A politic of the body as a target to power technologies in Michel Foucault: analyzing discourses published in the magazine AnaMaria

Abstract

The present article aims to problematize the discourse of weight loss as seen in contemporary media. A theoretical and conceptual discussion regarding a politic of the body as a target to Michel Foucault’s power technologies was conducted, taking as empirical corpus selected articles from some editions of the Dieting section of AnaMaria, a magazine published on a weekly basis both in print and electronically. The analysis uses foucauldian tools to challenge discursivities that reverberate throughout various environments of social circulation and endorse the fabrication of a beauty standard. Such standard seems to be the aesthetic model currently standing, in which bodies “must” be slim. It is understood that subjects’ bodies are fabrications consistent with the historical and social context in which they are inserted and are subjectified by and within the power relations in which they are engaged. It seems there is a process of subjectification operated not only by the magazine, but by contemporary media in general, via a subtle and inviting interpellation. In this article, the media is taken as a cultural pedagogy that teaches, educates, and fabricates subjects and subjectivities above and beyond school walls. The theoretical and methodological framework for this research uses analytical tools taken from concepts by the philosopher Michel Foucault. This research brought the understanding that there are processes of subjectification that accompany subjects’ entire lives, here particularly, modes of subjectification related to a body that must transform into one that is considered “normal”, healthy, beautiful and happy.

Keywords: Weight loss in discourse. Power relations. Body