Abject relations [electronic resource] : everyday worlds of anorexia / Megan Warin.

ISBN:

9780813548210

Title:

Author:

Warin, Megan.

Personal Author:

Warin, Megan.

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 229 pages).

Series:

Studies in medical anthropology

Contents:

Steering a course between fields -- Knowing through the body -- The complexities of being anorexic -- Abject relations with food -- "Me and my disgusting body" -- Be-coming clean -- Reimagining anorexia.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Subject Term:

Anorexia nervosa.

Anorexia nervosa -- Patients -- Psychology.

Anorexia nervosa -- Social aspects.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2010

Publication Information:

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
362.19685262 22	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Abject Relations presents an alternative approach to anorexia, long considered the epitome of a Western obsession with individualism, beauty, self-control, and autonomy. Through detailed ethnographic investigations, Megan Warin looks at the heart of what it means to live with anorexia on a daily basis. Participants describe difficulties with social relatedness, not being at home in their body, and feeling disgusting and worthless. For them, anorexia becomes a seductive and empowering practice that cleanses bodies of shame and guilt, becomes a friend and support, and allows them to forge new social relations.

Unraveling anorexia's complex relationships and contradictions, Warin provides a new theoretical perspective rooted in a socio-cultural context of bodies and gender. Abject Relations departs from conventional psychotherapy approaches and offers a different "logic," one that involves the shifting forces of power, disgust, and desire and provides new ways of thinking that may have implications for future treatment regimes.

Author Notes

Megan Warin is a social anthropologist who has worked in psychiatry, gender studies, and public health at various institutions, including Durham University, the University of Adelaide, and Flinders University of South Australia.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

Noting that anorexia is classed as a psychopathological eating disorder for which varied treatments, mainly psychiatric, are available, Warin (a social anthropologist) reports that (1) anorexia is notoriously difficult to treat, (2) recovery rates are low, (3) treatment efficacy shows no signs of improvement, and (4) treatment receives little research attention. In this intensive, wide-ranging study, the author investigates the meanings of anorexia and the everyday lives of those who suffer from it. She spent time with 47 anorexic persons (ranging from "pure" anorexics, engaged in near-total abstinence from food and drink, to binge/purge oscillators), aged 14 to 55, mostly female, in Australia, Scotland, and Canada. She accompanied them in cycles of eating-disorder treatment; joined them in grocery and clothes shopping; and met with them in cafes, parks, pubs, and their homes. In relating all this, Warin offers a brilliant study that departs from conventional psychotherapeutic perspectives and places anorexia in an intriguing socio-cultural context. She describes a kind of hidden culture behind anorexia in which secrecy is paramount. Eating is a solitary act, and one eats at specific times and places; ploys to avoid eating are used in inevitable social situations; self-induced vomiting, laxative, and/or diuretic use are concealed. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. E. Wellin emeritus, University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee