Clipping Wings and Thwarting Dreams: Unpacking Spatial Discrimination against Fat Individuals in the Built Environment

Pooja Narayan [ Linkedin ]

Attending the screening of fat activist and writer Aubrey Gordon’s biopic, Your Fat Friend, highlighted the ubiquity of discriminatory aspects of the built environment that marginalise and exclude fat people. Numerous aspects of my immediate surroundings – classroom spaces and public transport appeared exclusionary and deliberately designed to exclude fat people in multitudinous ways. In this essay, foregrounding qualitative research and autoethnographic accounts from fat folks, I argue that many architectural and built environment spaces are far from being neutral and depoliticised. Instead, through tacit and under-recognised yet pronounced mechanisms, these spaces perpetuate discrimination that has far-reaching, deleterious impacts. By combining various components of Setha Low’s rich theorisation of ‘spatialising cultures’ (2011; 2016) with the incisive insights from the field of Fat Studies, I critically analyse two built environment infrastructures - aeroplanes and classroom spaces. The nuances through which fat stigma and exclusion circulate highlight the embodied, affective dimensions and the social construction of these spaces. Fat individuals endure persistent physical discomfort, hostile stares and apathy from fellow passengers and classmates which hampers fat students’ learning experiences and heightens a sense of hyperawareness about other passengers and airline staff’s displeasure in their presence. This persistent discrimination exacerbates feeling un-belonged, unwelcomed and invisibilised in these shared, public spaces. Furthermore, fat women, fat people of colour, disabled fat individuals and those belonging to multiple marginalised identities face greater scrutiny. Despite the force of marginalisation, these sites also serve as sites of resistance and agency, wherein fat folks actively reconfigure their surroundings to counter the hefty burden of weight stigma and discrimination.  

Introduction

Setting the Stage

This January, I attended the screening of beloved fat activist Your Fat Friend's 'coming out' biographical movie at the British Film Institute. Through its sensitive and evocative portrayal, I witnessed the immense impact of thoughtful filmmaking as Aubrey Gordon's life and activist trajectory was sublimely unravelled to the world. I was amazed at the sheer number of fat folks who gathered to watch the film as they sniffled and laughed heartily at multiple scenes in unison. Despite being painfully squished by the theatre seats, many shared being understood and seen as Aubrey reflected on her lifelong struggles and enthralled with her witty, hilarious comebacks at the unrelenting weight stigma she faced. Later on, as I contemplated Aubrey detailing her struggles of constricting herself in chairs, aeroplanes, and car seats too small, everything in my immediate surroundings unfolded as exclusionary and discriminatory towards fat people. At my university, classroom seats with table flaps and library seats seemed too small; our corridors and shower enclosures in my accommodation felt too restrictive; public transport seating such as bus and tube seats and bench seats in parks all appeared to vehemently exclude fat folks from simply existing in these spaces. I use the word ‘fat’ intentionally rather than ‘overweight’ and ‘obese’ to depart from the medicalising and pathologizing connotations of these words. As several fat activists and fat studies scholars pinpoint, words such as ‘overweight’ and ‘obese’ are “neither neutral nor benign” (Wann, 2009, xii) and categorise individuals into rigid medicalised categories based on the Body Mass Index (BMI), thereby, exacerbating anti-fat discrimination and weight stigma.

In this essay, I follow anthropologist Setha Low's (2011) call for a more "engaged anthropology" that foregrounds the categories of space and place to unpack contemporary socio-spatial inequalities and address broader issues of culture and political economy. I chiefly draw upon Low's theorisation of "spatialising culture" (2011; 2016) that transcends the narrow focus on the materiality and social representation of spaces, that is, space as conceived through processes of social production and social construction to include broader facets such as the embodied, affective, discursive and translocal dimensions into its ambit. Bodies, culture, and space form the connection between the micropolitics of individual bodies and the macropolitics of political economy and socio-historical contexts in ways wherein bodies become "centres of agency" (Low, 2016, p. 94). The theoretically vast and rich conceptualisation of "spatialising culture" offers a multifaceted approach to unpack the politics through which fat individuals continue to be marginalised by exclusionary and fatphobic built environments.

