We're just like Gok, but in reverse’

Ana Girls – empowerment and resistance in digital communities

Bibliographic Data

ID13899423
AuthorsNic Crowe (0000-0002-7116-1763, Brunel University of London, corresponding author), Mike Watts (0000-0002-8044-5418, Brunel University of London)
Year2014
Volume21
Issue3
Pages379-390
Publication date2014-01-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Adolescence and Youth (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0267-3843 • E-ISSN: 2164-4527
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02673843.2013.856802
OpenAlexW4233451158
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited25

‘Pro-Ana’ Internet sites can foster or celebrate anorexia and bulimia nervosa in young women. Clinical discourse portrays anorexia as a problematic and deviant ‘condition’, while Pro-Ana/-Mia spaces offer an arena that appeals to control over how bodies are represented. We draw on data from a seven-year ethnographic study of young people's online worlds, from forums, postings on Pro-Ana sites and online interviews with Pro-Ana users, to illustrate and illuminate young women's perspectives and the extent to which this transgressive movement strives for voice. We argue that ‘being’ Pro-Ana offers ‘practitioners’ liberation from cultural critiques of the body. The websites suggest that famously thin women, whose ‘beauty’ has already been culturally validated, have overcome similar problems to Pro-Ana readers, and offer a re-formulation of cultural identities to provide legitimate (and validated) means to reach this ‘perfection’. In this respect, they represent important sites of agency and resistance

Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy · Anorexia nervosa · Art · Beauty · Eating disorders · Empowerment · Ethnography · Political science · Psychic · Resistance (ecology · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Eating Disorders and Behaviors · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access