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First published online January 1, 2015

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Binging and purging: agrofood capitalism and the body as socioecological fix

Julie Guthman [email protected]View all authors and affiliations

Volume 47, Issue 12

https://doi.org/10.1068/a140005p

Abstract
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Abstract

Theorizations of the spatial fix classically look to geographical expansion as the fix for capitalism's perennial crises of overaccumulation. Recent scholarship, evident in this theme issue, extends this thinking to the socioecological, recognizing that many ‘fixes’ these days involve appropriating or reconfiguring nature anew. This paper extends this yet further, by considering the body as a site of socioecological fixes. In recognition of Harvey's original notion of the spatial fix being always in relation to limits, this theorization puts a finer point on scholarship on the body as an accumulation strategy which has not always acknowledged the dialectical elements of this strategy. The body as a site of both limits and fixes is traced through the case of food marketing and processing strategies designed to overcome the obstacle to capitalist accumulation enshrined in Engel's law. These have in part contributed to the so-called obesity epidemic; and they are also involved in the commodified cures designed to resolve it—metabolism-defying diet foods being the example par excellence. These are designed to overcome particular limits of accumulation but, in doing so, produce new problems that are only partially resolved. Although the examples provided in this paper are limited to obesity and its putative cures, the larger point is to shed light on capitalism's potential to significantly rework bodily processes and spaces in ways conducive to ongoing accumulation, as immanent in the bioeconomy.

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