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- Bladh, Greta, 1984-
(författare)
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Hard Body 2.0 - The Construction of the Fitness Subject : An analysis of Swedish Fitness Blogs
- 2015
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Ingår i: Idrottsforum.org/Nordic sport science forum. - 1652-7224. ; , s. 1-17
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Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- Blogging is an endeavor that is often taken for granted in our everyday lives. In this article Greta Bladh critically examines the constructiveness of the concepts of health and fitness in the blogosphere. Through conducting a discourse analysis of Swedish fitness blogs, aided by the theoretical framework of Michel Foucault in terms of technologies of the self, and the concept of habitus as developed by Pierre Bourdieu, as well as a critical perspective concerning the morals of health discourse, Bladh investigates how human beings engage and negotiate discourse and social structure using writing practices mediated through cyberspace. The results indicates that the fitness field is a field of possibilities and that the blogs display various technologies of the self, sometimes in a contradictory way. This shows that it is by agency that discourse and social structure come into play, and thus it is through agency that different practices of appropriating fitness and health are displayed, signifying that the fitness subject is heterogeneously constructed.Even though the fitness subject is located within a field of possibilities Bladh also emphasize the gendered aspect of fitness and health by problematizing the strained relationships between femininity and muscle development and exercise and womanhood. This demonstrates that the construction of the fitness subject is constrained within gendered social structures.
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| 2. |
- Bladh, Greta, 1984-
(författare)
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Moving thresholds : body narratives within the vicinity of gym and fitness culture
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates thresholds that impede bodies from moving to, and within, gym and fitness sites. Thresholds are here understood as gendered social constructs and norms, which direct bodies in certain ways, and thus circumscribing potential movements and capabilities. The study’s initial entry point was at a gym, here referred to as The Club which had in its statutes proclaimed to work in a norm critical way. This was an attempt to promote a more inclusive environment, and thus lowering certain thresholds for movement, in that members otherwise discouraged to enter other general gyms, found this particular gym open and “chill”. By conducting participatory observations, interviews, and collective memory exercises, this study is an effort to identify experiences otherwise seen as mundane and ordinary, such as working out at the gym, as conditioned under certain power relations.Aided by a theoretical framework combining poststructuralism and phenomenology, a narrative and deconstructive approach directed the analysis of the empirical material. The results showed that the specific case of the Club entailed how the work for inclusiveness, and thus lowering certain thresholds, entailed other forms of thresholding, in that in order to insure an inclusive environment, a certain amount of emotional work from the members of the Club was required. This meant that the cost of an inclusive and open environment is a balancing act on an emotional tightrope, which in turn indicated that the work to be norm critical entailed vulnerable inclusiveness. Further, even though participants were critically aware of repressive gender norms circumscribing their range of movement, the possibility of other movements were still at a threshold. This was due to their corporeal historic background of experiences of hierarchical binary gender norms, which still lingered under the skin. In this thesis, this corporeal background is referred to as body narrative, an attempt to displace a binary gendered framing of the perception of bodies. However, despite the participants’ reflexive stance towards repressive gender norms, their range of motion were still at a threshold, colored by past experiences, which in turn binds our eyes to what is perceivable, signifying how emancipation can never reach an end, but is rather a continuous process, always aiming, little by little, to displace thresholds of movement.
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