Additionally, the field of Fat Studies provides crucial insights for adopting a destigmatising and expansive understanding of the lived realities of fatness. Using this conceptual scaffolding, I examine two spaces of the built environment and utilise various dimensions constituting Low's (2011, 2016) concept of "spatialising culture" to explore the politics of fat exclusion embedded in restrictive aeroplane seats and classroom seats in university spaces. I argue, following Owen’s (2012) and Brewis et al.'s (2016) incisive anthropological insights, that for fat individuals, the built and architectural environments are far from being de-politicised spaces. Instead, these spaces perpetuate exclusion through less explicit yet more pronounced, harmful and pervasive means. These spaces tacitly reinforce the unworthiness and undesirability of fat bodies to inhabit shared, public spaces, adding another dimension to the modalities of weight stigma currently embedded in our culture. I explore these nuances by combining qualitative research and autoethnographic accounts from fat individuals[1] who have candidly shared their incessant struggles inhabiting these spaces.

Current built environment literature documents the growing efforts to tackle rampant ableism, classism, sexism, racism, and other forms of structural discrimination and exclusion interwoven into architectural environments (Bichard, 2018; Seyedrezaei et al., 2023; Schindler, 2015; Zallio and Clarkson, 2021). However, fat individuals' lived realities and everyday experiences of exclusion and invisibility are rarely unpacked and not granted commensurate urgency within this corpus of literature. The current cultural messaging about fatness can be considered as one of the possible reasons why the nefarious impacts of exclusionary built environments on fat people are routinely diminished and under-recognised. That is, under contemporary neoliberal healthism discourses, fatness is conceived as a moral failing, born out of individual choices of excessive eating and leading a sedentary lifestyle (LeBesco, 2011; Saguy & Riley, 2005; Saguy, 2013). Consequently, fat individuals not conforming to the medico-cultural imperatives of dieting or losing weight, as "good biocitizens" (Halse, 2008) and as "good fatties" (Brown & Herndon, 2020) are deemed responsible for not fitting into social and public spaces. In the current brazenly fatphobic and anti-fat cultural moment, the blame and responsibility squarely falls upon fat people. Murray (2008) captures this societal frustration with the fat body, "the 'fat' body is maddening: it will not fit, and yet the disciplinary imperatives of pathological discourses constantly reign the 'fat' body in and scrutinise its being-in-the-world" (p. 5, emphasis mine).

According to disability justice scholar Aimi Hamraie (2017), "built environments serve as the litmus tests of broader social exclusions" (p. 79), and building designs are rarely ever "value-neutral and passive acts." When buildings are designed with the "neutral template of the normate"[2], that is, exclusively for those with the "unmarked privileges of normative embodiments" (p. 82), through various material-discursive and epistemic practices, marginalised and non-normative bodies are deemed the "misfit". This justifies the exclusion of minoritised embodiments (in this case, disabled bodies), and the privileges of the "normate" are further reproduced. Following disability studies frameworks, many fat feminist scholars draw parallels between the hindrances disabled and fat individuals face, particularly when interacting with exclusionary built environments (Herndon, 2002, 2021; Mollow, 2015). These scholars pinpoint the need to redirect focus from dominant medicalised construction of fatness as "risky" embodiments and as "problems" located in the individual towards a social model that recognises the structural aspects of discrimination and multiply marginalised fat individuals. Recognising the interconnectedness of marginalisations, therefore, enables devoting greater attention and politically engaging with the nuances and grave consequences of persistent fat discrimination.

Case Studies

Weight Discrimination Embedded in Flying in Aeroplanes and within Academic Spaces

The striking parallels in fat people’s experiences of navigating exclusionary built environment spaces such as aeroplane seats and university classroom seating warrant a critical analysis. In this section, different components of Low's (2016) theorisation of "spatialising cultures" helps flesh out these commonalities and bring forth the many nuanced manifestations of fat stigma and discrimination embedded in various built environments.

Embodied Spaces

The way fat people interact with their immediate surroundings in aeroplanes and classroom settings construct aeroplane seats, and the infrastructure of academic spaces as embodied spaces, thereby becoming sites where concerns of "experiences, consciousness and political subjectivity take on material and spatial form" (Low, 2016, p. 95). In her play, "Things I Learned from Fat People on the Plane", sociologist and artist Kimberly Dark (Dark, 2019) recounts her flying experiences as a fat woman. The following is an excerpt from her piece (p. 301):

"And mostly people think highly of me…until…I get on an aeroplane. And suddenly, I become different. I become a problem. I become a nothing but my seatmate's bit of bad luck".

Miming how she squeezes herself into 17-inch-wide aeroplane seats, she adds,

"I sit just like this…as still as I can for as many hours as needed".

