Keywords
Abstract
This article characterizes and compares expressions of fat activism movements, distinguishing between the discourses of self-love and the proposals of collective fat activism. To do so, we analyze selected publications that circulated during the period 2018-2020 through Instagram by different accounts involved in discussions about body diversity in Argentina.
We conclude that, although both expressions propose strategies that seek to subvert the oppressive canons of beauty and the regulatory norms of bodies, they differ in the aspects they problematize and the responsibilities they assign. Whilst the first movement appeals to the isolated individual through discourses of self-acceptance and body positivity, blames them for not loving themselves enough, and imposes on them the individual task of learning to love and accept themselves to escape from suffering; the second brings a collective proposal, which problematizes the social aspect of fatness. For the collective proposal, the responsibility lies within the society that systematically exercises violence upon fat people, pathologizing them, and the only possible solution is the political struggle together with others for a social and structural transformation.