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
Manchester Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