Dark's experiences of being perceived as a "problem" mirror those of two participants, Tiffany and Christine, from Evans et al.’s (2021) qualitative research. While Tiffany instantly recognised "The Expression" of disdain from fellow passengers, Christine was perturbed by the way people would look at her, and she could sense they were "praying that I am not sitting with them" (p. 1823). Similarly, the impact of restrictive desks and chairs, especially fixed-top desks and those with flaps on fat students, are typically overlooked in classroom settings. Two students, Rowena and Shuri, in Stewart's (2018) study described the persistent physical and emotional distress they felt as fat students, constantly feeling like their peers were scrutinising them. Rowena noted, "There was emotional duress because I felt like I was being watched and silently judged when all I wanted to do was attend my class and learn like other students" (p. 31).

The elevated awareness of standing out amongst peers and not fitting into the constricting confines of classroom chairs evokes intense feelings of self-consciousness and embarrassment (Brown, 2018). Resultantly, these restrictive spaces deeply impact fat students' efficiency and capabilities as learners and their overall mental and social well-being (Stevens, 2018). Kari expresses her frustration at her diminished attention in class, "And then it was like, 'Why am I thinking about this? I should be paying attention to class!'…and then it would turn into, "Maybe if I lose ten pounds, then I wouldn't look so fat in this desk" (Brown, 2018, p. 13). In the hopes of fitting in, left without much recourse from unyielding and physically restrictive classroom desks, many fat students consider weight loss and internalise their embodiment as the problem.

As expressed by Lynn in Evans et al.'s study (2021) and Jackie in Stevens' research (2021), these acts of shrinking to fit in and to become "invisible and disappear as much as possible" reveal the paradoxical nature of fat people's interactions with their immediate physical environment. Doubly bound in a perpetual state of hyper(in)visibility[1], fat people are hypervisible for their body size while simultaneously rendered hyperinvisible in their social relations and surroundings (Gailey, 2014). These attempts to become invisible, occupy limited space, and seek ways to deflect the pervasive spotlight on themselves, often by compromising their bodily comfort, perpetuate intense feelings of shame, guilt and the hyperawareness of the hostility around them. The constant physical discomfort many fat students face due to restrictive physical spaces contributes to a culture of "hidden curriculum" that intensifies fat hatred and solidifies thin privilege (Brown, 2018; Hetrick and Attig, 2009).

However, as Hetrick and Attig note, the "hidden curriculum" is "not always invisible" (2009, p. 198), and the unexamined aspects of the built environment, such as desks or auditorium seats, simultaneously make fat students prominently visible and invisiblise their lived realities. As weight stigma is highly gendered and fat women face intense policing and scrutiny (Gailey, 2014; Kent, 2001; Murray, 2008), gender and fatness intricately intersect to further marginalise fat students and heighten their hyper(in)visibility, which permeates students' lives beyond the classroom, bleeding into friendships and romantic relationships. Both Jackie and Marge, in Steven's (2021) research, concur that heterosexual men do not find them sexually appealing as fat women. While Jackie notes, "If a guy really likes you, he's gonna be like, "I don't want to be with her cause she is big"" (p. 135), Marge states she gave up trying to date men as she "couldn't compete with the size four, twenty-two-year olds" frustratedly (p. 136).

Additionally, higher weight and ill health are increasingly conceived in causal terms where being fat increases health risks and leads to a variety of health conditions (Campos et al., 2006; Gard & Wright, 2005; Saguy, 2013; Saguy & Riley, 2005). Several fat students, who are hypervisible because of their body size, are ridiculed and bullied for their weight, especially upon undertaking strenuous physical activity. Both Stewart’s (2018) and Steven’s (2018) research unpack the complex realities of fat students in higher education and campus spaces. While Stewart (2018) engages with his informants autobiographically as an educator himself grappling with fatphobia and the resultant marginalisation on campus, Stevens’ (2018) research interrogates the multifaceted nature of the anti-fat stigma students routinely encounter. In doing so, the study sheds light on the multitudinous ways fat students navigate, cope and resist the stigmatisation they face in college learning spaces. Rowena, in Stewart's (2018) essay and Mia, in Stevens's (2018) study, anticipated that their classmates would ridicule them if they arrived to class sweating profusely or breathing heavily after walking a flight of stairs. Similarly, Mia would immediately rush to the bathroom to calm herself down so that "no one would see me breathing hard or my sweaty face" (Stevens, 2018, p. 138). The examples above pinpoint the few ways in which fat students must navigate the implications of their health status being conflated with their weight.

