(In)visible bodies, images, Instagram: exploring the possibilities of becoming through the fitspo assemblage

The last five years has seen a rise in the sharing of ‘fitspo’ content – a portmanteau of the words ‘fitness’ and ‘inspiration’ – on social media. While initially touted as a means to encourage the take-up of exercise and ‘healthy’ eating, more recently claims have been leveraged at fitspo content as being harmful and damaging – particularly for young women. This thesis looks to make an intervention into these claims that position fitspo content as always already detrimental for young women, and as the cause of numerous negative effects such as eating disorders and poor self-esteem. Drawing on data produced through a photo-taking exercise, semi-structured, in-depth interviews and media go-alongs with 30 women aged 19-29, I explore young women’s production, circulation and consumption of fitspo imagery on Instagram. Taking the lead from feminist scholars such as Rebecca Coleman and Jessica Ringrose who have utilised concepts such as affect, becoming and assemblage vis-à-vis the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in their research, this thesis considers what the relations between bodies, images, Instagram and its affordances can do for how young women come to know and understand their bodies, and the bodies of others. Through a consideration of the fitspo assemblage, I argue that rather than a break with the bodily surveillance that feminist scholars have long highlighted women face, the fitspo assemblage produces an intensified form of surveillance that stretches beyond (only) the physicality of the body, through the various elements that constitute it. Importantly, rather than arguing that all women face and experience the fitspo assemblage equally, I highlight how its affects vary across and between the women, illustrating the importance of a nuanced and contextual study of fitspo images and the platform they circulate on and through.