Sharing and Gathering Stories of Eating Order Resistance through Research Creation and Knowledge Mobilization

There is a large body of scholarship that contextualizes “eating disorders” (ED) among culturally popular and insidious calls for us to manage, restrict and purge what we eat through diets, wellness, and exercise regimes -- what our research team refers to as systemic eating orders. The leadership of people with lived eating dis/order expertise is vital to address these complex interconnected issues. Goals: Our project extends our team's community led research internationally while contributing foundational scholarship and public-facing research to support the growth of research that we are calling Critical Eating Dis/Order Studies. Critical eating dis/order studies offers a transdisciplinary space of social action that bridges the academic-community divide, supports the leadership of oppressed people, and builds toward futures where eating orders cease to systemically shape our everyday lives. This project is arts-infused, transdisciplinary and intersectional. Our international team members are working across different professions and disciplines inside and outside of academia. We are artists who offer lived eating dis/order expertise from diverse identity positions, collectively centering mad and decolonizing praxis towards eating and fat liberation. Our research creation builds community by knowledge mobilization as art and art as research, iteratively, to question eating orders. Questions: Our overarching research questions are: 1) What knowledge can we learn from people with eating dis/order lived expertise? 2) What does our research creation and knowledge mobilization methodology contribute? and 3) How does critical eating dis/order studies offer a new theoretical framework through focusing on eating orders as a starting perspective/place for doing research? Objectives: Co-create knowledge, art, and community building that mutually supports related movements (e.g., fat activism), towards futures where fulfilling relationships with food are commonplace and evenly accessible among diverse groups of people. Methods: Theatre is a powerful tool for sharing, collecting and analyzing research. With the support of our team's local Community Leaders and scholars at each international site (Canada, US, UK), this project will produce:1) a seriesof interactive performances, 2) a digital community platform, 3) a coffee table storybook geared towards making critical eating dis/order studies accessible to the public, and 4) peer-reviewed scholarship and academic presentations. We will facilitate post-performance audience participant activities that center eating dis/order community research creation and knowledge mobilization. We will engage in research team analytical sharing circles that support multiple mentorships between emerging scholars, seasoned academics, research assistants and community leaders. Impacts: 1) Increased research creation and knowledge mobilization led by people with eating dis/order lived expertise in tandem with contributing our innovative methodological participatory performance ethnography and critical eating dis/order studies, 2) Social benefits, such as inspiring community hope for social justice change and contributing art that funds 'equity-owed' artists, 3) Expanding critical eating dis/order studies networking that fosters community building across academic, professional/clinical, personal, and community arenas that contributes to new and enhanced partnerships, and 4) Enhancing students' research capabilities.

Status: First year is being supported by internal Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador grants. An Insight Development grant application will be for the 2024 competition.

Research Team: Nicole Schott (Applicant), Julia Janes (Co-Applicant), Fady Shanouda (Co-Applicant), Erin Hipple (International Collaborator), Lou Aphramor (International Collaborator), Faith Stadynk (Community Leader) and Shira Collings (Community Leader)