— Vibhu Krishna
The first Keynote Lecture of the conference was delivered by Dr Kaamya Sharma, Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Jodhpur and an alumna of this department. The lecture focused on strength training communities on social media and the sense of accomplishment that is usually associated with the activities undertaken by these groups, in comparison to communities centred on other forms of physical activity such as running. Dr Sharma also shared her insights on how gendered bodies are performatively constructed in the world of exercise.
Dr Sharma opened her lecture with an anecdotal remark on her time spent in this institute. She acknowledged the salience of social media in a conference themed on spatiality, owing to the prominent niche occupied in present discourse by platforms such as Instagram. Her study was informed by her personal experience with strength training, and was aimed at examining the intersections of strength training and social media presence. The lecture touched upon the theory of image making on social media, comparing strength training regimens and performance-oriented practices.
Strength has historically been associated with a trope of performance that is considered ‘masculine.’ However, while strength has, for most of human history, been associated with functionality, the Industrial Revolution and the ‘convenience’ lifestyle it brought forth redefined meanings of strength. Of note was the fetish for exhibition observed in the 19 th century, whereby the public was encouraged to view displays of ‘exoticism.’ Female strength was one such exotic trait, and came to be embedded as spectacle in acrobatics and circus acts. Class, too, played into shaping perceptions of strength, with muscled bodies being associated with working class lives that lacked intelligence. Dr Sharma drew upon Bourdieu in explaining the class connotations of the ‘pursuit of bodily discipline.’
The second section of the lecture centred on the ‘aesthetic of suffering’ and how it related to the aesthetic of strength. For this purpose, Dr Sharma continued to draw from Bourdieu, explaining the production of aesthetics of strength and suffering with the idea of habitus. Habitus explains the processes through which durable social markers are embedded in persons, and provides the means for scholars to discuss intangible aspects of social life through which social capital is accumulated. Dr Sharma referred to an ethnographic study of boxing in Chicago that related to the concept of body capital. Characterized by Cartesian dualisms, habitus often tends to be deterministic and discredits the aspect of agency. Human geography, with its focus on experience, could fill in these gaps.
Dr Sharma then proceeded to talk about the process of image making on Instagram. She drew upon Baudelaire’s ‘television theory’, whereby the distinction between spectator and spectacle dissipates in a ‘technological event’. Spectacle, thus, becomes interwoven into the interstices of everyday life. Similarly, Barthes wrote on the overwhelming power of the photograph, and expressed wariness in the emancipatory potential of the image. Dr Sharma traced the evolution of Instagram as a medium engendering specific form of communication. The advent of smartphones has destroyed the referential aspect of the image, and image becomes as much a testament to performed reality as to ‘what has been.’ Sharing images thus has become indicative of agency and performativity.
After having argued that Instagram functions as a performative medium, Dr Sharma briefly summarized the evolutionary history of Crossfit. Originating among ex-firemen and Marines in the USA in the late 1990s, Cross-fit had its roots in a specific articulation of working-class masculinity that called for high standards of fitness. However, it has thence moved away from this particular social context, and has been commodified to cater to an elite audience. It has also responded to the growing market of women patrons. However, it has been criticized for its excessive physicality and associated health complications. Cross-fit has also become expensive, and embodies an upper-class habitus. And yet, it fetishizes suffering, and, in Matt Crocket’s words, “blurs the line between exercise and menial labour.” This idealization of suffering often takes extreme forms, where practitioners often vomit after working out, and post images with tags about ‘blood’ and ‘sweat.’
However, the aesthetic of suffering doesn’t lend itself to easy displays on Instagram – Cross-fit is essentially long, and cannot easily capture the attention span of the average user. Dr Sharma likened this drawn-out aspect of Cross-fit to running, where the performance proper is difficult to capture and share. Powerlifting, on the other hand, yields to the brevity of Instagram culture, allowing for spectacular displays of strength. Instagram engenders an aesthetic of accomplishment, where communicative possibility allows for viewers to participate in a brief euphoric moment. Yoga, too, lends itself to displays of accomplishment. Powerlifting communities on Instagram have also managed to challenge the stereotypical, eroticized display of women’s bodies that is common on Instagram.
Concluding her lecture, Dr Sharma observed that an increasing number of women were engaging in strength training. She raised some interesting questions on how changing trends gendered perceptions and redefined body-image. While more women tend to participate in strength training, perceptions continue to be influenced by larger social factors. For instance, only 1% of the construction industry of the UK is women, as opposed to India’s 25%. However, Instagram provides a communicative possibility of building community for women, and the aesthetic of accomplishment indicates that suffering is not necessarily associated with fitness.
The lecture was followed by a couple of questions from the audience. When asked why her research focussed on Instagram, Dr Sharma replied that this choice was made owing to the brevity of Instagram, which contrasted with platforms like YouTube, which, while allowing for longer displays, would not attract much casual viewers. Another question was raised, about whether subjects were targeting fitness goals or whether they were merely doing workouts for pleasure. Dr Sharma replied that the consumers of content were diverse, and that while many were laymen, several were technically oriented. The final question raised related to whether ethnological determinism was converting large sections of the population into ‘fitness freaks’, to which Dr Sharma replied that Instagram played a major role in making users more body aware, in a very broad sense. While new idealized body images continue to proliferate, there is also a democratization of information which brings people a host of choices, making them active agents.
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