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Podcast: New Books in Public Policy
Episode: Alyson K. Spurgas and Zoe Meleo Erwin, "Decolonize Self-Care" (OR Books, 2022)
Description: For twentieth-century feminists, it was a rallying cry for bodily autonomy and political power. For influencers and lifestyle brands, it’s buying fancy nutrition and body products at a premium. And it has now infiltrated nearly every food, leisure, and pop-culture space as a hugely lucrative industry.What is it? To quote a million memes: it’s called self-care.In Decolonize Self-Care (OR Books, 2023), Alyson K. Spurgas and Zoë Meleo-Erwin deliver a comprehensive sociological analysis and scathing critique of the term’s capitalist, racist undertones. Decolonizing self-care, they argue, requires a full reckoning with the exclusionary...