Fat people must also bear witness to the ways their fellow passengers in aeroplanes and classmates within classroom spaces are naturally treated with respect and civility even as they are subjected to ongoing "Other-ing" processes within these shared spaces. Kimberley Dark (2019) vividly recalls the stark contrast in her experiences with that of a fellow passenger - a 6'5" "hulking fellow" whom Dark describes as - "legs like tree trunks latch into a strong torso…muscular shoulders so wide…" (p. 309). Despite "spilling over" and taking up space, fellow passengers and airline staff offered sympathies for his predicament and the constrictive spatial environment. These sympathies are rarely offered to fat passengers. As Gailey (2014) remarks, "privileged bodies are invisible" (p. 11) as their every move is rarely scrutinised, whereas marginalised ones are "dissected and overtly made into a spectacle" (p. 12).

Straight-size passengers who easily fit into flight seats, that is, they are not "publically mis-fitting" (Brewis et al., 2016) and benefit from the "unmarked privileges of majority embodiments" (drawing upon Hamraie's (2012) theorisation of misfitting disabled bodies in public spaces) rarely recognise the deep-seated impacts of constricting spatial arrangements on their fellow passengers. Fat students also silently observe how their straight-size classmates are exempt from the physical discomfort of restrictive classroom furniture and their inherent worth as students is not inextricably tied to their weight. It is through this rigid enforcement of spatial boundaries, materialised via desks that university spaces actively construct an ideal thin student wherein "homogenous thinness is rewarded with comfort and other privileges" (Hetrick and Attig, 2009, p. 199). Resultantly, the fat student, who is "out-of-bounds" due to their fatness and non-conformity to the standardised ideal produced by a variety of disciplinary practices, is inevitably "Other"-ed. The felt affective impacts of these stigmatising practices are discussed in detail below.

tHEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Space, Emotions and Affect and the Social Construction of Space

The varied experiences above, tied inextricably with myriad emotions and evolving affective states, accord a crucial affective element to aeroplane and classroom spaces. Whereas emotions often circulate feelings, thoughts, and beliefs as a loop between people and places, Low (2016) distinguishes between the influence of people's individual emotions on their interactions with a particular space and that of broader collective experiences in the form of affect, drawing upon the influential "affective turn" in social sciences. Participants in Evans et al.'s (2021) study stated that negative interactions with airline staff remained a significant concern when flying, as evidenced by one participant's testimony: "I've been belittled, yelled at, lied to, and reduced to tears in multiple airports by employees at multiple levels" (p. 1826). To elucidate the "circulation of fat hatred" across various settings, Rinaldi et al. (2021) pinpoint the constant threat fat individuals feel of "becoming the objects of fatmisia", particularly when navigating restrictive physical spaces that sharply highlight the "out-of-bound-ness" of fat bodies. Whether it is the harsh impacts of disapproving stares or the desire to shrink and withdraw physically to avoid confrontation and reproach, flying solidifies a collective sense of un-belonging for fat people.

Similarly, it is well-established that academia is exclusionary towards marginalised communities and embodiments, perpetuating a sense of un-belonging along racial, ethnic, gender and class lines (Henry, 2015; Maseti, 2018). Although universities have implemented Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives to diversify academia and further social justice, the experiences of fat academics and students have remained primarily excluded (Dufur and Fox, 2024). In fact, fat professors encounter the stigmatising gaze of their students and are evaluated more stringently based on their appearance due to disparaging cultural values about fatness (Escalera, 2009). Additionally, fat students feel unwelcome in their learning environments, impacting their academic performance and participation (Brown, 2018; Stevens, 2018; Stewart, 2018).

Health inequalities researcher, Heather Brown’s (2018) research on the subjective experiences of college students who are fat women illuminates the ways imperceptive classroom designs and restrictive furniture can further contribute to fat students feeling devalued and unsupported in their learning experiences. Kari, an undergraduate student, stated, "I'm just intimidated by a classroom setting where everyone kind of turns and stares at you when you are talking" (p. 15). Consequently, fat students tend to withdraw and develop "elaborate rituals" to deflect judgment from classmates, such as over-preparing conversations before class. Tisha, another student in Brown's (2018) study, feared being perceived as "stupid" if she answered incorrectly in class, adding that "people are less likely to criticise someone who is pretty versus someone who is not" (p. 15). Therefore, restrictive classroom environments magnify the shame and alienation that fat students feel as well as consolidate the "racial and classed values of higher education" on the bodies and minds of students (Hetrick & Attig, 2009, p. 200).

