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Narratives of Paleo Redemption: Agency, Resistance and the Rise of Health Populism

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Illness, Identity, and Taboo among Australian Paleo Dieters

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Abstract

Trajectories of illness and obesity are consistently recounted by Paleo dieters as having been arrested by the uptake of Paleo principles and practices. In this chapter, I explore the re-authoring of identity narratives among Paleo dieters in order to suggest that their dietary practices serve as a form of resistance. This is to the neoliberal political economy, broadly, and Western biomedicine, particularly, which are seen respectively as having created, and failed to resolve, the perceived health crisis. I argue that this spirit of resistance is best understood in the light of the rise of populism globally, where anti-elite sentiments, a sense of crisis, and the democratisation of knowledge enabled by the Internet are fuelling the proliferation of alternative health beliefs and practices.

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  1. School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia

    Catie Gressier

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  1. Catie Gressier
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Correspondence to Catie Gressier .

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Gressier, C. (2018). Narratives of Paleo Redemption: Agency, Resistance and the Rise of Health Populism . In: Illness, Identity, and Taboo among Australian Paleo Dieters . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67250-2_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67250-2_3

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-67249-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-67250-2

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