How do we perceive ourselves and our bodies in relation to our physical, geographical, social, cultural, political, psychological, and spiritual environments? Body Studies in Canada uses intersectional methodological and theoretical frameworks to discuss the political and socio-historical discourses that shape body studies in Canadian society. This edited volume delves into a variety of timely topics including postcolonial “othering” of the body; social discourses around healthy and un-healthy bodies; intersections of aging, gender, race, class, and size; the fitness industries’ promotion of the “ideal” body; the gendering of bodywork symbols and expressions in carceral environments; and self-awareness of “the body” in social and digital media. In thirteen chapters, editor Valerie Zawilski brings together scholars from a wide variety of disciplines and expertise to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on how the body interacts reflexively with society. This collection is a foundational text for sociology of the body and body studies courses, as well as gender studies, political science, and health studies. FEATURES: - provides a uniquely Canadian perspective on body studies and the surrounding historical and political issues, with a focus on decolonization, racialization, masculinities, engagement with critical weight scholarship, and immigration - pedagogical features include section introductions, boxed inserts highlighting key concepts, learning objectives, questions for critical thinking, and a glossary

In recent years, body studies has expanded rapidly, becoming an increasingly popular field of study within anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies. This groundbreaking textbook takes the topics and theories from these disciplines, and combines them into one single, easily accessible text for students. Body Studies is a comprehensive textbook on the social and cultural uses and meanings of the body, for use in undergraduate college courses. Its clear, accessible chapters explore, among other things: the measurement and classification of the human body illness and healing the racialized body the gendered body cultural perceptions of beauty new bodily technologies. This book investigates how power plays an important role in the uses, views, and shapes of the body—as well as how the body is invested with meaning. Body Studies provides a wealth of pedagogic features for ease of teaching and learning: ethnographic case studies, boxes covering contemporary controversies, news stories, and legislative issues, as well as chapter summaries, further reading recommendations, and key terms. This book will appeal to students and teachers of sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, women’s studies, gender studies, and ethnic studies.

"Representative of the emerging interdisciplinary field of body studies, this timely edited collection brings together scholars from the fields of education, social sciences, and health studies. As a whole, Bodywork in Canada answers the questions of what bodywork is and how bodies are perceived in relation to political, cultural, and socio-historical environments in Canada. Each chapter offers original research in which contributors critically analyze embodied experiences in the country. Some topics explored include the postcolonial 'othering' of the body; social discourses around 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' bodies; the promotion by fitness industries of 'ideal,' 'athletic,' and 'aging' bodies; and the promotion of self and self-awareness of the body on social and digital media."--

The sociology of childhood and youth has sparked international interest in recent years, and yet a reader highlighting Canadian work in this field has been long overdue. Filling this gap in the literature, The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada brings together cutting-edge Canadian scholarship in this important and growing discipline. Thought-provoking and timely, this edited collection explores a breadth of essential topics, including research on and with children and youth, the social construction of childhood and youth, intersecting identities, and citizenship, rights, and social engagement. With a focus on social justice, the contributing authors critically examine various sites of inequality in the lives of children and young people, such as gender, sexuality, colonialism, race, class, and disability. Encouraging further development of Canadian scholarship in the sociology of childhood and youth, this unique collection ensures that young people’s voices are heard by involving them in the research process. Pedagogical supports—including learning objectives, study questions, suggested research assignments, and a comprehensive glossary—make this volume an invaluable resource for students of childhood and youth studies in Canada.

DIVCanada is situated geographically, historically, and culturally between old empires (Great Britain and France) and a more recent one (the United States), as well as on the terrain of First Nations communities. Poised between historical and metaphorical empires and operating within the conditions of incomplete modernity and economic and cultural dependency, Canada has generated a body of cultural criticism and theory, which offers unique insights into the dynamics of both center and periphery. The reader brings together for the first time in one volume recent writing in Canadian cultural studies and work by significant Canadian cultural analysts of the postwar era. Including essays by anglophone, francophone, and First Nations writers, the reader is divided into three parts, the first of which features essays by scholars who helped set the agenda for cultural and social analysis in Canada and remain important to contemporary intellectual formations: Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, and Anthony Wilden in communications theory; Northrop Frye in literary studies; George Grant and Harold Innis in a left-nationalist tradition of critical political economy; Fernand Dumont and Paul-Émile Borduas in Quebecois national and political culture; and Harold Cardinal in native studies. The volume’s second section showcases work in which contemporary authors address Canada’s problematic and incomplete nationalism; race, difference, and multiculturalism; and modernity and contemporary culture. The final section includes excerpts from federal policy documents that are especially important to Canadians’ conceptions of their social, political, and cultural circumstances. The reader opens with a foreword by Fredric Jameson and concludes with an afterword in which the Quebecois scholar Yves Laberge explores the differences between English-Canadian cultural studies and the prevailing forms of cultural analysis in francophone Canada. Contributors. Ian Angus, Himani Bannerji, Jody Berland, Paul-Émile Borduas, Harold Cardinal, Maurice Charland, Stephen Crocker, Ioan Davies, Fernand Dumont, Kristina Fagan, Gail Faurschou, Len Findlay, Northrop Frye, George Grant, Rick Gruneau, Harold Innis, Fredric Jameson, Yves Laberge, Jocelyn Létourneau, Eva Mackey, Lee Maracle, Marshall McLuhan, Katharyne Mitchell, Sourayan Mookerjea, Kevin Pask, Rob Shields, Will Straw, Imre Szeman, Serra Tinic, David Whitson, Tony Wilden/div

This expansive collection enriches the field of food studies with a feminist intersectional perspective, addressing the impacts that race, ethnicity, class, and nationality have on nutritional customs, habits, and perspectives. Throughout the text, international scholars explore three areas in feminist food studies: the socio-cultural, the corporeal, and the material. The textbook’s chapters intersect as they examine how food is linked to hegemony, identity, and tradition, while contributors offer diverse perspectives that stem from biology, museum studies, economics, popular culture, and history. This text’s engaging writing style and timely subject-matter encourage student discussions and forward-looking analyses on the advancement of food studies. With a unique multidisciplinary and global perspective, this vital resource is well-suited to undergraduate students of food studies, nutrition, gender studies, sociology, and anthropology.

From fur coats to nude paintings, and from sports to beauty contests, the body has been central to the literal and figurative fashioning of ourselves as individuals and as a nation. In this first collection on the history of the body in Canada, an interdisciplinary group of scholars explores the multiple ways the body has served as a site of contestation in Canadian history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Showcasing a variety of methodological approaches, Contesting Bodies and Nation in Canadian History includes essays on many themes that engage with the larger historical relationship between the body and nation: medicine and health, fashion and consumer culture, citizenship and work, and more. The contributors reflect on the intersections of bodies with the concept of nationhood, as well as how understandings of the body are historically contingent. The volume is capped off with a critical introductory chapter by the editors on the history of bodies and the development of the body as a category of analysis.