English Ph.D. Dissertations

Fat Cyborgs: Body Positive Activism, Shifting Rhetorics and Identity Politics in the Fatosphere

Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

English/Rhetoric and Writing

First Advisor

Kristine Blair (Advisor)

Second Advisor

Sue Carter-Wood (Committee Co-Chair)

Third Advisor

Lee Nickoson (Committee Member)

Fourth Advisor

Michael Arrigo (Other)

Abstract

"Fat Cyborgs: Body Positive Activism, Shifting Rhetorics and Identity Politics in the Fatosphere" is a project that illuminates how activist groups intersect technology with their activism. I observe and investigate the ways that Fat Acceptance (FA) and Health at Every Size (HAES) supporters and allies build and sustain an activist community online. I do this in order to understand how fat activists negotiate identity and the body online, a space often considered sans corpus. This project involves examining and extrapolating activists' literate and rhetorical practices for creating and sharing knowledge. I am most interested in understanding the ways in which fat activists use the Fatosphere to develop alternatives to oppressive and discriminatory discourses. I explore the issues that are raised by the FA movement, particularly in how FA and HAES takes shape in a subversive way in an online environment. In doing so, I develop a critical skill-set to talk about and negotiate the body and its relationship with technology, and in particular, the digital, personal/political heterotopias and affect more positive discourse.

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