Ella Maria Holi

Ella Maria Holi is a Research Fellow and PhD student at the Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen, and a core member of the Center for Digital Narratives. Her research investigates digital storytelling practices at the intersection of body politics and online communities.

Her primary research domains include Gender Studies, Sexuality Research, and Digital Narratives, with specialized focus on Fat Studies and Social Media discourse. She critically analyzes how fat narratives on platforms like Instagram challenge societal norms around body size, health, and identity, particularly examining tensions within the body positivity movement where weight loss journeys coexist with fat acceptance rhetoric.

Her 2024 conference presentations reveal a consistent analytical thread: mapping the evolution of #bodypositive discourse into weight loss narratives within digital communities. Both studies demonstrate methodological rigor in digital ethnography and narrative analysis, highlighting how marginalized voices negotiate identity in algorithmically mediated spaces while exposing contradictions in mainstream body positivity.

Her work operates under the Center for Digital Narrative project (funded by the Research Council of Norway, reference 332643), which supports interdisciplinary research on digital storytelling frameworks across 28 participants.

As an active contributor to the Center for Digital Narrative, she engages with collaborative research initiatives exploring how digital technologies transform narrative production, with particular emphasis on gendered and embodied experiences in virtual environments.