Graduation Date
9-2015
Document Type
Thesis
Department/Program Conferring Degree
Women & Gender Studies
Keywords
Tumblr, feminist ethnography, fat acceptance community, body acceptance, collective accountability
Abstract
The paper examines the “fat body” in the United States, and the fat acceptance grassroots community and fat activist resistance, as they exist on the social media site Tumblr. Blending feminist ethnographic fieldwork with post-structuralist and intersectional theoretical analysis, I interrogate fat positive identity formation, Tumblr as a site of resistance and the representational politics embedded in the fat activist Tumblr community. I conclude by offering the possibility of a “collective accountability” as the means to move from virtual community to embodied coalition. I assert that the sustainability of the fat acceptance grassroots community is contingent on the collective shift towards fat activist efforts and coalition practices that are intersectional approach and multi-issue in framework.
Recommended Citation
Schultz, Kelsey, "Fat activism and collective accountability: from virtual community to embodied coalition" (2015). College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations. 194.
https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd/194