Body Studies In Canada

"Representative of the emerging interdisciplinary field of body studies, this timely edited collection brings together scholars from the fields of education, social sciences, and health studies. As a whole, Bodywork in Canada answers the questions of what bodywork is and how bodies are perceived in relation to political, cultural, and socio-historical environments in Canada. Each chapter offers original research in which contributors critically analyze embodied experiences in the country. Some topics explored include the postcolonial 'othering' of the body; social discourses around 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' bodies; the promotion by fitness industries of 'ideal,' 'athletic,' and 'aging' bodies; and the promotion of self and self-awareness of the body on social and digital media."--

How do we perceive ourselves and our bodies in relation to our physical, geographical, social, cultural, political, psychological, and spiritual environments? Body Studies in Canada uses intersectional methodological and theoretical frameworks to discuss the political and socio-historical discourses that shape body studies in Canadian society. This edited volume delves into a variety of timely topics including postcolonial “othering” of the body; social discourses around healthy and un-healthy bodies; intersections of aging, gender, race, class, and size; the fitness industries’ promotion of the “ideal” body; the gendering of bodywork symbols and expressions in carceral environments; and self-awareness of “the body” in social and digital media. In thirteen chapters, editor Valerie Zawilski brings together scholars from a wide variety of disciplines and expertise to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on how the body interacts reflexively with society. This collection is a foundational text for sociology of the body and body studies courses, as well as gender studies, political science, and health studies. FEATURES: - provides a uniquely Canadian perspective on body studies and the surrounding historical and political issues, with a focus on decolonization, racialization, masculinities, engagement with critical weight scholarship, and immigration - pedagogical features include section introductions, boxed inserts highlighting key concepts, learning objectives, questions for critical thinking, and a glossary

From fur coats to nude paintings, and from sports to beauty contests, the body has been central to the literal and figurative fashioning of ourselves as individuals and as a nation. In this first collection on the history of the body in Canada, an interdisciplinary group of scholars explores the multiple ways the body has served as a site of contestation in Canadian history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Showcasing a variety of methodological approaches, Contesting Bodies and Nation in Canadian History includes essays on many themes that engage with the larger historical relationship between the body and nation: medicine and health, fashion and consumer culture, citizenship and work, and more. The contributors reflect on the intersections of bodies with the concept of nationhood, as well as how understandings of the body are historically contingent. The volume is capped off with a critical introductory chapter by the editors on the history of bodies and the development of the body as a category of analysis.

In this first collection on the history of the body in Canada, an interdisciplinary group of scholars explores the multiple ways the body has served as a site of contestation in Canadian history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This volume explores the arts-based methodology of body mapping, a participant-driven approach wherein people create richly illustrated life-size maps that articulate their embodied experiences with various health issues. First developed in the global South as a means of community mobilization and advocacy regarding women’s health and HIV-related care needs, body mapping is now used by researchers, health practitioners, and community agencies globally to explore social determinants of health among diverse groups. However, the selective borrowing of certain tenets of the approach and the disregard for others in these studies raises the issue of cultural appropriation, and this is one of the key issues the explored. The second issue examined relates to the analysis of body mapping data, which remains an under-developed aspect of the methodology that the author addresses through the new mixed-method approach she created to more fully understand these arts-based data. Orchard also examines and seeks to explain the transformative nature of the body mapping research experience, for herself and the study participants. The data for this book come from an ethnographic study with HIV-positive women and men who struggle with addictions, HIV stigma, and historical traumas stemming from colonialism in two Canadian cities, including the beautiful body maps, individual interviews, and field notes. The author provides a compelling and deeply empathetic account of the powerful role that the arts, therapeutic practice, and human connection play in the production of research that yields rich data and can transform the lives of those involved. Remembering the Body will be of interest to social science and health scholars, community agencies, and those in activist circles who are interested in using body mapping in their mindful academic and applied work.

Medical professionals, social policy makers, and the media have all declared that Canada is in the grip of an obesity epidemic. Conceptualizing obesity as a biological condition, these experts insist that it needs to be “prevented” and “managed.” Obesity in Canada takes a broader, critical perspective of our supposed epidemic. Examining obesity in its cultural and historical context, the book’s contributors ask how we measure health and wellness, where our attitudes to obesity develop from, and what the consequences are of naming and targeting as “obese” those whose body weights do not match our expectations. A broad survey of the issues surrounding the obesity panic in Canada, it is the first collection of fat studies and critical obesity studies from a distinctly Canadian perspective.

Since its inception as an institutionalized discipline in the United States during the 1980s, performance studies has focused on the interdisciplinary analysis of a broad spectrum of cultural behaviours including theatre, dance, folklore, popular entertainments, performance art, protests, cultural rituals, and the performance of self in everyday life. Performance Studies in Canada brings together a diverse group of scholars to explore the national emergence of performance studies as a field in Canada. To date, no systematic attempts has been made to consider how this methodology is being taught, applied, and rethought in Canadian contexts, and Canadian performance studies scholarship remains largely unacknowledged within international discussions about the discipline. This collection fills this gap by identifying multiple origins of performance studies scholarship in the country and highlighting significant works of performance theory and history that are rooted in Canadian culture. Essays illustrate how specific institutional conditions and cultural investments – Indigenous, francophone, multicultural, and more – produce alternative articulations of “performance” and reveal national identity as a performative construct. A state-of-the-art work on the state of the field, Performance Studies in Canada foregrounds national and global performance knowledge to invigorate the discipline around the world.