Alterity In/Of Happiness: Reflecting on the radical possibilities of unruly bodies

Authors

  • E. Chandler University of Toronto
  • C. Rice University of Guelph

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/hcs.2013.146

Keywords:

disability, fat, biopedagogy, happiness, art

Abstract

This paper examines how fat and disabled subjects may be taught to appear as happy through biopedagogies in order to manage shame and disgust evoked by their unruly, non-conforming bodies. We begin by articulating what we mean by “biopedagogies”. We then unpack how the requirement to be happy feeds directly into a neoliberal agenda, which demands we must take care of ourselves both economically and emotionally in order to be considered good citizens. We explore how, in the midst of the requirement to be happy while living in bodies not recognised as inhabitable, we create and find moments of alterity in/of happiness. Through analysing art by disabled and fat activists and artists, we examine how disabled and fat people find happiness in difference, rather than in spite of it while at the same time, hanging on to rage and dull pain within this alterity of happiness.

Author Biographies

E. Chandler, University of Toronto

Eliza Chandler is a PhD candidate in the department of Humanities, Social Science, and Social Justice Education, OISE/UT, where she holds a SSHRC fellowship. Her Research explores enactments of the crip community in university life. Chandler teaches 
disability studies at the University of Toronto and Ryerson University. She is also the Toronto-site coordinator for Project Re•Vision. Her most recent publication is Interactions of Disability Pride and Shame in The Female Face of Shame.

C. Rice, University of Guelph

Carla Rice is a Canada Research Chair at University of Guelph. A leader in the field of fat and embodiment studies in Canada, her research explores cultural representations and narratives of body and identity. She recently founded Project Re•Vision, a mobile 
media lab that works with communities to challenge stereotypes. Books include Gender and Women’s Studies in Canada: Critical Terrain, and the forthcoming Becoming Women: The Embodied Self in Image Culture.

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Published

2013-11-15

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2013): Translating Happiness: Medicine, Culture and Social Progress

Section

Articles

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