Women’s Fitness Practices in Postfeminist Culture: Discourse Analysis of Affect and of Bodies Dis-Appearing in Workout

Abstract

Abstract This article presents an intersectional qualitative analysis of how young South African women of different racial identities relate to their bodies while talking about their fitness practices. The analysis addresses the debate on women’s aesthetic (self-)objectification, which is commonly considered as manifest in their workout routines. In a study of interview data, the routines are approached via critical discursive psychology and discursive psychology of affect. The study investigates the role of affect in positioning oneself as the subject of fitness practices. Examining the relationship between the lived and ideological aspects of participants’ workouts, the article finds that the surveillance of women’s bodies is negotiated as more than a “choice” to be the self-disciplined agent of one’s bodywork. The analysis explores these negotiations in terms of the distinction between living one’s body as an evaluated surface or as a sensing flesh. Discussing the findings, the article explains how discourse analysis refines an understanding of the role of fitness in embodying femininity.