Magical Transformation! A 'raw' embodied experience on retreat

This paper documents the personal experience, through a self-narrative, of eating a raw food diet during a detox retreat programme. The paper highlights the experience of embodied transformations during the retreat, using the... [ view full abstract ]

This paper documents the personal experience, through a self-narrative, of eating a raw food diet during a detox retreat programme. The paper highlights the experience of embodied transformations during the retreat, using the organising framework of Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey”. Using a reflective, auto-ethnographical narrative methodology, the aim of this paper is to contribute to the body of CCT (consumer culture theory) research, specifically identity projects. This paper reveals the complexity of the mind-body relationship and influence of changing marketplace health discourses on food consumption behaviour and consumer identity. Food and eating practices are central to creating good health and incorporate notions of the body, self-control, health, consumption, and the construction of identity (Lupton, 1996). Consistent with Kristensen’s et al (2013), the body is highly valued and embodied experiences of consumers are used as rhetorical devices to inform and negotiate their identities in relation to food consumption. In a culture where the nature and meaning of healthy food is paradoxical, we need to rely on our bodies and more specifically our embodied knowledge of food, health and identity to feel safe in a risky world.