Furthermore, fat passengers on flights who are multiply marginalised by their racial and gender identities are subjected to harsher treatments and more stringent policing than other passengers, as fatphobia is complexly interwoven with race (Strings, 2019; Meerai, 2020), queer (Wykes, 2014) and transgender identities (White, 2021). For example, queer, non-binary, gender non-conforming and racialised participants in Evans et al.'s (2021) research shared how their deep-seated apprehensions about being policed heightened when flying. Similarly, Black and fat professor Terah J Stewart (2018) and his students Rowena and Shuri draw upon their lived experiences to highlight the intersectional marginalisation they concomitantly face due to their racial identities and fatness. As a disabled student, Shuri's interactions with lecturers and work staff have been tainted with overt stigma and shaming because of her body size, as she has been repeatedly asked about the "proof of her disability" (p. 33) as a fat disabled student.

It is, therefore, imperative to consider these affective flows that collectively ‘orient’ fat people's interactions, thoughts and beliefs that render aeroplanes and classrooms as threatening, unwelcoming and hostile spaces. Accounting for these nuances in social interactions sheds light on the power dynamics between airline staff and passengers (Evans et al., 2021), lecturers and fat students (Brown, 2018; Stevens, 2018) as well as fat professors and students (Stewart, 2018; Escalera, 2009) and the social construction of race, gender and class relations within these spaces. Considering, for example, the gender biases attached to "taking up space" in public spaces, the classist connotations of extra space provided exclusively in first and business classes, (Rinaldi et al., 2021), and the ways racialised, fat and disabled students navigate their educational spaces further reveal the social constructivist dimensions of the materiality of aeroplanes and classroom spaces. 

Social Production of Space

Unpacking the historical and political-economic dimensions that exacerbate discrimination against fat travellers helps gain a deeper understanding of the material elements of a space and place as well as its temporal and "manifest and latent ideologies that underlie the materiality" of spaces (Low, 2016, p. 34). According to Joyce Huff (2009), airline companies simultaneously construct fat people as the very source as well as the solution to the problem of surging 'obesity' numbers worldwide by demanding them to occupy limited space. She illustrates this paradox with SouthWest Airlines' discriminatory policy wherein, in 2002, passengers whose hips measured more than seventeen inches were forced to pay for two airline seats. Rather than envisioning inclusive spaces with universal access, these measures steeply commoditise the built environment under corporate logic to maximise profits (Evans et al., 2021) and consolidate the idea that as fatness and fat bodies are "adaptable" and "mutable" (Huff, 2009), individual subjects must be held responsible for their body shapes and size.

Agency and Resistance in the Face of Weight Stigma and Discrimination

Lastly, Low's (2016) incorporation of embodied spaces into the theorisation of ‘space’ allows us to comprehend the immense agency and power fat people possess to redefine the socio-material and discursive facets of their spaces. Low reiterates that "bodies are the producers and products of space" (p. 94). Participants in Evans et al.'s study (2021) resisted the shame thrust upon them by airline staff and fellow passengers. For instance, Tiffany states she is well past the embarrassment of asking for a seatbelt extender and "boldly does so without caring what anyone around me thinks" (p. 1824). In a similar vein, fat students also devise ingenious ways to resist negative stereotypes and stigma. Rose, a student in Hetrick and Attig's study (2009) sat on the floor in her class due to the seating arrangement. By subverting the disparaging impacts of being hypervisible as a fat student, she not only drew attention to the restrictive, exclusionary furniture but also "acknowledged her difference and blatant refusal to squeeze" (p. 203) into the painful chairs and desks. For other fat students, partaking in intersectional political activism on campus that also espouses body acceptance and surrounding oneself with supportive friends and family were crucial steps to counter incessant stigma thrown their way (Stevens, 2018). By expressing their agency in the minutiae of everyday negotiations, fat people, therefore, actively reconfigure their immediate surroundings and rescript discriminatory social interactions and affective states.

