Bodies, societies, and culture Practices, meanings, and embodiment in fitness gyms in Santiago, Chile and Amsterdam

In this dissertation, the body, its movements, and its way of perceiving/feeling/creating the world are fundamental to understanding both the individual and society. Nevertheless, this study is not about the body per se, but about culture and experience insofar as these can be understood from the standpoint of bodily being-in-the-world. I study the important role that the body plays in forming a sense of self and identity for middle-class frequent gym-goers in two modern capitals that represent two urban, multicultural, Western contexts.
Instead of simply asserting that culture is ‘embodied’, or that concern about our bodies is increasingly important, the purpose of my research is to understand three interconnected dimensions. First, from the concept of gym culture, I analyse the body-society-culture relationship of frequent users of fitness gyms. Second, I analyse how this culture is lived and embodied by them; I focus on its flexibility, its tensions, the material, and symbolic dimensions of this culture. Finally, I explore how gym culture is integrated into its sociocultural context. Because bodily experiences may go beyond what can be expressed verbally, the focus of this research are the dynamics between the bodily experiences of culture and the cultural experiences of the body. The research question that guided this study is the following: how do frequent users of different FGs embody gym culture and how is this embodiment embedded in the socio-cultural context?