Fat Oppression around the World Intersectional, Interdisciplinary, and Methodological Innovations

This book offers cutting-edge, intersectional, and interdisciplinary research in the blossoming field of fat studies. The aim is to generate discussion about the complexity of fat oppression as a phenomenon and social force that permeates interactions both at an institutional and interpersonal level, impacting the lived experiences of fat people.

Each chapter has been carefully selected to create a space to showcase the engaging intersectional and interdisciplinary fat studies scholarship that is taking place globally. This engaging book will take the reader around the world by examining: weight-loss classes in Ireland, Jamaican women?s views of health and fatness, the difficulties of immigrating while fat to New Zealand, fat activism in Finnish media, being fat and pregnant in Australia, a girls' camp in the United States, and the experiences of fat hatred felt by queer fat women in Canada. This book will inspire fat-studies scholars globally to incorporate intersectional approaches and qualitative methods in future work.

The chapters in this book were originally published in Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society.

Introduction - Theorizing fat oppression: Intersectional approaches and methodological innovations

Ariane Prohaska and Jeannine A. Gailey

1. Crafting weight stigma in slimming classes: A case study in Ireland

Jacqueline O’Toole

2. Understanding fatness: Jamaican women’s constructions of health

Claudia Barned and Kieran O’Doherty

3. Frozen: A fat tale of immigration

Cat Pausé

4. Can ambivalence hold potential for fat activism? An analysis of conflicting discourses on fatness in the Finnish column series Jenny’s Life Change

Anna Puhakka

5. "You will face discrimination": Fatness, motherhood, and the medical profession

Jennifer Lee

6. Rock and rolls: Exploring body positivity at Girls Rock Camp

Trisha L. Crawshaw

7. Mapping the circulation of fat hatred

Jen Rinaldi, Carla Rice, Crystal Kotow and Emma Lind

Ariane Prohaska is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Alabama. Her research interests include gender, bodies, fat studies, and disaster sociology. She has recently published in Fat Studies, Critical Policy Studies, and International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters.

Jeannine A. Gailey is Professor of Sociology at Texas Christian University. She studies gender, bodies, fat studies, and sexualities. Her recent research has appeared in Fat Studies, Feminism & Psychology, and Qualitative Research. Her monograph, TheHyper(in)visible Fat Woman, was published in 2014.