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Rad Fatties and 'The Obese':Activism, Fat Studies and Paradigm Shifts in the UK
Charlotte Cooper
What I'm going to do today
•How I got into fat•What I mean by fat activism•How straight obesity research cannot recognise
the richness of (my) fat experience•How Fat Studies and HAES offer a different
paradigm that can•Possible challenges•Some comments about the seminar series
This is how it started…
What fat activism means to me
• Interpretive framework• Citizenship• Structural change great, but not essential• Survival• Wellbeing• Radical potential of hope• Fun• …
Dominant obesity discourse
• Out of touch• Reductionist• Methodologically suspect• Stale model• Abstracts, absents and abjects 'the obese'• Stifles dissent• Utterly ill-equipped to understand me and my kind• Does not contribute to my quality of life as a fat
person, it diminishes it
Shifting the paradigm
• Fat people are central as protagonists and producers of the discourse
• Fat people are people with agency, context, community, resources, etc
• Fat people are less likely to be abjected• There is a relationship between activism and scholarship• Fat people are more likely to be regarded as people
rather than objects for intervention• Multi-disciplinary: includes health and medicalisation but
also moves far beyond it• Values fat experience• Critical, celebratory, questioning• …
Possible challenges
• Needs broader/international research networks
• Managing criticism• Bunker mentality, bullying and
demonising• Same old same old• Recognising broader historical and
cultural contexts
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