Autoethnography of Fitting In

Phiona Stanley is Associate Professor of Intercultural Communications at the Business School, Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland. Her research interests include intercultural competence, transnational identities, decolonizing scholarship, language learning, gender, embodiment, and various aspects of tourism.

• 1. Introduction 2. Appearances 3. Fatness 4. Fitting In 5. Privilege 6. Normativity 7. (Not Quite) Fitting In 8. Saving Face 9. Spinsterhood 10. In/ter/dependence 11. Chasing Approval Can Save Your Life 12. Theorizing Story/Storying Theory

"As Stanley writes, "so much of life is about other people's approval." We all want to fit in, to be a part of this socially constructed set of norms. Not everyone, however, can be a part of that norm. If you have ever felt that you did not fit in or that you had to compromise yourself to "belong" then An Autoethnography of Fitting In: On Spinsterhood, Fatness, and Backpacker Tourism is a book that belongs in your library." --Dr David Purnell, Mercer University, USA "Phiona Stanley’s ‘Fitting In’ is a luminous blend of storytelling and critical engagement. Personal, powerful, playful, the text takes the reader on journeys that are both surprising and familiar, confronting us with what we thought we knew but didn’t. A memorable, compelling read." --Professor Jonathan Wyatt, University of Edinburgh, UK"This is a remarkable work of critical autoethnography and is bound to win many more scholars to its methodological and theoretical approach. In its integration of storytelling, travellers tales and cultural studies, all examined under an incisive critical eye, Phiona Stanley flips the script on fitting in. This is a work of queer queerness as literary activism conducted at the intersection between theory and memoir. Stanley’s rich life, her courage, her withering wit and her resistance to what she ultimately coins "couple-washing" deliver her to a sense of spinster selfhood that is complete, even as it remains a work-in-progress. At the same time Stanley exposes with a clear eye the many cultural tropes and narratives still to be overturned if we are ever to free ourselves from the thrall of Other People’s Approval so as to flourish in our manifold difference." -- Dr Peta Murray, RMIT Melbourne, Australia