Discussion and the Way Forward

In this essay, I combined Setha Low's (2011, 2016) multidimensional theorisation of "spatialising culture" with critical Fat Studies scholarship to advance a situated and deeper understanding of the myriad ways fat individuals interact and constantly reshape their immediate surroundings. Despite examining two different features of the built environment - aeroplane seats and classroom seats, Low's expansive conceptualisation enabled a richer and more robust exploration of the existing qualitative and autoethnographic research on fat peoples' subjective experiences of encountering restrictive physical environments. The commonalities in facing varied forms of "spatial discrimination" (borrowing from Owen (2012)) that emerged in fat individuals' lived accounts of navigating these two disparate spaces in the preceding section are noteworthy. By drawing from extant qualitative research and autoethnographic accounts, I have demonstrated how the material spaces of aeroplane and classroom seats are sites where embodied stigma co-exists with agential acts. Moreover, within these spaces, varied affective registers as well as discursively and socially constructed practices complexly coalesce to shape fat people's experiences.

As evidenced by parallels drawn by feminist scholars between fatness and disability, fatness only becomes (dis)abling in a world that is replete with spatial and architectural barriers, the medicalisation of bodily diversity, and one that conceives fat bodies as problems to be “fixed” (Herndon, 2002; Mollow, 2015). To make space for fat individuals to exist as themselves in the world, "living fat (despite) a thin-centric world" (Owen, 2012), and embrace their fat embodiment as resistance (Sturgess & Stinson, 2022), it is crucial to unpack the circuits through which anti-fat stigma and discrimination circulate in the current imaginary. One of the key objectives of the essay, therefore, has been to draw attention to the deleterious ramifications of exclusionary built environments that perpetuate anti-fat stigma and discrimination. Extrapolating research on the consequences of spatial stigma, which, when compounded by racial, gender and class discrimination, exacerbates health inequalities (Keene & Padilla, 2014; Halliday et al., 2020), I underscore the urgent need to integrate weight stigma as an axis of marginalisation into the ambit of health research on spatial stigma. This essay appeals to widen the scope of weight stigma, especially in healthcare settings as research has emphasised adverse consequences of weight discrimination on fat individuals’ health outcomes, such as healthcare avoidance (Phelan et al., 2021) and risk of several psychological conditions (Major et al., 2012).

Besides classroom and aeroplane seats, qualitative research and ethnography can disentangle other facets of exclusionary built environments such as discourses on the 'obesogenic environment', medical equipment such as MRI scanners and blood pressure cuffs. For instance, Warin et al.'s (2019) ethnographic research on convenience foods, which are deemed unhealthy, nutritionally inadequate and responsible for rising 'obesity levels' in Australia by public health officials, demonstrated the relational practices of care and support these foods fostered for families from varied socio-economic and class locations. Such situated and nuanced anthropological analysis reflects Low's (2011, 2016) assertion about the usefulness of ethnography as a method to study contemporary spatial inequalities and unravel the varied cultural dynamics of space and place.

Finally, this essay serves as a reminder to me and the readers that the next time we find ourselves next to a fat passenger on a flight or engage with a fat student in our academic spaces, it is imperative to include and advocate ardently for fat people in our activism. Rather than turning away or operating from a place of pity, we must seek to politicise and interrogate a built environment where some passengers, students and patients are granted promises of comfortable travel, a nurturing learning environment or a relatively easier time when undergoing an MRI scan than others. As queer theorist Sara Ahmed (2006) argues, "In order to become orientated…we must first experience disorientation. When we experience disorientation, we might notice orientation as something we do not have" (p. 5-6). For those of us who are normatively orientated in varying capacities, we must question the disorientation many around us routinely face to find ways to resist its damaging impacts.

[1] I use autoethnographic accounts here as a way to heed calls by fat feminist scholars and activists such as embrace a “fat epistemology” (Pausé, 2020; Stoll & Thoune, 2019) that privileges fat people’s intimate experiential knowledge about their lives and bodies. This tradition of writing about oneself rather than being written about attests to the decolonising agenda of fat studies that is heavily reliant on Black feminist scholarship and aims to decolonise and honour Indigenous knowledge practices that can restructure a Global North-dominant fat studies scholarship (Pausé, 2020).

[2] Drawing upon disability scholar Garland-Thomson (1996), Hamraie (2017) notes that the idea of a “normate” signifies the values and embodiment of those occupying normative embodiments. Typically, these include white, male, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied embodiments who have “unmarked privileges” and much of the spatial world is constructed bearing in mind these normative embodiments.

[3] Here, Gailey (2014) states that the suffix hyper denotes marginalisation, that is at some times, marginalised embodiments can be viewed and acknowledged for being visually “obtrusive” and at others, they can be present physically, yet rendered invisible and erased in various social settings.

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