The Ana Sanctuary: Women’s Pro-Anorexia Narratives in Cyberspace

Abstract

In this paper I explore cyberspace as a space where women who are struggling with anorexia can potentially find sanctuary from the surveillance and regulatory mechanisms of control in the public sphere. I explore the narratives of women who create and visit pro-anorexia or pro-ana websites in order to listen to these womens experiences of anorexia and rationale for inhabiting these spaces.2 Taking seriously the voices of these women can be viewed as a transgressive act, in contrast to hegemonic biomedical and psychiatric discourses of anorexia that portray women with eating disorders as irrational and in denial of their behavior, and pathologize and medicalize their experiences. Through their narratives we see how dominant cultural scripts about their bodies are reproduced, negotiated and/or resisted. We can also observe womens engagement in the interpretation of their own experiences. The transient and fluid nature of pro-ana websites (in response to the backlash they receive) also illustrates the resilience of the women who seek them out and (re)create them. Just as the body is a site of struggle (and resistance), so too there are struggles over where and how womens stories of their body can be told.

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