Corpo, Identidade e Técnica: etnografando o jeito e o gesto em um ginásio de Lisboa

The purpose of this thesis is to present an interdisciplinary perspective on the
body and embodiment through an ethnography of the daily life of a health club in Lisbon. The method builds upon my experience as a personal trainer in the health club under study, as well as an interdisciplinary framework interweaving embodiment theories from anthropology and the enactive approach from cognitive sciences, along with concepts of training physiology and physical education. The object of the study is a historical analysis of the gymnasium and the emergence of gymnastic methods, conceived of as a body technique and as a technology of the self. The scope of inquiry covers the embodiment of identity
processes through the practices that constitute the habitus among the health club users and its staff. The analysis revealed the importance of the interactions between the symbolic and material, and between the social and subjective dimensions of the embodiment the habitus. Lifestyle, gender and symbolic capital function as analytical categories within this framework. The agency vs. structure query is considered from two different attitudes/lifestyles/world views, summarized in the “will power and flow power” binomial (forçar e o fluir), which polarized the analytical categories embodied in different gymnastic techniques.
To illustrate the research path, the embodiment of the habitus is contextualized
as an identity process in its social space and its timeframe. The perception/action cycle, in its analytical microscale of the 'manner and the gesture', is also considered, taking the movement in its communicative dimension and as a technique of the self. The textual structure of the thesis is divided into three parts, as follows:
1)The introduction, presenting the theme of the thesis, the problem, and the
objectives of the study, as well as the methodological approach.
2) The state of the art, presenting the gymnasium as an important
contemporary urban space/activity for understanding identity processes that takes place inside the gym, and the intrinsic logic of the gym in its social and historical context of Westernized urban environments. This section also presents an interdisciplinary approach from embodiment theory in anthropology and the enactive approach in the cognitive sciences, that supported the ethnographic perspective.
3) The ethnography itself, describing the structure and functioning of the health
club, including the social actors, the groups, and their dynamics, through the point of view of the major analytical markers (lifestyle, gender, and symbolic capital). It also presents the analysis of the performances, gestures, and manners, revealing the link between agency and structure in the concepts of will power and flow power.
Finally, the conclusions are presented along with an research perspective based
on Sloterdijk's considerations on anthropotechnics, where I believe this thesis finds its theoretical habitat.