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Dissertation Information for Allyson A. Mitchell

NAME:
- Allyson A. Mitchell

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Women's Studies

SCHOOL:
- York University (USA) (2006)

ADVISORS:
- Linda Peake

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- David Murray
- Elizabeth Seaton

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: Corporeographies of size: Fat women in urban space

Abstract: This dissertation examines how individual women experience and 'know' their bodies in terms of fatness and its contexts. This research is grounded in three areas of theory around the body: identities and power, bodies in space and place, and performativity. While this literature provides an important foundation from which to consider the body, I argue that it fails to address the specificities of fat experience. This research is a response to that paucity.

Resisting the psychological and scientific discourses that pathologize fatness, this project develops a corporeal theory of corpulence that attends to the lived experiences of fat women. Drawing on intensive interviews with sixteen women who identify as fat, I explore what fat is, in terms of identity, bodily comportment and shared experiences.

The central finding of this research is that fat bodies in and as space(s) are both products and productive of knowledge about what it means to be fat. The fat body, as a space and a scale, comes to be both laden with and constitutive of meaning through performative spatial negotiations.

Emotional, social and political associations with ideas and spaces are argued as being formative of both fat bodies and identities. The spatial disjunctures experienced by the respondents (between spaces of parental and adult homes; private and public spaces; and spaces with a high or low concentration of fat bodies, for example) are explored for their significance in terms of surveillance, control and discipline. Ultimately, the gazes encountered in daily life are understood as organizing how fat women can and do move through places, and attendantly, experience their bodies.

Relatedly, I explore the experiences of fat women who have participated in or witnessed forms of fat activisms. In particular, I examine the transformations and affirmations of fat experiences and/or identities encountered in politicized moments or environments. I further consider the tensions among and between fat activists and activisms, and suggest a conceptual split between spaces of 'resistance' and spaces of 'recovery' allows for a more nuanced understanding of fat politics and their attendant complications.

MPACT Scores for Allyson A. Mitchell

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calculated 2008-03-24 12:05:52

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