GEOG 3692 Chapter Notes - Chapter Onine Article: Biopolitics, Neoliberalism, Bulimia Nervosa
Document Summary
Political economy of bulimia: the difficulty of finding homeostastis between the producer and consumer sides of self. Spatial fix: capitalism"s insatiable drive to resolve its inner crisis tendencies by geographical expansion and restructuring. Governmentality: the way in which the state exercises control over, or governs, the body of its populace. Learning objectives: guthman outlines 4 arguments that other scholars have used to explain and understand the so-called obesity epidemic. Spatial fix is the absorption of excess capital and labor through geogrpahic expansion = move money to another place where capitilsm has expanded, like too our bodies. Inelastic demand = only so much we can eat = drive the economy by selling them the problem and the solution. Sell diet drugs that thwart body"s metabolic functions, allowing them to sell more per person. Cheap goods, cheap labor, declining wages of middle class. Commodification of everything; creating needs and desires that didn"t exist.
