The frontstage and backstage performances of fatness in everyday life: A Goffmanian Study

In this thesis, I explore the lived experiences of eight women inhabiting fat bodies through a longitudinal, dramaturgically informed qualitative study. I draw on Goffman’s theories of impression management and spoiled identity, alongside insights from Fat Studies and feminist embodiment theory, to examine how fatness is performed, judged, and negotiated across time, relationships, and social contexts. A key methodological contribution of this research is my development of a transformational, three-stage, participant-led approach that combines in-person interviews with asynchronous written correspondence. This method prioritised trust, emotional safety, and narrative depth, enabling contributors to reflect on their experiences in ways not typically afforded by traditional interviews. As the research relationship evolved, I shifted from audience member to backstage confidant, mirroring Goffman’s dramaturgical concepts, which granted deeper access to contributors’ emotional and relational realities. In addition to contributors’ narratives, I include a reflexive self-study that charts my own transformation from living in a fat body to living in a slimmer one during the course of the research. This positional shift offers further insight into the conditional nature of social acceptance and the embodied complexities of fat stigma. My findings reveal fatness as a socially regulated identity, shaped by surveillance, shame, and relational dynamics, yet also marked by acts of resistance, self-assertion, and care. Through this thesis, I extend Goffman’s dramaturgical theory into longitudinal and reflexive territory and contribute methodologically by modelling a participatory, ethically attuned approach to stigma research. The findings call for weight-inclusive, person-centred practices across healthcare, education, and policy, and centre fat women’s lived knowledge as a vital form of social critique.