Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Nazanin Kahrizeh ¹
• Masoud Zamani Moghadam ²

¹ Arak University

² Lorestan University

Abstract

In recent years, women’s fitness clubs have become one of the key spaces for social interaction, bodily representation, and the reconstruction of cultural and gender identities in Iran. The present study aims to examine and analyze the ways in which social distinction is represented within the context of a women’s fitness club in the city of Hamadan, and to identify the mechanisms related to the body, dress, interpersonal relations, and symbolic consumption in this setting. Using a qualitative ethnographic approach, data were collected through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 24 women over a period of eighteen months, and were analyzed using thematic analysis. Based on the data analysis, five main themes were identified: “a field of discipline and surveillance,” “cultural duality and peaceful distinction,” “the body as aesthetic capital,” “the formation of an affective field and a care economy,” and “the body market and consumptive distinction.” The findings indicate that women participating in this sporting field represent their identity and socio-cultural boundaries through body management, and enact distinction in a practical and situational manner. In conclusion, the women’s fitness club can be understood as a space in which the body becomes a tool for the construction of meaning, the performance of identity, and the representation of socio-cultural distinction.

Keywords

• Social distinction
• Body management
• Women’s fitness
• Hamadan
• Ethnography