(Un)Mapping trajectories of fatness: a critical account of fat studies’ origin story and the reproduction of fat (white) normativity

Abstract

Origin stories set the stage for the development of a field of study and are integral to the ways they grow and shift. Similar to other reclamation projects, fat studies aims to rewrite the history of ‘fat’ by subverting its violent use for surveillance and control, and positioning it as a natural human characteristic. Its origin story is inextricably linked to the activism and scholarship of white and white-passing women, and is often located in gendered expectations of the ‘appropriate’ feminine body. As a result, the racial origins and functionings of fatphobia become erased and create a normative fat subject that is typically cisgender, female and white, which is reproduced in much of the research emerging from the field. I, along with other fat activists and scholars, propose a fundamental shift towards an intersectional fat studies, with race as an entry point to analysis towards rewriting the field’s history and presence.