Self-care: Embodiment, Autonomy And The Shaping Of Health Consciousness

Self-care Individuals’ relationships to their own bodies have been radically transformed by the proliferation of health information and advice. The dominance of mediated, commodified and rationalized health advice has cultivated a sense of personal responsibility for health, and intensified both the desire for better health and anxieties concerning the health consequences of everyday actions. This book explores the development of abstract forms of self-care promotion, which have come to overlay and reconstitute older ways of caring for one’s self that are more deeply embedded in local cultures and traditions. The first half of this book provides a history of the increasing promotion of self-care in various fields, including publishing, clinical practice and advertising. This provides an empirical and historical basis for the discussion of political implications in the second half of the book. These first chapters also highlight the similarities between these recent health-care modalities, which are rarely acknowledged in the literature. The second half of the book analyses the major competing approaches to explaining the proliferation of self-care promotion, and its cumulative political implications. This approach provides a bridge between technocratic health promotion literature and recent sociological work on the politics of embodiment. Self-Care will be of essential interest to students and academics working within the fields of sociology, health and social welfare. Christopher Ziguras is Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Globalism Institute at RMIT University. He is editor of The International Publishing Services Market (with Bill Cope, 2002) and has published numerous articles examining the impact of rationalization, commodification and electronic mediation on the constitution of identity, particularly in international education and health promotion. Routledge Advances in Sociology This series aims to present cutting-edge developments and debates within the field of sociology. It will provide a broad range of case studies and the latest theoretical perspectives, while covering a variety of topics, theories and issues from around the world. It is not confined to any particular school of thought 1. Virtual Globalization Virtual spaces/tourist spaces Edited by David Holmes 2. The Criminal Spectre in Law, Literature and Aesthetics Peter Hutchings 3. Immigrants and National Identity in Europe Anna Triandafyllidou 4. Constructing Risk and Safety in Technological Practice Edited by Jane Summerton and Boel Berner 5. Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration Changes in boundary constructions between Western and Eastern Europe Willfried Spohn and Anna Triandafyllidou 6. Language, Identity and Conflict A comparative study of language in ethnic conflict in Europe and Eurasia Diarmait Mac Giolla Chriost 7. Immigrant Life in the U.S. Multidisciplinary perspectives Edited by Donna R.Gabaccia and Colin Wayne Leach 8. Rave Culture and Religion Edited by Graham St. John 9. Creation and Returns of Social Capital A new research program Edited by Henk Flap and Beate Völker 10. Self-Care Embodiment, personal autonomy and the shaping of health consciousness Christopher Ziguras 11. Mechanisms of Cooperation Werner Raub and Jeroen Weesie Self-Care Embodiment, Personal Autonomy and the Shaping of Health Consciousness Christopher Ziguras LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2004 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2004 Christop