In Presenting This Thesis Or Dissertation As a Partial Fulfillment
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Distribution Agreement In presenting this thesis or dissertation as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree from Emory University, I hereby grant to Emory University and its agents the non-exclusive license to archive, make accessible, and display my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, including display on the world wide web. I understand that I may select some access restrictions as part of the online submission of this thesis or dissertation. I retain all ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. Signature: __________________________________ ______________ Sheri Davis-Faulkner Date Precious Opportunities: Black Girl Stories and Resistance Pedagogies as Critical Race Feminist Responses to the Childhood Obesity Epidemic By Sheri Davis-Faulkner Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts _______________________________ Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, PhD Associate Professor of Institute of the Liberal Arts Advisor _______________________________ Debra Vidali, PhD Associate Professor of Anthropology Committee Member _______________________________ Kristen Buras, PhD Assistant Professor of Educational Policy and Reform Georgia State University Committee Member Accepted: ______________________________ Lisa A Tedesco, PhD Dean of the Graduate School ______________________________ Date Precious Opportunities: Black Girl Stories and Resistance Pedagogies as Critical Race Feminist Responses to the Childhood Obesity Epidemic By Sheri Davis-Faulkner B.A., Spelman College, 1997 M.A., The Ohio State University, 2001 Advisor: Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, Ph.D. An abstract of a dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney Graduate School of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts 2012 Abstract Precious Opportunities: Black Girls Stories and Resistance Pedagogies as Critical Race Feminist Responses to the Childhood Obesity Epidemic By Sheri Davis-Faulkner Black girls have been featured throughout the “real” genre of televisual media as universal representatives of obese youth in America. Statistically, they are the youth population with the highest prevalence of obesity. Precious Opportunities is attentive to the treatment of black girls bodies within the “childhood obesity” visual narrative through a critical examination of commercial mass media. This dissertation is organized around four major areas: American consumer culture, feminist body theory, critical race theory, and resistance pedagogy. Using a critical race feminist framework, this project seeks to challenge the framing of “childhood obesity” within popular media. It also challenges neoliberal recommendations that individual youth simply “eat better” and “workout.” The dissertation argues that the fiercening of capitalism and expansion of media conglomerates through acquisitions has significantly influenced individual decision-making and consumer choice. A multi-sited media ethnography, it begins with a content analysis of Too Fat for Fifteen: Fighting Back, the first televised reality series dedicated to "childhood obesity," followed by an interrogation of corporate actions by primary parent companies involved with the series. Precious Opportunities advances humanities-based responses to the framing of childhood obesity in a “pedagogy of mass consumption.” The first response explores the treatment of black girls’ bodies within black feminist literature as an alternative to televisual media. Using Sapphire’s novel Push as a counterstory, it analyzes "childhood obesity" from the perspective of Precious Jones, a fat black girl protagonist. The second response engages youth directly in an eight-week summer camp, Camp Carrot Seed. As a “pedagogy for social change” it offered a group of black teenagers opportunities to develop multiple literacies including: organic gardening, grocery shopping, cooking, creative expression, and environmental stewardship in exchange for studying their decision-making regarding food and physical activity. Precious Opportunities: Black Girl Stories and Resistance Pedagogies as Critical Race Feminist Responses to the Childhood Obesity Epidemic By Sheri Davis-Faulkner B.A., Spelman College, 1997 M.A., The Ohio State University, 2001 Advisor: Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, Ph.D. A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney Graduate School of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts 2012 Acknowledgements This dissertation is dedicated to the long list of fierce women in my family who