The Micropolitics of Obesity: Materialism, Markets and Food Sovereignty

This article shifts focus from an individualised and anthropocentric perspective on obesity, and uses a new materialist analysis to explore the assemblages of materialities producing fat and slim bodies. We report data from a study of adults’ accounts of food decision-making and practices, investigating circulations of matter and desires that affect the production, distribution, accumulation and dispersal of fat, and disclose a micropolitics of obesity, which affects bodies in both ‘becoming-fat’ and ‘becoming-slim’ assemblages. These assemblages comprise bodies, food, fat, physical environments, food producers and processing industries, supermarkets and other food retailers and outlets, diet regimens and weight loss clubs, and wider social, cultural and economic formations, along with the thoughts, feelings, ideas and human desires concerning food consumption and obesity. The analysis reveals the significance of the marketisation of food, and discusses whether public health responses to obesity should incorporate a food sovereignty component

"Lost in digitization" : a spatial journey in emergency response and pragmatic legitimacy

International audienceInstitutional and technological changes can conduct organizations to strengthen or defend their pragmatic legitimacy, in particular through digitization. In this vein, some organizations in the emergency sector have triggered massive investments to address their stakeholders' informational needs, thereby defending their pragmatic legitimacy. However, knowledge remains scarce about the practical influence of organizational search for pragmatic legitimacy on operations, especially in emergency settings. Inspired from pragmatist thinking and grounded theory principles, Anouck Adrot and Marie Bia-Figueiredo propose space as an intermediary concept to better understand the materiality of emergency organizations' pursuit for pragmatic legitimacy. They propose a relational frameworks that depicts emergency response as a spatial journey. Composed of six mutually imbricated occupational areas, the proposed framework highlights how Sigma, a firefighting organization, attempted to defend occupational balance in operations. Our contribution is double. First, we highlight how materiality can be reused by practitioners to develop reflexivity about practice and institutions. Second, we outline that a spatial approach to operations can help anticipate potential side effects of transformation, that can endanger pragmatic legitimacy