On (Not) Fitting In: Fat embodiment, affect and organizational materials as differentiating agents

Abstract

This paper focuses on the experiences of self-identified fat women employees. Combining the works of Karen Barad and Sara Ahmed, we offer a feminist new materialist analysis of the production of difference in organizations related to size as an entanglement of bodies, discourses, organizational materials and affect. We show how our participants predominantly became shameful and a ‘bad fit’ within their jobs through the intra-action of their large bodies with obesity discourse and organizational materials such as chairs and workwear. Yet we also illustrate how some material-discursive entanglements offered situations where shame was circumvented, instead producing our participants as acceptable within their organizational context. Our research contributes to discussions on embodied normativities in organizations by taking these issues beyond the discursive realm and highlighting the importance of materiality and affect in ‘fitting in’ at work. We offer new theoretical pathways to explore differentiating practices by looking at shame as part of collective and affective histories of marginalization.