ABSTRACT
Neoliberalism impacts all realms of life by shifting health and social care from being a public concern to an individual responsibility. In doing so, neoliberal-informed ways of thinking and writing about problems and solutions, that is discourses, promote a form of active citizenship whereby individuals are expected to maximize their health as a kind of enterprise. This chapter focus on how neoliberal discourses (mis)shape health by placing responsibility and blame onto individuals and communities in Western societies. Since the power of neoliberal discourses is paradoxical, these discourses often portray individuals as inherently capable of improving their health, while marginalizing those who cannot afford (or refuse) to adopt the ‘right’ practices for staying healthy. They serve to reproduce an understanding of the individual as rational, who will exercise responsibility for her/his lifestyle choices, inciting them to stay healthy, while failing to acknowledge the social conditions that work against their will. By unpacking such discourses, this chapter explores the mechanisms through which neoliberalism exerts power, both disciplinary and normalizing. It also argues for continual interrogation of implications of neoliberal discourses of health to resist the tendency to individualize the causes and solutions to health problems.
