A PHYSICAL CULTURAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVE ON PHYSICAL (IN)ACTIVITY AND HEALTH INEQUALITIES: THE BIOPOLITICS OF BODY PRACTICES AND EMBODIED MOVEMENT

Abstract

In this paper I discuss how a Physical Cultural Studies approach offers a different way of understanding the complex experiences of health, emotional wellbeing and (in)active embodiment as social practices. Non-communicable ‘diseases’ (diabetes, heart disease, cancer, obesity etc) and sedentary lifestyles are growing public health problems in the global South and North. There is a need for new sociocultural approaches to understanding physical (in)activity as a form of body practice and embodied movement that is profoundly biopolitical.