Fat food justice: where fat studies meets food studies

Abstract

ABSTRACT This special issue emerged from a sense of disconnection experienced by the members of the guest co-editorial team who seek to advance food justice as food studies scholars on one hand and fat liberation as fat studies scholars on the other. We assert that, despite their similarities and shared commitments to social and structural justice, there has been little cross-pollination between the fat studies and food studies communities. Fat studies scholars have rightly called out the fat hatred that has been promulgated by food studies scholars and activists, but fat studies scholars have yet to bring their incisive analyses to bear on areas of import to food studies, such as political economy of food, food systems, and food policy. This has left a significant gap in the fat studies literature, as well as an unexplored connection point for fat studies scholars with food studies and the movement for food systems change. Drawing on conceptualizations of food sovereignty in the food studies literature, and fat studies scholars’ analyses of healthism and medicalization, we elaborate health sovereignty as a conceptual spark that may lead to future collaborative scholarship and activism among the heretofore uneasy relationship among the food studies and fat studies communities.