2019 Weight Stigma Conference registration now open
7th Annual International Weight Stigma Conference, 27–28 June, 2019
University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
REGISTER NOW: Get Early Bird Rates
“Moving the Dial” in Weight Stigma Research and Resistance
This year’s theme focuses on new research and theoretical contributions that move the dial on weight stigma and how to resist it. The two-day interdisciplinary program will cover the entire weight stigma research spectrum—from basic, to applied, to clinical, to policy—and feature an outstanding roster of international speakers and local experts. We encourage abstracts that offer novel and fresh insights and/or address existing gaps and open questions on how to bridge research and practice in this field, and challenge and resist weight stigma.
We are honoured to present our keynote speakers for this year’s Weight Stigma Conference:
- Dr Jill Andrew is the Member of Provincial Parliament for Toronto-St Paul’s. She is an award-winning equity educator, body image advocate, speaker and writer. As the co-founder of Body Confidence Canada, #SizeismSucks, and Body Confidence Awareness Week, Andrew advocates to end size and appearance-based discrimination, harassment and bullying throughout the life spectrum.
- Dr Amy Farrell is Professor of American Studies and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at Dickinson College. She is the author of two books: Yours in Sisterhood: Ms. Magazine and the Promise of Popular Feminism (University of North Carolina Press, 1998) and Fat Shame: Stigma and the fat Body in American Culture (New York University Press, 2011).
- Dr Jennifer Gaudiani has been a leader in the eating disorders field for over 10 years. Her Gaudiani Clinic is a HAES (Health At Every Size)®-informed provider and embraces treating people of all shapes and sizes. She is a Fellow in the Academy for Eating Disorders and author of ‘Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders’.
The Weight Stigma Conference is an inter-disciplinary event that brings together scholars and practitioners from a range of backgrounds (e.g., public health, government and public policy, psychology, medicine, sociology, anthropology, allied health professions, education, sports and exercise science, social sciences, media studies, business, law, activism, and the lay public) to consider research, policy, rhetoric, and practice around the issue of weight stigma. For more information, visit: stigmaconference.com
Bursary Fund – Supporting Accessibility
The Weight Stigma Conference is a not-for-profit event. Although we try and keep prices down, we realise that the conference will nevertheless be beyond some people’s means. Rather than raising the cost of tickets, we will make every effort to raise additional funding through donations and sponsorship to allow us to give bursaries to individuals who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend.
A Donation option is available on the registration website for both delegates and non-attendees who are in a position to contribute a little extra to help us provide financial assistance where needed. Alternatively, donations can be made via our GoFundMe page. Thank you for your generosity.
If you are interested in formal sponsorship of the event, please contact us for more information.
Early-bird rates will be available until 13th May, 2019.
WSC 2019: Oral presentations deadline approaching
Just a reminder that the deadline for submissions for oral presentations at this year’s conference is 29th March. Poster submission will continue to be reviewed on a rolling basis.
For more information about the conference and to submit an abstract, please visit: stigmaconference.com
FYI. Call for Panelists 2019 NCA: Survival and Thin Privilege in a Fatphobic Society
FYI.
Call for Panelists for the 2019 National Communication Association convention: Survival and Thin Privilege in a Fatphobic Society
Thin privilege is under-researched, under-theorized, and generally under-discussed within communication studies. Akin to Nakayama and Krizek, who worked to map discourses of whiteness in communication scholarship to exemplify the ways in which it is deployed as an unmarked identity category, we seek to use this panel as a space to expose and discuss the nuanced ways thin privilege manifests in lived experience and underlies discourse of the body. The panel will be organized around individual mini-presentations, but we hope to dedicate the majority of the panel to discussion. While various methodological perspectives are welcome, we intend to organize the panel with a critical orientation to thin privilege, body size, fatness, and intersecting identities. We are interested in proposals that are grounded in critical fat studies scholarship and/or critical communication scholarship. We are particularly interested in the following themes, but welcome other ideas as well:
– Thin privilege and colonialism
– Intersections of thin privilege with other forms of privilege/oppression
– Mediated representations of thin privilege and/or thin privilege in pop culture
– Diet culture
– Thin privilege in discourses of “health” Lived experience as thin or not thin in relation to thin privilege
– Thin privilege as an under-discussed form of privilege
– Communication and thin privilege
If you’re interested in participating on this panel, please send a 150-200 word proposal and short bio to cassidy.ellis@du.edu and katrina.webber@uconn.edu no later than Friday, March 15, 2019. Participation preference will be given to women of color, queer and trans people of color, indigenous folx, disabled folx, fat folx, and graduate students or contingent faculty.
Cited: Nakayama, Thomas K. and Robert L. Krizek. “Whiteness: A Strategic Rhetoric.” Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol. 81, no. 3, 1995, pp. 291-309.