The Anorexic Self

Paula Saukko

Description

Traditionally, women's eating disorders are thought to be strongly influenced by media images idealizing a normative thin female body. Taking a different approach, The Anorexic Self critically examines diagnostic and popular discourses on anorexia that construct narrow and ideal notions of the female self. Paula Saukko analyzes the personal and political implications of discourses on the anorexic self in multiple contexts, including her own experience of being diagnosed anorexic; psychiatrist Hilde Bruch's postwar research on anorexia; and media coverage of Karen Carpenter, Princess Diana, and other women with eating disorders. Saukko traces the history of the discourses from postwar idealization of masculine autonomy to postindustrial valorization of feminine flexibility, and also explores their politically progressive and psychologically healing—as well as sexist and humiliating—dimensions. Drawing on narrative therapy, dialogic theory, and multisited ethnography, The Anorexic Self cultivates a less judgmental and more self-reflexive way of relating to ourselves, others, and societies in which we live.
Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: Interrogating the Anorexic Self

2. Rereading the Stories That Became Me: An Autoethnography

3. Fat Boys and Goody Girls: Hilde Bruch’s Work on Eating Disorders and the American Ideal of Freedom

4. From Autonomy to Flexibility: New Discourses on Karen Carpenter and Princess Diana

5. Voices and Discourses: Layering Interviews on Eating Disorders

6. From Time-Based Diagnosis to Space-Based Critical Reflection

Notes
References
Index

Sujets

• Sociology

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 08 mai 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791478301
• Langue: English

Extrait

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State University of

New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2008 State University of New York

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Saukko, Paula. The anorexic self : a personal, political analysis of a diagnostic discourse / Paula Saukko. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9780791474617 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 9780791474624 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Anorexia nervosa—Social aspects. 2. Feminist theory. 3. Discourse analysis. I. Title.

RC552.A5S28 2008 362.2'5—dc22

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2007032236

Acknowledgments

Contents

1. Introduction: Interrogating the Anorexic Self

2. Rereading the Stories That Became Me: An Autoethnography

3. Fat Boys and Goody Girls: Hilde Bruch’s Work on Eating Disorders and the American Ideal of Freedom

4. From Autonomy to Flexibility: News Discourses on Karen Carpenter and Princess Diana

5. Voices and Discourses: Layering Interviews on Eating Disorders

6. From TimeBased Diagnosis to SpaceBased Critical Reflection

Notes References Index

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Acknowledgments

Most of the research for this book was conducted at the Institute for Com munications Research (ICR), University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign. I am very grateful to the ICR faculty and students for their generous and in spirational intellectual support. This book would not have been written without the encouragement and example of Norman Denzin, and it would have been a very different book without the input of Clifford Christians, C. L. Cole, Larry Grossberg, and Paula Treichler. I also remain grateful to then ICR students, especially Lori Reed, Mary Vavrus, Hua Xu and Mary Walstrom, for their initellectual support and friendship. I am also thank ful for Maree Burns, Sarah Riley, Hanna Markula, and Helen Malson for inviting me to the “Weighty Issues” seminar series supported by the British Psychological Association in 2005. I found the discussion and en suing email exchanges stimulating and helpful in completing this book. I would also like to warmly thank the women I interviewed for the re search that appears in chapter 5 for their time, comments, and friendship. The research for this book was funded by the FinlandU.S. Educa tional Commission (The Fullbright Commission), the Graduate College of the University of Illinois, Thanks to Scandinavia Inc., Finnish Cultural Foundation, and George and Ella Ehrnrooth Foundation. I would also like to thank my former colleagues at the Egenis research Centre, Univer sity of Exeter, U.K., for supporting me in completing research that did not strictly fall within the ambit of the center. Some of the material that appears in the chapters of the book has been previously published. I would like to thank Taylor and Francis and National Communication Association (Washington, D.C.) for permission to reprint “Rereading Media and Eating Disorders: Karen Carpenter, Princess Diana and the Healthy Female Self,” which appeared inCritical Studies in Media Communication23, no. 2 (2006). I would also like to thank Transaction Pub lishers/Aldine de Gruyter for permission to reprint parts of “Fat Boys and Goody Girls: Hilde Bruch’s Work on Eating Disorders and the American Anxiety About Democracy, 1930–1960,” which was published in J. Sobal and

vii

viii

Acknowledgments

D. Mauer (eds.),Weighty Issues: The Construction of Fatness and Thinness as Social Problems(1999). I am also thankful for Elsevier/JAI Press for permis sion to reprint parts of “Anorexia Nervosa: Rereading Stories That Became Me,” which appeared in N. Denzin (ed.),Cultural Studies, Research Annual (1996). The latter two articles have been extensively revised for this book. My usual gratitude extends to my partner Jouni and my son Aksel for putting up with me; I am also thankful for Jouni’s excellent editorial comments. Last, but not least, I am grateful for my acquisitions editor, Jane Bunker, for her support and patience with this book, and the thoughtful and knowl edgeable comments of the two anonymous reviewers, which improved the manuscript.

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Interrogating The Anorexic Self

his book has its origins in my personal dissatisfaction with the way in T which anorexia is described in psychiatry, the public media, and even in critical feminist analyses. I became anorexic, at the age of 11, three decades ago. I underwent hospitalization, escaped from the hospital (this kind of “premature dropout” has always been a common feature of inpa tient treatment of eating disorders, see Halmi et al., 2005), and recovered by my early teens. My memories of active starving are faded. But ever since going through the experience I have felt alienated and insulted by descrip tions of what is wrong with anorexics, what psychological and social factors fuel their starving, and what should be done to solve the problem. As a feminist social scientist I have read many critical studies on social discourses, such as the slender beauty ideal or abhorrence of feminine flesh, which are understood to lie at the root of eating disorders (e.g. Bordo, 1993). I acknowledge the need to critique discourses that invite women to keep their bodies slender, beautiful, and in control. But I have not been mainly frustrated with discourses on thinness. Rather, I have been intel lectually troubled and personally insulted by discourses on anorexia, which diagnose anorexic women as having an insufficient self, lacking in autonomy and selfdetermination, and being vulnerable to outside influences, such as media and peer pressures to be thin (for similar critiques see, Bray, 1996; Malson, 1998; Probyn, 1987) I have been equally uncomfortable with

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