A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment (Mascia-Lees/A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment) || Neoliberalism

✍ Scribed by Mascia-Lees, Frances E.

• Book ID: 101398460
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 488 KB
• Edition: 1
• Category: Article
• ISBN: 1405189495
• DOI: 10.1002/9781444340488.ch20

✦ Synopsis

Colleen is one of three sisters, raised in a simple chattel house by her mother, a domestic worker who struggled to instill in her children Barbadian values of hard work, education, and faith in God. Petite, attractive, and with an open, confident smile, Colleen embodies many of the signature markers of a new, neoliberal cultural economy in her island home, Barbados. A keen and energetic student, Colleen graduated from one of the island's top secondary schools and landed a bank job in which she wore a smart double-breasted uniform, and established herself as a reliable and hardworking member of staff. But after traveling to the U.S. in her late teens for an Outward Bound experience, Colleen quit her job at the bank, trading her stable, secure, and in her eyes limiting prospects of the bank for the risky waters of entrepreneurship. Swapping "skirt suits" for climbing gear and head wrap, she was quick to point out the radical challenge this posed for "conservative minded Barbados," a country whose history of plantation slavery has cast physical exertion and the hot sun as realms to avoid, especially for respectable Afro-Barbadian women. Ten years ago, with $12,000 in savings, $5,000 from a government "youth entrepreneurship" loan, and some help from her thenfiancé, she turned her energies to converting 26 acres of "rab"(uncultivated) land into the island's first team-building and wellness retreat on the rugged East Coast.

Geared towards a diverse array of business people (banks, insurance companies, established Barbadian firms, church groups, new government funded summer camps, individual families, and tourist groups) her goal is to offer an introduction to the great outdoors, an opportunity to trust and connect with other people, to enhance physical NEOLIBERALISM