Relocating obesity with multiauthor ethnography
Elliott M. Reichardt’s ORCID record Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2018
Abstract
Reflecting on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) account of obesity and recent developments in ethnography, I advocate for a collaborative, multiauthor approach to studying obesity and, more broadly, chronic disease. To illustrate this, I show how recent ethnographies of obesity and metabolism have convincingly challenged and reframed the WHO’s account of obesity. I further suggest that future ethnographic studies of obesity (and chronic disease) could expand their analytical scope – without sacrificing a critical and people-centred approach – through coordination and collaboration. A multiauthor approach to obesity research would increase the capacity of ethnography to demonstrate the many conditions that must be fulfilled for a person to become ‘obese’, productively foregrounding how ‘obesity’ emerges out of a web of social, economic, political, chemical, and historical connections. This would enable a more comprehensive understanding of the uneven emergence of obesity (and other chronic diseases) worldwide.
Recommended Citation
Elliott M. Reichardt “Relocating Obesity With Multiauthor Ethnography”. Medicine Anthropology Theory, vol. 5, no. 5, Dec. 2018,