The promises of fasting: Between animal and primitive models.

International audienceThis chapter analyzes the recent development of the French "wellness" fasting market. The vast majority of the material collected has come from a netnographic study of websites promoting fasting retreats and interviews with those who run these marketing networks. After mapping out the socio-historical trajectory of the promise of fasting, the authors show that the contemporary practice of fasting is based on a promise of "rewilding the self" that takes the form of a dual process: 1) a regressive process, a rewilding of the body based on a primitivist philosophy that aims to restore modern humans' physiological potential via an ancestral technique of the body: fasting; 2) a political process, a politicized rewilding of everyday life in the form of a radical experience of hunger aiming to challenge commercial routines and dietary habits, and to renew sensations and perceptions