DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Bodies in Crisis

Culture, Violence, and Women's Resistance in Neoliberal Argentina

Barbara Sutton author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Rutgers University Press

Published:25th Feb '10

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Bodies in Crisis cover

Born and raised in Argentina and still maintaining significant ties to the area, Barbara Sutton examines the complex, and often hidden, bodily worlds of diverse women in that country during a period of profound social upheaval. Based primarily on women's experiential narratives and set against the backdrop of a severe economic crisis and intensified social movement activism post-2001, Bodies in Crisis illuminates how multiple forms of injustice converge in and are contested through women's bodies. Sutton reveals the bodily scars of neoliberal globalization; women's negotiation of cultural norms of femininity and beauty; experiences with clandestine, illegal, and unsafe abortions; exposure to and resistance against interpersonal and structural violence; and the role of bodies as tools and vehicles of political action.

Through the lens of women's body consciousness in a Global South country, and drawing on multifaceted stories and a politically embedded approach, Bodies in Crisis suggests that social policy, economic systems, cultural ideologies, and political resistance are ultimately fleshly matters.

"Bodies in Crisis is one of the few books that deals with the bodily dimensions of exclusion and resistance in Latin America. Bravo to Sutton for this highly original work." -- Javier Auyero * author of Flammable: Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown *
"A masterful study on embodiment and modes of feminity in 21st century Argentina. It is accessible enough to be used with upper-level undergraduates even as it is detailed and complex enough to be essential for specialists in Argentina, a difficult balance which Sutton nonetheless achieves flawlessly." * Anthropological Quarterly *
"Barbara Sutton provides a unique account of the social and political conjuncture in her country at the beginning of the twenty-first century that is both a brilliant attempt to theorize women's lives and struggles by bringing thhe body clearly 'back' into the picture, and a rendering of a concrete story of oppression and resistance in which women come to life as embodied subjects of history. Her well-written text brings her informants' stories richly to life." * Contemporary Sociology *
"I rarely say this about academic books but I had a hard time putting this one down! Sutton has authored an exciting and engaging contribution to the literature on women and social movements." -- Michelle D. Bonner * University of Victoria *

ISBN: 9780813547404

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 20mm

Weight: 425g

270 pages