The papers on this panel will consider the use of health practices, goods, and services as acts of consumption in the modern cultural production of bodies and selves. Despite the proliferation of social science literature on consumption there has been relatively little consideration of the pursuit of health through consumption as a class skill, as a mark of distinction or belonging. Yet as the work of Robert Crawford and others has shown, the pursuit and conspicuous display of health is a central marker of modern middle class identity. An important aspect of this process of consumption and display has to do with the aesthetic appeal of health goods and services, especially when marked by the manipulation of such ascribed qualities as natural, traditional, holistic, spiritual, and authentic in contra position to the biomedical, technological, and commercial qualities associated with mainstream health care. The papers in this panel will explore the ways in which the cultural production and consumption of health goods, services, and practices involve a dialectic of resistance and accommodation to mainstream notions of health, normalcy and beauty, and reference normative participation in the capitalist market place.

Please send abstracts of 100 words by Oct 9 to:

Margaret MacDonald
Assistant Professor
Dept of Anthropology
York University
maggie@yorku.ca