Capitalist logics in food discourse : health, positivism, and productivity

Abstract

Capitalism is focused on production and the free market. As a result, optimizing time has become one of the anchors for tyrannical productivity. To keep the production rate and receive both a psychological and an economic reward –linked to the so-called happycracy – taking care of nutrition has become a key factor in keeping this lifestyle. Social networks and our hyper-connected world have contributed to the spread of these time-efficient practices as well as supposedly healthy diets. This public exhibition has been coined "productivity porn" by Janira Planes (@janiraplanes). The logics underlying these practices are grounded on neoliberalism, in which human beings are objectified and image cultivation is essential – mainly linked to eternally young and non-overweight looks and maximum work performance. This work presents the results obtained by analyzing the DAME Corpus (Discourse of Nutrition in the media, University of Vigo). Particularly, our research goals are as follows: (i) observe whether Spanish written press conveys ideas on productivity, health, and positivity when talking about nutrition; (ii) detect the discursive strategies used to express these constructs through these media; (iii) reflect on how these ideas are adopted by their audiences. To do this, critical discourse analysis techniques have been applied to analyze the corpus. Moreover, the data obtained in a survey with 208 participants have been included to learn about public opinion. The results identify the discursive resources the Spanish written press uses to link productivity porn and happycracy with food discourse. Furthermore, a reflection on the dangers these ideas imply for both physical and mental health is presented. These discursive strategies have been identified as perpetuation strategies for the capitalist ideology.

Keywords

• productivity porn
• happycracy
• nutrition
• written press
• critical discourse analysis