Many health, environmental, and social challenges across the globe
– from diabetes to climate change – are regularly discussed in
terms of imbalances in biological, ecological, and social systems.
Yet, as contributions to this collection demonstrate, while the
pressures of modernity have long been held to be pathogenic,
strategies for addressing modern excesses and deficiencies of
bodies and minds have frequently focused on the agency of the
individual, self-knowledge, and individual choices. This volume
explores how concepts of ‘balance’ have been central to modern
politics, medicine, and society, analysing the diverse ways in
which balanced and unbalanced selfhoods have been subject to
construction, intervention, and challenge across the long twentieth
century. Through original chapters on subjects as varied as obesity
control, fatigue and the regulation of work, and the physiology of
exploration in extreme conditions, Balancing the self explores how
the mechanisms and meanings of balance have been framed
historically. Together, contributions examine the positive
narratives that have been attached to the ideals and practices of
‘self-help’, the diverse agencies historically involved in
cultivating new ‘balanced’ selves, and the extent to which
rhetorics of empowerment and responsibility have been used for a
variety of purposes, from disciplining bodies to cutting social
security. With contributions from leading and emerging scholars
such as Dorothy Porter, Alex Mold, Vanessa Heggie, Chris Millard,
and Natasha Feiner, Balancing the self generates new insights into
emerging fields of health governance, subjectivity, and balance. --
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