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Tara Atluri
Goldsmith's College, University of London
'Self-Help, Other Bodies: Race, Representation and Western “Health” Culture'
I am interested in exploring the relationships between race, the body and 'health' in Western culture. I will focus on representations of Yoga in the West. In order to discuss what I term the 'embodied exotic' my paper will span a number of disciplines and theoretical frameworks.
The Body:
Western feminist theory has become increasingly preoccupied with the body. However, much of this feminist theory continues to use the white body as the standard against which Other bodies are defined. In looking at Yoga in terms of media representation and in terms of lived experience, I wish to complicate dominant feminist theory on the body by looking at how race functions to construct bodies and bodily practices relationally.
Global Consumption/Self Help:
I am also interested in looking at how race functions within neo-liberal culture through offering 'exotic' products to the Western consumer. Through Yoga I want to examine how such products are represented through the bodies of racialised Others and the implications of this.
I want to explore the relationship between global metaphors of disease and health. What is the correlation between the figure of the immigrant as diseased and the use of the exotic commodities to strengthen Western bodies in media discourse?
Feminism, the Body and Race:
Like feminist theory on the body, discourses that deal with 'Western consumption' tend to be disembodied. The Western subject is viewed as monolithic. I will explore the prevalence of Yoga in feminist and female communities, looking at how women's bodies and subjectivities come to be shaped in relation to one another.
Bio: Tara Atluri is a first year PhD student in the department of Media and Communications at Goldsmith's College, University of London. Tara completed her Masters in Sociology and Equity Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Her areas of interest are anti racism, embodiment and post-colonial studies.
<taralatluri@hotmail.com>
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