ABSTRACT
‘Physical culture’ embraces a range of different domains of activity. Indeed, all culture is embodied, engaged with by embodied beings in embodied ways and thus ‘physical’ in certain respects. ‘Physical’ often refers more narrowly to the human body, however, lending ‘physical culture’ an association with cultivation of the body – and this has certainly been a preoccupation within physical cultural studies. Bodies are cultivated in many ways and for many purposes. They are adorned with clothing and cosmetics; tanned or perhaps kept out of the sun so as to remain pale; disciplined, so as to move and communicate in particular ways; and they are subject to exercise regimes which work upon both their external appearance and such less visible properties as health and fitness. In this chapter I focus upon these exercise and fitness practices. My perspective on exercise and fitness is that of relational sociology, a perspective that encourages us to look beyond the individual and her experience to the social context in which physical culture is practised and, more especially, the connection of the individual and her practices to other individuals and their practices. As ‘relational sociology’ may be unfamiliar to some I begin with a brief introduction.
