‘Mind Your Business and Leave My Rolls Alone’: A Case Study of Fat Black Women Runners’ Decolonial Resistance

Abstract

The Black female body has been vilified, surveilled, and viewed as ‘obese’ and irresponsible for centuries in Western societies. For just as long, some Black women have resisted their mischaracterizations. Instead they have embraced a ‘fat’ identity. But little research has demonstrated how Black fat women participate in sport. The purpose of this study is to show how Black fat women who run use social media to unapologetically celebrate Blackness and fatness. This research uses a case-study approach to illuminate a broader phenomenon of decolonial resistance through running. In addition to analysis of websites, blogs, and news articles devoted to Black women’s running, we discuss the (social) media content of two specific runners: Mirna Valerio and Latoya Shauntay Snell. We performed a critical discourse analysis on 14 media offerings from the two runners, including websites, Twitter pages, and blogs collected over a five-month period from September 2020–January 2021. The analysis examined how they represent themselves and their communities and how they comment on issues of anti-fat bias, neoliberal capitalism, ableist sexism, and white supremacy, some of the pillars of colonialism. Whereas running is often positioned as a weight-loss-focused and white-dominated colonial project, through their very presence and use of strategic communication to amplify their experiences and build community, these runners show how being a Black fat female athlete is an act of decolonial resistance. This study offers a unique sporting example of how fat women challenge obesity discourses and cultural invisibility and how Black athletes communicate anti-racist, decolonial principles.

Examining meaning-making and decolonial resistance in Pakistani women's stories of navigating coloniality and gender

“…Previous research illustrates the phenomenon of decolonial resistance through practices that serve liberatory and decolonial purposes in context-specific ways. For example, Ashdown-Franks and Joseph (2021) document running among Black women as an act of decolonial resistance in the racialized context of the US, where running is often framed as a health-/weight-loss oriented, White-dominated colonial project. Fat Black women use running to express decolonial resistance by challenging obesity discourses, cultural invisibility, and the otherness of Black women's bodies.…”

Reviewing and problematizing methods and analytical strategies of discourse analysis in sport, exercise, and physical education studies

“…In fact, the most frequent categorization of methods included multiple methods ( n = 163), which varied from studies mixing interviews and focus groups (e.g. van Amsterdam and Knoppers, 2018) to a combination of collecting online data such as Twitter pages, blogs, and websites (Ashdown-Franks and Joseph, 2021), to a wider variety, such as Müller et al (2008) who used business plans, surveys, and in-depth interviews. However, on par with the emphasis on textual analysis, the dominant sole method 1 was collecting mass-media documents ( n = 141), such as newspaper texts (e.g.…”

Celebrating Diversity and Inclusion in the Outdoors

“…In terms of accessibility, being a woman of color and having an atypical body creates an intersectional situation of discrimination. Mirna Valerio, a fit, heavy African-American marathoner, ultramarathoner, and trail runner does not fit common outdoor stereotypes, and she pays for this (Ashdown-Franks & Joseph, 2021 ). Valerio has received death threats telling her that she doesn’t belong in the outdoors because she’s fat, something many would find unbelievable (Neophytou, 2018 ; REI, 2017 ).…”