Fat People of Color: Emergent Intersectional Discourse Online

Apryl A. Williams
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Apryl A. Williams: Department of Sociology, Texas A&M University, 311 Academic Building, College Station, TX 77843-4351, USA

Social Sciences, 2017, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Though the general populace has been introduced to the idea of thin privilege, the fat activist movement has been slow in gaining momentum. This is due, in part, to the symbolic annihilation of “fat” people in media. Within the fat activist framework, women of color are often further excluded from the overarching discourse and white privilege is sometimes unacknowledged. Taking an intersectional approach, I examine the Tumblr page, Fat People of Color. I use Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA) to examine the images and conversations posted by users. Findings reveal that Fat People of Color uses an intersectional, communal approach to posit counter-narratives against normative ideas about white thinness. This research contributes to an understudied area of sociological inquiry by presenting an analysis of the experience of “fat” women of color within a feminist framework. Ignoring the variation of experiences strengthens the types of privileges that fat activism and feminism hope to dismantle.

Keywords: race; ethnicity; intersectionality; feminism; social media; social movements; fat activism; CTDA; Tumblr (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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