Cartographies of the Colonized Body: Aesthetic Violence and Fatphobia in Lima, Peru

Abstract

This thesis examines fatphobia and aesthetic violence in Lima, Peru, as structural and colonial phenomena rather than individual prejudice or cultural preference. It asks how colonialism has shaped body ideals, how digital platforms reinforce or resist it, and how Peruvian fat activists mobilize against neoliberal and colonial constructions of the body. Drawing on personal narratives, body maps, and testimonies of five women from the Anti-fatphobia Peru Collective, as well as autoethnography, the study situates fatness within geographies and discourses that are legacies of colonial violence that continue to be sustained by racism, sexism, classism, and healthism. Methodologically, it combines cuerpo-territorio, case studies and autoethnography to revalue ancestral legacies and spirituality as sources of knowledge. The findings reveal the normalization of fatphobic violence in medical, institutional, and media settings, alongside emergent digital and collective resistances. The thesis contributes to bridging Fat Studies with urban geography and Latin American feminist and decolonial thought, affirming bodily sovereignty as essential for justice, dignity, and life.