Who are you swimming for?
Who are you swimming for?
This chapter explores the relationship between marathon swimming and charitable fundraising. The chapter argues that the act of swimming for charity is a readily intelligible and sincerely intended means of constructing the good body/self, but that this simultaneously flattens out different forms of suffering and depoliticises social inequalities and ill-health. The celebration of the endurance sporting body and its reward through sponsorship over-emphasises individual accomplishment whilst understating the privilege that facilitates those status-bearing acts. The chapter argues that these elisions and exclusions are made possible by the inextricability of charitable swimming from the cultural logics of neoliberalism.
Keywords: Charity, Philanthropy, Neoliberalism, Alliances of suffering, Responsibility, Entrepreneurial selfhood
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