An Autoethnography of Fat and Weight Loss

Becoming the Bw0 with Deleuze and Guattari

Bibliographic Data

ID2643087
AuthorsValerie M Sheach Leith (0000-0002-5824-8426, Robert Gordon University, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume21
Issue3
Pages1-13
Publication date2016-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Research Online (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1360-7804 • E-ISSN: 1360-7804
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5153/sro.3971
OpenAlexW2510423000
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited45

This article experiments with some of the insights provided by the work of Deleuze and Guattari as a move towards deterritorializing fat bodies. This is necessary because in contemporary Western society the fat [female] body is positioned and frequently experienced as lacking in social, cultural and political value and as being in need of surveillance and control, not least by the neo-liberal 'self'. This article is a response to Deleuze and Guattari's plea to 'think differently', in this case about fat and weight loss. The article eschews the paradigmatic form of the traditional academic research paper, adopting a semi autoethnographic approach to present an analysis of my engagement with the Biggest Loser (diet) Club. Thinking through rather than about the body it focuses on embodied experiences of fat and the on-going process of cutting that body down to 'normal' size. By utilising two central concepts in Deleuzoguattarian thought - 'becoming' and the 'body - without - organs' (BwO) - I seek to demonstrate the embodied, theoretical and ethical potential of utilising Deleuze and Guattari's work to explore fat and weight loss and how this might productively serve to deterritorialize contemporary discourses which stigmatise fat bodies

Aesthetics · Autoethnography · Deleuze and Guattari · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Plea · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Diversity and Impact of Dance · Gender Studies · Law · Obesity and Health Practices · Philosophy · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Psychology

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