insisted on girls becoming educated decision-makers. I am grateful to my mother, Donita Etheridge, who kept me busy with activities in the summer and afterschool growing up. She has also been my rock through this journey, taking good care of my son when I was working. As an activist mother and grandmother she continues to demonstrate her deep commitment to care, scholarship, and the arts. I also thank my grandmother, Daisy Davis, who helped raise me and taught me to live my life as a child of God and a servant of my people. I am thankful for my brilliant sister, Brianna Davis. Thank you to my grandmother Dorothy Etheridge and to my aunties and othermothers: Maidie McWhorter, Joyce Williamson, Doris Etheridge, Valerie Etheridge, Thomasina Skipper, Mary Kimbro, Aunt Annette, Aunt Wanda, Aunt Carol, and Mother Ann for showing me the richness of black womanhood, hard work, caregiving and the spirit of community. Special thanks to my stepmother Benita Davis for being my first example of a black female graduate student and to my aunt Irma Davis for providing early childcare for my son. I also thank my mother-in-law Momma Mary Faulkner and Aunt Connie for your continuous love and support. I also recognize Connie Williams, the first female educator in my lineage who was a teach in rural Georgia in the early 1900s. This dissertation is made possible by a long list of caring men in my life who nurtured me throughout my journey. I am grateful to my father, Grady Davis, for always insisting that I would go to college and making sure I kept my “eye on the prize.” It is because of his hard work and planning that I was able to take advantage of every educational opportunity available to me. Thank you to the men who chose to be part of my life Ron Daniels and Steve Bowser. In a time when too many youth lack fathers, I have had a wealth of nurturing men throughout my lifetime who exposed me to their love of great music, good food, and black politics and culture including Uncle Bobby, Jim Floyd, Uncle Sonny, and Uncle TI. I am extremely grateful to both of my grandfathers, Jack Davis and Thomas Etheridge, who protected their families intensely and loved me like a treasure. I am also thankful for my amazing brother, Marcus Davis. Most of all I am indebted to my companion and spouse Treston Davis-Faulkner who has been by my side through all of the highs and lows of this process. His unconditional love and nurturing literally fed me over the past years. My work is dedicated to and my brilliant and beautiful son Na’im Hanoi Faulkner, my chessplayin-capoeiradancin-wordsmith-superhelper! I am so grateful for my spiritual sisters Nichole Neilly, Kimberly Beal, Shani Harris, Sunny (Mockabee) Wilkins, Shaunta Clark, Kazumi Hasegawa, Lorraine McCall, Nicole Franklin, and Courtney Tucker. I am also very thankful to my intellectual sheros Brittney Cooper, Whitney Peoples, Mashadi Matabane, AnneMarie Mingo, and Moya Bailey. Shout out to my ILA family Kwesi D-H, Haipeng Zhou, Michael Hall, Shan Muhktar, Yolande Tomlinson, Pellom McDaniels, James Hughes, Brenda Tindal, Emiko Soltis; my Camp Carrot Seed folks Darryl and Carter J; the Crunk Feminist Collective specifically Asha French, Chanel Craft, Susana Morris. Thank you to my mommy collective: Regine Jackson, Calinda Lee, and Tyralynn Frazier. Much love to my Spelman folks Rich Benson and Maurita Poole. The richness of this project would not have been possible without the interdisciplinary training of ILA faculty and the Emory community. Kimberly Wallace-Sanders has been my lifeline through more than a decade of mentoring and advising; she was my first feminist teacher; she inspired me to pursue my doctorate. I am also thankful to Kristen Buras for bringing me into critical race studies and for her continued excitement about my work. Thank you to Debra Vidal for giving me language and guidance for thinking about critical media research and to Tracy Rhone for connecting pedagogy and ethnography. Thank you to ECIT’s Chris Fearrington, Courtney Tucker, and Wayne Morris. Also, thank you to Kevin Corrigan for having an open door policy. This project would also have not been possible without the generous financial support of an Center for Science Education Fellowship (PRISM), Office of University Community Partnerships Fellowship, Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship, Emory Teaching Pedagogy and Curriculum Fellowship, Emory Race and Difference small grant, and multiple conference and summer funding grants from the Laney Graduate School. Special thanks to Tracy Blandon, Kharen Fulton, and Virginia Shadron for your encouragement and embracing my whole family as part of the Emory family. There are many from my Le Petit March