argue that this theory can be used to illuminate both the general relationship between public discourse and subjectivity, and the specific relationship between the self, the body and the oftentimes unmet imperative to slimness.

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“…These include work on embodiment (Colls 2007;Nast and Pile 1998) and maternal bodies in particular (Longhurst 2008). It also builds on the growing body of scholarship on the spatial, affective and material practices involved in the formation of parental and maternal identities (Aitken 2000;Boyer Dowling 2000;Holloway 1998;Luzia 2010;Madge and O'Connor 2005;Pain et al 2001;Rose 2004), and the concept of breastfeeding as an assemblage composed of human and non-human components (Newell 2013).…”

Section: Secondary Literature and Conceptual Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Breastmilk as Agentic Matter and the Distributed Agencies of Infant Feeding

Boyer

2018

Studies in the Maternal

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Materialising bodily matter: Intra-action and the embodiment of ‘Fat’

Cited by 128 publications

References 26 publications

Security That Matters: Critical Infrastructure and Objects of Protection

Security That Matters: Critical Infrastructure and Objects of Protection

Between bodies and collectivities: Articulating the action of emotion in obesity epidemic discourse

Breastmilk as Agentic Matter and the Distributed Agencies of Infant Feeding

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