In a series of cases in the 1990s, English law confirmed the legality of tube feeding, detention and restraint of anorexic women. In declaring such practices lawful, English law has provided a space in which anorexic identity is constituted by reference to dominant discursive regimes of medical positivism and dualistic conceptions of the mind and body. This article examines critically law’s engagement with the anorexic body. It also considers possible modes of resistance, in particular the potential of poststructuralism, to make space for the resignifying of anorexic bodies in law.
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