Published
Jul 27, 2011Page count
264 pagesISBN
978-1847426383Dimensions
240 x 172 mmImprint
Policy Press
Governing health and consumption
This book critically explores the urban governance of healthy lifestyles and the contemporary problematisations of the obesity, sedentarism and alcohol "epidemics". To do so, it uses US and UK case studies to shed light on the complex socio-spatial dynamics of responsibilities for health and argues for an engagement with the construct of "sensible" behaviour at a time of its rising political salience. This book will appeal to sociologists, geographers, anthropologists and those concerned with the governance of health and lifestyle.
"A timely and challenging discussion of the dilemmas of contemporary health policy which recognises the often intractible environmental determinants of health and still emphasises information to modify individual behaviours." Julie Guthman, Associate Professor of Community Studies, University of California Santa Cruz
Clare Herrick is Lecturer in Human Geography in the Cities Group, King's College London. She undertook her PhD at UCL and has held visiting scholar positions at the University of Texas, Austin, the National University of Singapore and, most recently, the University of Cape Town.
Her research critically explores the intersections of risky health behaviours with urban space, political ecologies and contemporary governance strategies.
Introduction; Being sensible; Governing behaviour change in risky environments; Obesity and strategies of rule; The incidentally sensible city; Events and the lucratively sensible city; The sensible drinker and the persistence of pleasure; Spatial governance and the night-time economy; What life is this? Some concluding thoughts
