Female Bodybuilding – Practices of Transgression or Reproduction of Femininity?

Description

Lecture of Ulf Wuggenig together with Isabel Fontbona Mola and Cornelia Kastelan.

Female bodybuilding has been discussed as a queer practice of transgression of gender stereotypes as well as a field, in which open and veiled practices of reproduction of the gender binary (especially with regard to a certain type of "femininity") and masculine domination can be observed. The paper, to which apart from two sociologists also a philosopher has contributed, who is active in the field of competitive (female) body building, asks and discusses what might be added to a discourse, to which authors mainly of the fields of sociology, cultural studies, gender studies and feminist theory, sports and medical studies as well as poststructuralist theory have contributed, by a field-theoretical perspective based on Pierre Bourdieu’s work. Instead of considering e.g. the working of "disciplinary power" from a Foucauldian framework it stresses the "incorporation" of fields via habitus, looks at societal processes of change regarding the construction and legitimization of social positions ("transgender", "third gender") and the appropriation of strategies from other social universes. In this context the importation of practices typical for the artistic field into the field of entertainment sports and vice versa are highlighted. In demonstrating that mechanisms of change as well as reproduction have to be considered the paper also draws on visual representations of bodybuilding – backstage preparation work as well as front-stage performance practices and photo elicitation, the latter also used by Bourdieu in Distinction (1984).

Period	10.07.2018
Event title	2nd Biennial International Conference - BSA 2018: Reproduction and Resistance
Event type	Conference
Conference number	2
Organiser	University of Lancaster
Location	Lancaster, United KingdomShow on map