Abject Relations: Everyday Worlds of AnorexiaAbject 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. |
Contents
Steering a Course between Fields | 21 |
Knowing through the Body | 51 |
The Complexities of Being Anorexic | 70 |
Abject Relations with Food | 99 |
Me and My Disgusting Body | 128 |
Becoming Clean | 152 |
Reimagining Anorexia | 179 |
| 209 | |
| 227 | |
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Common terms and phrases
abjection allowed ambiguous anorexia anorexic argues asked associated avoid become belonging blood bodily body called central chapter clean cleanliness close concept concerned connection considered constructed cultural dangerous described desire dirty discourse discussion disgust disorders eating eating disorders embodied emotions ethnographic example experiences explained explore fear feel felt field fieldwork first friends gender going hands highlighted hospital hygiene identity images important individual it’s Kristeva language lives look meanings move nature never notes participants particular patients people’s person play positions practices psychiatric purging relatedness relations relationships secrecy secret sense sexual shared similarly smell social spaces staff suggests symbolic things thought tion touch transformed treatment understanding vomiting ward washing weight woman women writes