FYI.

Fatness and Food Justice: Revisioning Pasts, Presents, and Futures

A Special Issue of Fat Studies: An International Journal of Body Weight and Society

Guest editors: Jennifer Brady, Andrea Bombak, Leigh Potvin, Andrea Kirkham, K-Lee Fraser, and Jacqui Gingras

Submit proposals to Jennifer Brady (jennifer.brady@msvu.ca) by July 31 2020

This Special Issue will feature theoretical and empirical analyses of past and present  fat oppressive food practices, pedagogies, discourses, and policies that have been advanced in the name of food justice and within global food movement(s). Analyses will also consider the effects of fat oppression within food justice and food movement(s) activism and scholarship on the lived experiences of diverse actors, and elucidate  fat food justice as the foundation of size-inclusive futurities. The Special Issue will highlight pedagogies, social movements, policy, and activism/advocacy aimed at creating change around food (social, cultural, political, economic, relational, etc) that is not only not fat oppressive (see Brady, Gingras, and LeBesco, 2019), but is fat affirming and intersectional. Authors will be drawn from, but not limited to, feminist food studies, human geography, education, sociology, women’s and gender studies, and the helping professions who wish to present critical perspectives on how food and fatness have been and are currently presented, but also how fat resurgence and food sovereignty may constitute a radical fat future.

Responses to this call may include multi-media, arts-based, or textual submissions. Text-based offerings can be traditional academic writing or alternative forms that bring fat studies, fat scholarship, and fat activism to bear on what food justice has, does, and can mean. We encourage authors to push fat studies into radical new realms!

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• What is fat food justice? What does fat food justice feel like, look like, sound like?
• How might fat food justice expand visions of a just food system?
• How do fat bodies/fatness push/challenge/confront the agenda on the right to food?
• Where and how does fat-phobia exist within the food justice and food sovereignty movement(s)? In what ways does weight stigma intersect with racism, classism, sexism, homo- and trans-phobia, ageism, and ableism? How does weight stigma coalesce with nutritionism, healthism, and colonialism in these spaces?
• What should or could be the role of health and education professionals in advancing a socially-just food system that redresses fat phobia and intersecting oppressions?
• What does a socially-just food system look like when imagined through the lens of fat justice and health justice?
• What is health sovereignty? How do fat food futures advance health sovereignty vis a vis food sovereignty?
• How might a fat ethic push dialogue on what healthy food and a healthy, sustainable food system mean?
• What is the role of intersectionality in fat food justice/futures? How does fatness make intersectional analyses explicit in food movement(s)?
• How can fat scholars and activists advance feminist, intersectional, and queer food studies and food activism?
• What food-based policies, practices, and discourses re-inscribe fat oppression, and how do we change these?
• How will anxieties concerning food and health in the future circumscribe the availability of foods deemed “obesogenic”?

Submission of traditional written texts: Interested authors may submit a 300-500 word proposal that describes the purpose, scope, and methodological and theoretical perspective of the research/paper.

Submission of narrative, reflexive writing, or poetry: Narrative, reflexive writing, and poetry are also encouraged. Interested authors may submit a 300-500 word proposal that describes the topic, scope, and approach for the piece of writing, as well as an author’s statement where appropriate.

Submission of arts-based pieces: Arts-based based submissions may be images, audio, or video pieces. Interested contributors may submit a 300-500 word proposal that describes the topic, scope, and format for the piece, as well as an artist’s statement. Image-based submissions will be published in the special issue. Audio and video submissions will be posted online by the contributor and linked within the special issue.

 Timeline:

Proposals: July 31 2020

Submission of first drafts: November 1 2020

Reviews completed and returned to authors: December 1 2020

Submission of revised drafts: March 1 2021

Review completed: April 1 2021