An Autoethnography of Fat and Weight Loss: Becoming the Bw0 with Deleuze and Guattari

Abstract

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.

“You will face discrimination”: Fatness, motherhood, and the medical profession

“…There are other autoethnographic accounts relating to fatness that have emerged in recent years. These accounts range from discussing fat and weight loss and conflicting social messages (Leith 2016) to feminist narratives that refuse the perspective of women who are dieting or unhappy being fat (Smailes 2014) to coming out as fat (Pausé 2012). I have at times focused on autoethnography around fat and queer identities, and sexuality (Lee 2014(Lee , 2015a.…”