Paper short abstract:

Researchers are divided on the subject of bariatric surgery, its efficiency, safety and morality. Based on ethnography from Denmark the paper discusses the normativities of bariatric surgery. What are patients’ expectations, fears and hopes? And how does surgery alter these concerns?

Paper long abstract:

Researchers are divided on the subject of bariatric surgery, its efficiency, safety and morality. The procedures provoke disagreement and strong opinions. The debate is dominated by an overall division between social sciences and medical sciences. On the one hand social scientists, notably from critical obesity studies, have argued that weight loss is not a choice but an obligation as obesity is seen as the result of a moral failure of individual responsibility. These perspectives conjure a conception of surgery as the epitome of bodily objectification, one that represents a medically mediated regime of governmentality and the neoliberal self - in short: surgery is coercive and 'bad'. In contrast medical accounts stress surgery as 'the most effective treatment in morbidly obese patients', facilitating sustained weight loss and important benefits on a range of health parameters; hence surgery is 'good'.

Based on ethnography from Denmark the present paper discusses the normative specificities of bariatric surgery from patients' point of view. What are patients' expectations, fears, hopes and desires? What happen to the body? And how does surgery alter concerns, aspirations and daily practices? What pains and pleasures are relevant for patients and how are these concerns facilitated by or made (more) difficult by surgery? A focal point in the presentation will be how surgery enables the emergence of objectifications and subjectifications.